What delightful dreams I had that night!
We were to meet again the next morning punctually at "ten sharp" at "the
office."
_I_ was there to the minute, but Brown of Philadelphia wasn't; and,
although I waited for him many subsequent minutes after the appointed
time, he never came--nor have I clapped eyes on him from that day to
this.
Faithless Brown! He robbed me of my belief in human nature, in addition
to my hoarded "greenbacks."
The office, I found, had been taken by the keen philanthropist for a
week, a few dollars of the rent being advanced by him as security on
account. On asking at the bank, which had in the first instance
satisfied me of his integrity, the cashier told me that Brown of
Philadelphia had drawn out all of his available balance the very
afternoon on which I had made my inquiries respecting him; and where he
was gone, no one knew!
"Skedaddled," evidently. As for shoddy celebrity, "up town," to whom
Brown of Philadelphia had also referred me, said that my friend had
swindled _him_ a short period before. Good joke, his being given as a
reference!
I put the affair in the hands of the police; but they gave me about as
much comfort as our guardians in blue would have done.
They said he had gone south. I went to Baltimore after him; but I could
not meet him, although I was full of determination and had taken a
revolver with me in case Brown might have his "shooting irons" handy!--
The blunderbuss that had belonged to the deceased Earl Planetree, and
which Lady Dasher had given me as a useful parting present, I had left
behind in England, thinking that such a valuable object of antiquity
should not be recklessly risked.
The police then telegraphed for me to come north--while I was enjoying
the canvas-backed ducks of "Maryland, my Maryland," and nursing my
vengeance. I came "up north;" but it was of no use. I never saw Brown
of Philadelphia again, or recovered my lost capital.
It had gone where the good, or bad, niggers go; and I only hope "Brown"
has gone there too!
This misfortune filled up the measure of my troubles, though they were
numerous enough already.
To get employment of a regular character, which became more necessary to
me now than ever--was as impossible as it had been all along!
Nobody seemed to want anybody like me, in spite of my being not
unskilled in foreign languages, and up to clerk's work--having not yet
forgotten the book-keeping which my crammer had crammed into me for the
benefit of the "Polite Letter Writer Commissioners."
I was not actually in necessity, as I had still sufficient funds left to
defray my bare living expenses for some months, with strict economy; but
I had not come to America merely to exist! I had left home to make my
fortune, I tell you; and, how could I be satisfied at this state of
things? I was losing time, day by day; and not approaching one whit
nearer to the object of my life!
In addition to these reflections, I had found out the truth of the time-
honoured maxim, "coelum non animam mutant qui trans mare currunt."--I
might go from the old world to the new; but I could not leave my old
memories, my old thoughts behind me!
At first, the novelty of things about me distracted my attention.
I was in a strange country amongst fresh faces, all connected only with
the present, so that, I had little time to look back on the past.
Besides, I was hopeful of carving out a new career for myself; and hope
is a sworn antagonist to retrospection.
But, as I began to get used to the place and people, never-forgotten
scenes and associations came back to mind, which I felt were more
difficult to banish now, three thousand miles away, than when I was on
the spot with which they had been connected.
Oh! how, bustled about amidst a crowd of unsympathising strangers, to
whom our domestic life is only an ideality, I longed for the quiet and
charm and love of an English home!
I think that your wanderers and prodigals and black sheep, little though
you may believe it, appreciate family union and social ties much more
than your steady-going respectables who never stray without the routine
circle of upright existence; never err; are never banned as outcasts!
The former look upon "home"--what a world does the very name convey to
one who has never known what it is!--much as Moore's "Peri" regarded
Paradise, and as the lost angels may wistfully think of the heaven from
which they were expelled. Perhaps they overrate its attributes,
imagining, as they do, that it is a blissful state of being, for ever
debarred to them; but they _do_ have such feelings--the dregs, probably,
of their bitter nature!