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 Copyright page

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infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by fines and federal imprisonment.

Please purchase only authorized electronic editions and do not participate in, or encourage, the
electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the
author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living
or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright 2017 Dominique Eastwick
Editor Wizards in Publishing
Cover design by Ravenborn
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 Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
 Prowling for His Mate
Guarding the pride’s queen is an honor Jaison is happy to take on. He spends hours preparing for every contingency. He is ready
to lay down his life if the necessity arises. What he isn’t expecting and couldn’t have planned for was when his mate crosses his path in
the form of human librarian Paighton Knight.

Paighton Knight believes love is the stuff of fairy tales and has no time for those kinds of stories. Raised to be the perfect
librarian, she is unprepared for feelings she doesn’t believe are real to wash over her. The second she comes into contact with Jaison
Karatasos her world begins to turn and her eyes see what they weren’t able to before.

With the moon rising into the reign of Leo, Jaison has one month to show Paighton that love does exist, or he must wait until the
next Leo cycle. When his responsibilities to his pride clash with his needs for his mate, will he be able to merge the two worlds?
Prowling for his Mate
Zodiac Shifters

By
Dominique Eastwick
 Dedication
Dedicated to all the readers who are simply looking for a couple of
hours to get away from the real world.
Special thanks to Kate, Nan, Rebecca, and Nadine
 Chapter One
The street appeared to be like any other road in the world, nothing particularly unusual. In fact,
as usual as one might get in this part of the world. Yet something sent an uneasy itch down the side of
Jaison Karatosis’ neck, through his shoulder, down his arms, and culminated in the tingling in his
fingers. He paused, pulling his queen, Kalista, behind him, searching up and down the fairly empty
street for any signs something was amiss. At this time of morning, midweek, there weren’t a great
number of people strolling down the small Southern town’s main street. A mother pushing a baby
pram while juggling to keep her toddler at her side. A man sitting outside the barbershop. Every now
and again, a car would drive by faster than the posted speed limit.
“Jaison, what?” Kalista asked, stumbling and hanging on to him for support.
“Something isn’t quite right.”
She pushed him to the side. “You say that every time.”
He supposed he did, but this time was different. “Kalista, I’m serious.”
She pointed to the name of the store painted on the window. “It’s a bookstore. What nefarious
intent would someone have for me in a bookstore?”
“You are supposed to listen to me when your safety is involved.” He grabbed her wrist both
gently and firmly.
“You are like the boy who cried wolf. Or perhaps that’s lion.” She paused. “Do you smell
another lion?”
“No?”
“Another shifter?”
“No.”
“But you could if one was near or in the area, right?”
He gave her the look he always did when she questioned his abilities. “You know I can.”
“Then I’m in no danger.” She wrapped her hand in his. Not in the way a lover does, but the way
a sister would when leading her brother into a situation they both knew they shouldn’t be in. He
begrudgingly followed. Not that he had a choice, being guardian to the prime’s mate was both an
honor and nerve-racking. “Leonidas knows I’m coming here.”
“He also called and said he didn’t want you to,” Jaison added, trying to make her see reason.
“He doesn’t get it.” She rolled her eyes, not deterred from her direction.
“Neither do I. There is nothing in this bookstore you can’t order online.”
“It’s not the same. I love the smell of books, the feel of a store. To be normal for a few seconds.
The pride cannot keep me locked up on the island all the time.”
“When you mated with Leonidas, your life ceased being normal,” he pointed out, though he knew
he didn’t need to. She had sacrificed a great deal for his prime and all the Leo Shifters, and not
everyone had been sold on the great lion prime mating with a human. He, on the other hand, had been
in awe of her strength and bravery from the start. In the end, her grace and generous heart had him
standing here, yet again kowtowing to her requests.
She snorted. “It happened long before that, like the moment I set foot on your island.”
“It’s our island, Kali, more yours than mine. You are the queen.”
She pushed at his shoulder. “Knock it off. Let me support the brick and mortar store while I can.
Besides, there is another reason we are here.”
“Which is?” He dreaded the answer.
“I can’t find a librarian online.”
 “Librarian for what?”
“What? When was the last time you went into the library in the main house, let alone the other
two on the island?”
He didn’t dare tell her it was before she had been born. His kind lived long, long lives and
didn’t come out of adolescence until they were in their forties. “I don’t know. It’s been a while.”
“No kidding. When any of the betas go in to take what they are looking for, they leave it a mess. I
can’t make heads or tails of it.”
“That might be because it’s in other languages. Some I don’t even know, and I’ve been around a
while. Some, I’m not sure anyone can read anymore.”
“That is why it needs to be dealt with.”
He pulled her out of sight around the corner of the building. “Kali, there are family secrets in
those documents and books. I mean, things like how we were created and the story of our people.”
“And what would a normal human think it was?”
“Folklore, I suppose.”
“Exactly. Leonidas is on board.”
“No, your mate doesn’t want you to complain.”
“That, too. But as long as I can get the librarian on and off the island before Leo’s rule, he says
he welcomes the organizing of the libraries.”
“That gives you about a month. We enter Cancer tomorrow.”
“That’s why we’re here. I can’t bring someone to the island I haven’t met. I won’t put anyone in
danger. I need to meet them face-to-face, and I need you here to sense their intent.”
“I see.” He hated to admit she might be right.
Slipping back onto the main street, she peeked through the large plate-glass window. “Mrs.
Porter is behind the sales desk.”
Good god. He felt like a child sneaking in after being told he couldn’t go out. He too, peeked
inside. An older lady, the picture-perfect image of a librarian, sat helping a customer. Gray hair
pulled into a tight bun, small, round spectacles on the bridge of her nose and a yellow cardigan,
despite the summer weather, completed the look. “She’s been cast correctly.”
“I know. She is pretty perfect,” she giggled. “And when I talk to her, she is so sweet and soft-
spoken. Makes me want to adopt her as my grandmother.”
He was just about to say something when the bookshop’s door opened, and a scent hit and nearly
knocked him on his ass. Growling, he became aware of his lion screaming—mine.

Paighton Knight held her breath. She, the woman who had never had her heart flutter at the sight
of a man or woman for that matter, was about ready to swoon. She eased to the window to get a better
look at the tall, well-built man with hair as dark as night. He and his companion, a Rubenesque
blonde beauty, were in the middle of what appeared to be a heated argument when she finally took his
hand. Uncontrollable jealousy engulfed her, as if the other woman was daring to touch her man.
She turned away as the dreamboat took the woman out of sight. Paighton closed her eyes and
rested her forehead on the large bookshelf. In through her nose and out through her mouth she
breathed, trying to relax. Images of the two wrapped in each other’s arms in an intimate embrace
nearly brought her to her knees in soul-deep pain. The bell above the door chimed as a mother and her
young son left. She turned, determined to go into the backroom and work out her frustration on the pile
of cardboard boxes waiting to be broken down.
But when an elderly man asked for help in the map section, she had to change tack. She was two
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Delaware; or,
The Ruined Family. Vol. 1
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States
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Title: Delaware; or, The Ruined Family. Vol. 1

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DELAWARE; OR,

THE RUINED FAMILY. VOL. 1 ***
Transcriber's Notes:
1. Page scans provided by the Internet Archive,
https://archive.org/details/delawareorruined01jame
(University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign)

EDINBURGH

PRINTED BY M. AITKEN, 1, ST JAMES's SQUARE.

DELAWARE;

OR
 THE RUINED FAMILY.

A TALE.

IN THREE VOLUMES.

VOL. I.

EDINBURGH:

PRINTED FOR ROBERT CADELL, EDINBURGH;

AND WHITTAKER & CO., LONDON.
MDCCCXXXIII.

PREFACE.
 Not many years ago, as the writer of this work was returning on
horseback to Castellamare, from a visit to the Lactarian Hills, he
overtook, just under the chestnut trees on the slope, which every
one who has visited that part of Italy must remember, two
gentlemen with their guide, who were on their way home after some
expedition of a kind similar to his own.

As the indefinable something told him at once that they were

Englishmen, he turned, as usual under such circumstances, to
examine them more critically in passing, and in one of them
recollected a person whom he had met more than once in London.
He hesitated whether he should claim the acquaintance; as, when
he had before seen him, the traveller had appeared to great
disadvantage. A man of rank and fortune, flattered, caressed, single,
and set at, he had borne a sort of sneering indifference on his
countenance, which certainly did not recommend him to a person
who neither sought his friendship nor feared his contempt. A few
traits, indeed, had casually appeared, which seemed to betray a
better spirit beneath this kind of supercilious exterior; but still the
impression was unfavourable.

All hesitation, however, was put an end to by a bow and friendly

recognition on the part of the other; and either because the
annoyances of the society in which he had formerly been met, were
now removed, or because a general improvement had worked itself
in his demeanour and character, his tone was so different, and his
aspect so prepossessing, that all feelings of dislike were soon done
away. He instantly made his "dear, new-found friend" acquainted
with his companion; and informing him that he had left his wife and
sister at the Albergo Reale, invited him to join their party for the
evening.

This was accordingly done, and now--having ridden the third

person long enough, as it is the roughest going horse in the stable--I
will, with the reader's permission, do the next ten miles on the first
person singular.

The acquaintance which was there renewed soon went on to

intimacy; and as I found that the party which I had met with,
consisted of an odd number, the unfortunate fifth being an old
gentleman, who required some one more of his own age than his
four relations to converse with, I ventured to propose myself as their
companion in a visit to some places in the neighbourhood, and as
their cicerone to Pæstum. The proposal was accepted; and, strange
enough to say, our companionship, which had commenced so
suddenly, did not end till those I may now boldly call my friends
returned to England, nearly a year after, leaving me to stupify at
Lauzanne.

Amongst the many pleasures which I derived from their society in

Italy, none was greater than that which some account of their
preceding adventures gave me. This was first obtained in a casual
manner, by hearing continual reference made amongst themselves
to particular circumstances. "Do you remember, Henry, such and
such an event? Does not that put you in mind of this, that, or the
other?" was continually ringing in my ears; and thus I gathered part
ere the whole was continuously related to me. At length, I obtained
a complete narrative; and though it was told with many a gay and
happy jest, and many a reference to details which would not amuse
the world in general, I could not help thinking that the public might
find it nearly as interesting as it proved to me.

In the same sort of gossiping anecdotical style in which I received

it, I have here, with full permission, put down the whole story. In
what tongue under the sun I have written it, I do not very well
know, though the language I intended to employ is a sort of jargon,
based upon Anglo-Saxon, with a superstructure of the Norman
corruption of French, propped up by bad Latin, and having the
vacancies supplied by Greek. Taking it for granted, that into this
refuge for destitute tongues, any houseless stranger would be
welcome, whenever I was not able to find readily a word or
expression to my purpose, I have either made one for myself, or
stolen one from the first language at hand; and as this has been
done in all ages, I make no apology for it here.

I have reason, however, to believe that I have more sins to

answer for amongst the technical terms, and other more important
matters. My worthy lawyer, Mr. W----, tells me that my law is not
sound; that, instead of indicted I should have said arraigned; instead
of action I should have used the word process--or the reverse, I
forget which. My gallant friend, Captain D----, has taken much pains
to explain to me the difference between a yawl and a Peter boat,
and has utterly confounded me with a definition of clinker built; and
my noble friend. Lord A----, declares that I have certainly painted
both his foibles and his adventures in somewhat strong colours; but
if, by so doing, I make a better book of it--why, let it pass.

For all this I apologize to the public in general, acknowledging

that I am neither lawyer nor physician, soldier nor sailor, scholar nor
philosopher, nor what the cant of a former day denominated a man
of wit about town. Whoever reads the book, will see all this at a
glance; but I trust they will also see that I have not drawn from
things of marble, but from flesh and blood.

To one portion of his Britannic Majesty's subjects I have

particularly to apologize. Since this book went to the press, I have
discovered, from Cary's Road-Book, that there is a real village, or
hamlet, or town, called Emberton; and I hereby most solemnly
declare, that, in fixing upon that name as the scene of my chief
adventures, I believed I was employing an entirely fictitious title, and
did so for the sole purpose of concealing the real place at which
some of the events occurred. Let it be remembered, therefore, by all
persons who have seen, heard, or known any thing of the village,
town, or hamlet of Emberton, that, in writing this book, I did not
know that such a place did truly exist, and that nothing herein
contained, is in any way to be understood or construed to apply to
the real place called Emberton or its inhabitants, referring solely to a
different spot in a different county, which shall, by the reader's good
leave, be nameless.

Innerleithen,
25th May, 1833.

DELAWARE;
OR,

THE RUINED FAMILY.

CHAPTER I.

Most cities are hateful; and, without any disposition to "babble

about green fields," it must be owned that each is more or less
detestable. Nevertheless, amongst them all, there is none to be
compared as a whole to London;--none which comprehends within
itself, from various causes, so much of the sublime in every sort.
Whether we consider its giant immensity of expanse--the wonderful
intricacy of its internal structure--the miraculous harmony of its
discrepant parts--the grand amalgamation of its different orders,
classes, states, pursuits, professions--the mighty aggregate of
hopes, wishes, endeavours, joys, successes, fears, pangs,
disappointments, crimes, and punishments, that it contains--its
relative influence on the world at large--or the vehement pulse with
which that "mighty heart" sends the flood of circulation through this
beautiful land--we shall find that that most wonderful microcosm
well deserves the epithet sublime.

To view it rightly--if we wish to view it with the eye of a

philosopher--we should choose perhaps the hour which is chosen by
the most magnificent and extraordinary of modern poets, and gaze
upon it when the sun is just beginning to pour his first red beams
through the dim and loaded air, when that vast desert of brick and
mortar, that interminable wilderness of spires and chimneys, looks
more wide, and endless, and solemn, than when the eye is
distracted by the myriads of mites that creep about it in the risen
day.

It may be asked, perhaps, who is there that ever saw it at that

hour, except the red-armed housemaid, washing the morning step,
and letting in the industrious thief, to steal the greatcoats from the
hall; or the dull muffin-man, who goes tinkling his early bell through
the misty streets of the wintry morning? Granted, that neither of
these--nor the sellers of early purl--nor the venders of saloop and
cocoa--nor Covent Garden market-women--nor the late returners
from the finish--nor he who starts up from the doorway, where he
has passed the wretched night, to recommence the day's career of
crime, and danger, and sorrow--can look upon the vast hive in which
they dwell with over-refined feelings; and perhaps, to them, may
come home unhappy Shelley's forcible line,

"Hell is a city very much like London!"

 The valetudinarian, too, who wakes with nervous punctuality to
swallow down the morning draught, prescribed by courtly Henry's
bitter-covering skill, may curse the cats that, perched upon the tiles,
salute their lady-loves with most discordant cries, and keep him from
repose; and, with all the virulence of Despréaux, may exclaim upon
the many hateful sounds of a town morning. But besides all these,
there are sometimes persons, who, rising five hours before their
usual time, come forth in all the freshness of the early day,
stimulated by the vast effort that roused them from their beds,
proud of a successful endeavour to get up, and excited by the
novelty of the circumstance and the scene, and who rush on,
admiring all the beauties as they go to take their places in the gay
stage-coach.

Fully double the extent of ancient Athens in its days of greatest

splendour--at least if the calculation of Aristides be correct--London
lies in circuit more than one day's journey, and many a day's journey
may be taken in the interior without ever threading the same
streets. It would not matter much, therefore, in what corner of the
town was placed the coach-office, whence, at an early hour of every
lawful day, set forth a smart-looking vehicle, drawn by four fiery
bays, for a distant town in ----shire; but nevertheless, as it may be a
satisfaction to the reader's mind, it is but fair to state, that the
aforesaid four-inside light coach took its departure daily from that
wild scene of bustle and confusion, which, within the last century or
two, has usurped the site of what a modern writer of ancient
romance, terms "the sweet little village of Charing," and which is
now popularly called the Golden Cross, Charing Cross.

As the things that were, are now no more, and even three short
years have made sad havoc amidst the brick antiquities of dear Pall
Mall, it may not be amiss more particularly to commemorate the
appearance--at the time our tale commences--of that agglomeration
of street corners, Charing Cross, from which--on account I suppose
of its beautiful vagueness--all rogues and insolvent debtors were
wont to date their letters. But this commemoration had best be
given in describing the effect of the whole upon a young and
unsophisticated mind.

From a place that they call a hotel, in Piccadilly--Think of a man

taking up his abode at a hotel in Piccadilly!--but he knew no better--
From a hotel, in Piccadilly, at about half-past five o'clock on the
morning of the last day of August, one thousand eight hundred and
something, set out a hackney coach, containing within its sphere of
rotten wood and rusty leather a small portmanteau on the front
seat, and the portmanteau's master on the other. He was a well-
made youth, of about five-and-twenty years of age, with firm,
graceful, and yet powerful limbs, and a fresh clear complexion--not
villainous red and white, but one general tone of florid health. His
eye was blue and bright, and the clustering curls of fair hair--as pure
Saxon as Sharon Turner's last new book--might have looked
somewhat girlish, had it not been for the manly features and the
free dauntless look that they overshadowed. At the same time, be it
remarked, that there was something of melancholy, if not of gloom,
in his aspect; but that did not prevent him--after the chambermaid
had been satisfied, and the waiter had been paid, and boots had had
his fees, and the porter had claimed more than his due; and, in
short, all the exactions of an inn had been played off upon him in
succession--that did not prevent him, when fairly rolling away
towards the top of the Haymarket, from gazing out upon the scene
around him with a sufficient degree of open-eyed curiosity to make
the waterman stick his tongue into his cheek, and mentally
denominate him "a raw."

It may be necessary to inform the unlearned reader, that the sun

rises, in the end of August, a few minutes after five in the morning,
and at the time I speak of the great luminary was pouring a flood of
radiance through the loaded air of the vast city, filling the long
empty perspective of the streets with the golden mistiness of the
morning light. Closed within the dull boards which defend the
precious wares of many a careful tradesman from the cosmopolite
fingers of the liberal Many, the shops exhibited nothing but the
names and occupations of their various owners; but the wide
streets, with all their irregular buildings, in the broad light and
shade, were not without beauty of their own peculiar kind, distinct
from all the mighty associations connected with their existence.

The coach rolled at the statute pace along Piccadilly, unobstructed

by any thing, and, indeed, unencountered by any thing but two slow
market carts, wending heavily towards Covent Garden, and another
fac-simile of itself just overcoming--in order to take up some other
early passenger--the vis inertiæ which had held it on the straw-
littered stand for the last hour. In the Haymarket, however, the
progression was more difficult; for there, already had congregated
many a loaded cart, the drivers of which, as usual, had, with skilful
zeal, contrived to place them as a regular fortification, obstructing
every step of the way. Gin and purl, too, were reeking up to the sky
from the various temples of the rosy god that line the west side of
the street; and amidst the bargainings of some early dealers, and
the pœans of the gin-drinkers, no one attended to the objurgations
of the embarrassed coachman. Nevertheless, all these difficulties
were at length removed by one means or another; and Cockspur
Street opened wide before the traveller, exposing at the end, black
with the smoke of fires innumerable, the famous Statue and the
girthless horse. On one side, wide and open, lay Whitehall, with all
those offices whence many a time has issued the destiny of the
world; on the other hand, dark and dingy, wound away the Strand,
with the house of the Percys maintaining still the last aspect of a
feudal dwelling to be found in London. The King's Mews, on which a
violating hand had hardly yet been laid, occupied all the space to the
left; and the flaming ensign of the Golden Cross, stuck up in front of
a tall narrow-fronted house, told that the place of many coaches was
before the traveller's eyes.

He found, on alighting, that he had arrived at least ten minutes

before the time; and after having been cheated, as usual, by the
hackney coachman, and gazed about the dull desolate yard, shut in
by the high houses round, in the far shadows of which stood two or
three red, blue, and yellow vehicles, all unpacked and unhorsed, he
once more sauntered out through the low-browed arch which gave
admission to the court, and amused himself with the wider scene
exhibited by the street.

At that hour, one-half of Murillo's pictures find living

representatives in the streets of London; and when the young
traveller had moralized for a minute or two on some groups of
beggar-boys playing round the Statue--had marked the sage and
solemn pace with which an elderly waterman brought forth his
breakfast to a coachman on the stand--and had listened to the
Solon-like sayings of each upon the weather and the state of the
nation--he was looking back to see whether the coming of the coach
was hopeless, when the rushing noise of rapid wheels caught his ear,
and he turned his eyes in the direction of the sound.

If people would but remark, they would find that they have
presentiments of little events a thousand times more often than they
have presentiments of great ones; and the feeling of the gallant
Nelson was not more strong, that the sun of Trafalgar was the last
that was destined to shine upon his glory, than was at that moment
the conviction of the young traveller that those rolling wheels were
about to bring him a companion for the stage-coach. Nor, let me tell
you, gentle reader, is it a matter of small importance who is to be
brought in such close contact with one for the next ten hours. What
is life but a chain of those brief portions of eternity which man calls
hours, so inseparably linked together that the first and the last, and
every link throughout the series, have a mutual dependence and
connexion with each other! Oh, let no one despise an hour! It is fully
enough to change dynasties and overthrow empires--to make or mar
a fortune--to win high renown or stain a noble name--to end our
being or to fix our destiny here and hereafter, in time and through
eternity. So awful a thing is one hour--ay, one moment of active
being!
 The companion of the three hundred and sixty-fifth part of one
out of seventy years, is a person to whom we may well attach some
importance; and the young traveller looked with no small eagerness
to see who was about to fill that station in relation to himself. The
first thing that his eyes fell upon, as he turned round, was a dark
brown cabriolet, whirled along with the speed of lightning by a tall
bay horse, full of blood and action, and covered with harness, which,
though somewhat elaborate and evidently costly, was guarded by
scrupulous good taste from being gaudy. Behind the vehicle
appeared a smart active boy in groom's apparel, but with no
distinctive livery to designate him as the tiger of Colonel this, or the
Earl of that, though a cockade in his hat told that his master
pretended to either military or naval rank. Where the young traveller
stood, the appearance of the driver was not to be discerned; but,
from the style of the whole turn-out, he began to doubt that his
anticipations in regard to their approaching companionship were
fallacious, when, dashing up to the pavement, the horse was
suddenly drawn up, the groom sprang to the head, and the person
within at length made his appearance.

He was a young man of about seven-and-twenty, tall, and rather

gracefully than strongly made; but still with a breadth of chest, and
a sort of firm setting on his feet, which spoke a greater degree of
personal strength than appeared at a casual glance. His clothes were
all of that peculiar cut which combines the most decided adherence
to the prevailing fashion, with a very slight touch of its extravagance.
Every thing, however, in the whole of his apparel, was in good
keeping, as the painters call it; and though the colours that
appeared therein, were such as no one but a man of rank and
station in society would have dared to wear, the general hue of the
whole was dark.

"He's a dandy!" thought the young traveller, with a somewhat

contemptuous curl of the lip as the other descended from the
cabriolet; but the moment after, hearing him bid the boy tell
Swainson not to forget to give Brutus a ball on Wednesday night--
and to walk Miss Liddy for an hour twice every day in the park, he
concluded that he was a gentleman horse-jockey--a thing, in his
unsophisticated ideas, equally detestable with a dandy. Scarcely had
he come to this conclusion--and his conclusions, be it remarked,
were formed very quickly--when the stranger strode rapidly past
him. The cabriolet drove away, and its owner--with a quantity of
glossy black hair escaping from under his hat, and mingling with
whiskers more glossy still--entered the inn-yard, and proceeded to
the coach-office.

The other traveller followed, in hopes of seeing some signs of

approaching departure; and, as he did so, he heard the reply of the
book-keeper to something which the owner of the cabriolet had
asked. "No room outside, sir;--very sorry, indeed--got our full
number,"--he had got three more, by the way,--"plenty of room
inside.--That 'ere gentleman's going inside, 'cause he can't get room
out."

"Well, inside be it then," replied the other.

The book-keeper began to write. "What name, sir?"

"Burrel!" replied the stranger.

"Any luggage?"

"None," answered Burrel.

"One pound ten shillings and sixpence, sir, if you please!" said the
book-keeper; and, as Burrel paid the money, the coachman's cry of,
"Now, gentlemen, if you please!" sounded through the yard.

In another minute the horses were dashing through that antique

and abominable arch, which, in days of yore, gave egress and
regress to the Golden Cross, while Burrel and the other traveller,
seated side by side, held their breath as the rough vehicle clattered
over the London stones. It has often been remarked, that it is
wonderful how much shaking together two Englishmen require
before they speak to each other; and, in setting out from a town like
London, there is scarcely any individual who has not too much to
think of--either in parting from well-loved friends--in quitting scenes
of pleasure or of pain--in self-congratulation on escaping from smoke
and noise--in anticipation of quiet and repose of joyful meetings and
smiles of welcome--not to court a few minutes' calm reflection as
they leave behind them that great misty den of feelings and events.
Our two travellers then leaned back in their respective corners
without the interchange of a word--the one, Burrel, apparently
buried in deep thought; and the other too proud, if not too shy, to
begin any conversation himself, even had he not had memories
enough in his bosom to furnish him also, with food for meditation.
Such, however, he had; and--seeing that his companion appeared
wrapped up in that sort of gentlemanly reserve which so often
covers over a man's eyes, ears, and understanding, as he goes
through life, and leaves him, like the Grand Lama, with nothing to
speculate upon but his own perfections--the younger traveller gave
way also to his thoughts, and, ere they had reached Brentford, had
forgotten that there was any being in the coach but himself.

His reflections did not seem very pleasant; for at Hounslow, what
appeared to be the first act thereof, ended in a sigh so long and
deep, that it attracted the notice of his fellow-traveller, who turned
his head, and, for the first time, examined him somewhat attentively,
as he sat looking out of the windows, with the objects as they
passed skimming hardly noted before his eyes. The second act of
the young man's thoughts did not seem quite so abstracted as the
first; for when the coach stopped for a few minutes at Staines, he
put his head forth from the window, and demanded the name of the
place, addressing Mynheer Boots, who gazed in his face and
answered nothing.

"This is Staines," replied his hitherto silent companion, in a mild

gentlemanly tone, in which there was not the slightest touch of
coxcombry or affectation; "perhaps you have never travelled this
road before?"

"I have, indeed," replied the other; "but the first time was many
years ago; and when last I passed, I had various things to think of,
which prevented my noting particularly the places through which I
travelled."

"Oh, any thing on earth to think of," replied Burrel, "of course
renders travelling out of the question. It is no longer travelling, it is
locomotion.--It becomes the act of a stage-coach, a steam-engine,
or any other machine, as soon as a person has one thought
occupied by either business or memory, or any one of the
troublesome things of the world. Before one sets out on a journey,
one should shake out one's mind, as the ancient pilgrims did their
wallets, and leave no trace of friends, or relations, or feelings, or
prejudices, or remembrances of any kind in short, to hang about it;
but make all void and clear for the new stock of ideas that are to be
placed in it."

"Yours is a strange doctrine," replied his companion, "though I

believe it might be as well to practise it."

"Why, if a man carries about in his mind," continued Burrel, "his

uncles and aunts, and sisters and brothers, and all the luggage of
associations that they bring along with them, he might as well jog
on in the old family coach at the rate of forty mortal miles per day,
from the town house in Berkeley Square to the country house in
Staffordshire. But let a man resolve to forget every thing on earth
but the scenes through which he is passing, and he will find as much
to interest, and amuse, and excite him--ay, and as much to the
purpose of real information too--between London and Dorchester, as
between Paris and the Dardanelles."

His companion smiled, perhaps as much from surprise at the very

unexpected tone of his fellow-traveller's tirade, as from any
acquiescence in the tirade itself. "Nay, nay," he said; "surely you
won't deny that--putting all other advantages out of the question
between the two journeys you mention--there is still much more
picturesque beauty to be found between Paris and the Dardanelles
than between London and Dorchester?"

"I do not know that," replied Burrel. "There may be newer

scenery, and perhaps more sublime scenery; but whether the more
sublime be calculated to produce a finer or a sweeter effect upon
man's heart and mind than softer and gentler pictures, I much
doubt. There is something in an English landscape to be found
nowhere else--an air of rich, sweet, happy repose--of safe
tranquillity and successful industry, that is in itself almost sublime.
Let your eye now run over that view as the coach climbs the hill.
Where did you ever behold a scene on which sight can so pleasantly
repose?--The rich scattered wood in front, full of Old England's grand
primeval oaks.--Then look how, bending over a thousand slopes, in
the true lines of beauty, the hedgerows wind along, dividing wealthy
field from field--now giving skips and glances of fair towns and
uplands, and now massing together, till the eye believes them to be
deep groves--then that catch of the river, glistening under the hill,
while the sunshine streams through the valley, and that broad
shadow of some cloud we do not see, passes slowly on, at every
change that it effects in the light and shade of the landscape,
bringing out some new beauty, as if it itself delighted in the
loveliness it produces. Then again, cast your eyes up yonder to the
village church hanging halfway down the hill, with its neat
parsonage embowered in tall elms; and looking, as it is, the abode
of peace and virtue. As good a man dwells there as the whole world
can produce, and a true representative of the great majority of the
much-belied English clergy. But say, did you ever see a fairer scene?"

"Seldom, indeed," replied his companion, whose attention, called

to the principal points of a purely English picture, found more
beauties in it than custom suffered him to see before. "But still," he
added, "I am fond of mountain scenery."
 "And so am I," replied Burrel. "I am fond of every kind of scenery,
from the bold blue mountain with its purple heath, as bare, as
naked, and as wild as the banks of Loch Awe itself can show, to the
rich and undulating plains of Champagne, where soft line beyond
line of faint and fainter shadows, vanishing away in Claude-like
sunshine, are all that marks the wide extent over which the eye can
roam. There is such a thing as the economy of admiration; and by
husbanding that faculty properly, you will not find a scene in all the
world on which you cannot afford to bestow some small portion
thereof."

The other traveller replied, not a little pleased to find that all the
fine sketches which he had been making of his companion's
character, during the earlier part of their journey, were as empty as
a protocol; and, with the very natural jump which man's heart takes
when it finds itself agreeably disappointed in the estimation it had
formed of another, perhaps the stranger now felt as much inclined to
over-admire his companion, as he had before been disposed to
undervalue him. A growing remembrance of his features, too, for
some time made him fancy that he had met with an old friend,
whose face, like a worn piece of money, though half obliterated by
time, was still sufficiently plain to tease memory--one of those
provoking recollections, as tenacious as remorse, and intactible as a
soufflet. After some farther conversation, and one or two thoughtful
pauses--in which memory was so busy in digging amongst the ruins
of the past to see if she could find the name of Burrel, that she
would not even let the young traveller's loquacious powers go on,
for fear of disturbing her search--he suddenly exclaimed, with that
degree of frank simplicity which at once spoke him but little a child
of the great world, "Oh! now I remember where it was; I saw you
before!"

"Where?" demanded Burrel with a slight smile, which he instantly

repressed lest he should give pain.
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