Walsingham, the gamester

II Author Of

“ LIFE OF A SAILOR,” “ BEN BRACE,” &c.

“ I have set my life upon a cast,

And I will stand the hazard of the die.”

Shakspeark.

IN TWO VOLUMES.

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THE GAMESTER.

Chapter I

When the chilling winter of age checks the current of the blood, — when sickness and disease, distress and misery, cast a gloom over the valley of the shadow of death, — then it is that the mind looks back with horror on the black picture of its own degradation, and all the future is dark and dismal, without hope and without consolation. To those in the holy offices of religion how sedulously do the unhappy unburthen their minds, and how eagerly they solicit absolution ! Even in their confessions they feel the load lightened, and experience, when they have made another a confidant in their weakness, that they have relieved themselves without adding to their neighbour’s misfortunes. Thus the man deprived of parents, wife, and children,— the blighted branch on the blighted stem, sinking rapidly in the grave which yawns to receive him, — feels the consolation others have experienced as he proceeds to cleanse his foul bosom from the perilous stuff that runs within it.

It is true that mankind in general deceive themselves in the motives by which they are actuated ; and perhaps even when they affirm that they are induced to publish their crimes, their exposures of a career of weakness and of vice, as much from a desire to serve as a beacon to others, (that, like the drunken Helot, they may repel, rather than attract,) as to unload the terrible weight tliat drags down their almost exhausted nature, — perhaps they may be impelled by a less noble motive, they may be induced to anatomise themselves from the want of some greater stimulant ; for those who, until poverty forced them from the path, were familiar with the greatest of all excitements, may feel a momentary relief when the pen embodies their thoughts, when they marshal their reflections on this ambiguous and distressing world, and when they retrace those stirring scenes, in which, notwithstanding their fallen and degraded state, they still in imagination seem to live, to move, and have their being. Happy°indeed should he feel who finds that his example has been a warning to others, and that the records of crime have turned one man from that course which must inevitably end in poverty — must ruin the health and degrade the mind !

How far legislators are to blame, who by the plunder of the subject enrich the coffers of the state, is a point on which it is useless to insist; but surely that government has little to pride itself upon, which can allow a monopoly of vice, and by the exorbitant price paid for permission to erect and open these sinks of iniquity, themselves almost legalise fraud — nay, urge the necessity of its practice in order that the proprietors may be enabled to clear a sufficiency to pay that government.

Honesty wavers when poverty assaults : the man of an avaricious cast of mind can never view with indifference the piles of gold which glisten on the Spanish gambling-table, or look unmoved at the numerous billets tie banqu^ that are seen through the sliding boxes of the salon or Frascati’s. In this country it is worse than either, because it is illegal to gamble, and yet it is sanctioned : the police are carefully excluded, the law has no eyes for the protection of the swindled, and when intoxication succeeds the first fury of continual losses, who can be answerable, or who can protect the unfortunate man from the pinching gripe of the professed gambler, the greedy and insatiable grasp of the practised swindler'? We know the degradation of mind, the absolute ruin of health and property, which follows the path of those thus unhappily lured by their own proper protectors. The bridges which adorn the Seine are generally the last spot occupied by the living body of the gambler in France, and the Morgue shows the skeleton carcase of the plundered and the plunderer in all the horrid nakedness of deformity.

The lotteries in England for a time contributed to demoralise the poorer classes ; whilst the taste for dress, and the prospect of obtaining a chance to gratify it, made that class on whom our comforts depend in an equal ratio with their honesty, swerve from the path of virtue in order to obtain that which chance rendered it almost impossible to possess. Thus the government

THE GAMESTER.

which sanctions gambling offers a premium upon dishonesty: but doubly culpable is that government which, pretending to wear the outward garb of sincerity, winks behind the false mask, and allows, yes publicly allows — what by law is prohibited. Look at the booths at a race : under the. very eye of royalty must villany flourish, that villany being illegal. It is needless to carry this idea farther ; indirectly we do what the French government does openly : both are to blame, both encourage dishonesty, both contribute to the ruin and demoralisation of the subject.

Still is the infatuation so great, that although we know the chances which are against us — we know the sum the proprietors must win in order to carry on the establishment, yet we go with a poor capital to fight against that which can command thousands — we slake our money against the fearful odds of superior capital and experienced dexterity.

When Robert Douglass had placed his last relative in the grave — had returned to his now solitary home, and gazed in silence round the desert of his occupation, he carefully counted the sum which remained his all in this world : he who had gone before had left nothing to increase the stock, and his whole fortune amounted to the immense sum of about three thousand pounds — a mere vegetation for life ; and this was all that remained from the wreck of a much finer property.

For some time after his last relative’s death, and his disappointments, Douglass led a retired life in a country village in England, the name of which we shall call Wilmington, and which was distant but a few miles from the metropolis. Of all monotonous lives, for a man who had travelled over nearly the whole world, that residence was the worst ; the bickering scandal, which is inseparable from the small communities in the country, had very few charms for him ; — in short, he cared not one straw whether Miss Jemima Wilkins had grown unexpectedly stout, and the next morning “ most miraculously recovered her shape;” or whether Miss Clarissa Smith had eloped with the sexton of the village, and thus, by the kind offices of the last attendants of us all, buried her reputation in a grave prepared by her tempter. Douglass attended the village church with punctuality ; and he did it more with the desire — the fatal failing of the idle — of destroying a few hours, than under the idea of a religious obligation. It so happened that near the pulpit was a pew capable of holding only two ; and as Douglass wished to borrow as much importance upon as economical a principle as possible, he took both seats, and sat alone in all his grandeor, to the yery great annoyance of several of his most sincere and affectionate friends. One day in winter, when country churches are neither the warmest nor the driest of brick buildings, just as the clergyman had given out his text, and the rustle of leaves had subsided, occasioned by the young ladies hunting for the chapter and verse as if to catch the preacher in an error, the heavy footsteps of an elderly man were heard as he walked a few paces into the interior. Every eye was instantly directed towards the stranger ; and notwithstanding the place, curiosity expressed itself in whispers, and the attention of the congregation was turned towards the old gentleman.

He wore a rather old acquaintance in the shape of a great-coat, and which certainly would have been none the worse for a hot iron and a piece of brown paper. He seemed to be fatigued with his walk, and leaned over a pew which would have contained two more than inhabited it. He gave that intelligible look at the inmates, as much as to say, “ Let me in but Christian charity was not the leading principle of the old w'omen, who began immediately to spread themselves out, thereby apparently occupying the whole of the pew, and looking up significantly, as much as to respond, “Only see how you would incommode us!” The poor old gentleman advanced a little farther; but there seemed a general fear of contamination or of rheumatism, for some small rain had fallen, and his rough coat seemed like plants covered with the morning dew. (Brummel once remarked, that he had caught cold by being put in a room with a damp stranger.) The intruder was evidently rather deaf, for he kept his right hand to his ear, making a kind of trumpet, and twisting his mouth over to the left side with the intention of opening the tube of hearing as much as possible, he continued to advance towards the pulpit by slow and measured paces, (for the clergyman dropped his voice at the conclusion of his sentence in such a manner as to be nearly inaudible,) until he reached Douglass. He instantly opened the door, and receiving a bow of acknowledgment, the stranger took his seat and continued to pay the greatest attention to the discourse. When the blessing was given and the congregation on the stir, the new acquaintance offered his hand, which was instantly taken ; and as Douglass walked out of the church, the stranger placed his arm within his, — and although Douglass felt that the coat of the stranger and his were not made by the same tailor, and that one was new and the other old, yet he somehow felt a pride at having done a

THE GAMESTER.

commonly civil action, more particularly as his neighbours had acted in a contrary manner. Douglass thought he observed the sneers of some of his old female friends, and the gibes and laughs of the younger ; for when the old gentleman put his hat on his head, he stood as good a representation of a bankrupt clothesman as Rag Fair could produce. If this man has no money, thought Robert, he does not act up to the advice, “ Never be poor and show poor.”

For some time the stranger was silent. He appeared more infirm than Robert had supposed, and he leaned as heavily on his arm as a lame man does on a crutch. At last he spoke, and there was a mildness in his manner that was captivating in the extreme.

“ I am,” said he, addressing Douglass, “ much obliged to you for your civility ; for although it is said that in the house of God all are equal, yet those ladies seemed to think otherwise. They are fools for their pains ! — they might have done a more gracious act than in denying rest to the weary, or in hindering one who cannot remain much longer in this world from hearing comfortably the voice and the instruction of the clergyman. Pray what is your name ?” said the old gentleman.

“ Robert Douglass.”

“ Have you no other Christian name but Robert?”

“None,” replied Robert.

“The name,” continued the elderly gentleman, “is not unknown to me ; for, many years since, when I was wrecked near Madras, I received much attention from a gentleman of that name.”

“ It was ray father,” replied Robert.

I’he old gentleman stopped, looked at him long in the face, unheeding the titters of those who passed, and who, like all idle blockheads, seemed to wish to be informed of what wonderful conversation could take place between two men. “ Your father must be numbered with the dead, I should imagine ; for had he lived to this day, he would have been about eighty-four, — an age few attain who have lived for thirty-two years in that country : but he was a strong, temperate, and active-minded man.”

“ He has been dead about six years,” replied Robert.

“ He ought to have died a wealthy man,” said the stranger, “ for he held high situations, and although he lived like a nabob, he must have left some lacs of rupees. And you,” he continued, “ how comes it that you are buried alive in this village ! You should be more actively employed than in the tattling company of old maidens or the solitary walk of a churchyard.”

“My life has been unfortunate, and that which I inherited,**' replied Robert, “is almost gone — all but a bare sufficiency: I was robbed of it, plundered of it, and the perjurer lives and flourishes.”

“ The way of the world, sir,” replied the stranger : “ your thief is a nobleman until the gallows exalts him above his proper sphere. But did you gamble, did you lose it at play ? — tell me the truth, sir.”

“I never played a card in my life,” he replied. “ I lost my money by a tissue of misfortunes, by the operation of a cruel law, by the ignorance of my adviser, by the perjuries of others.”

“ Nothing more common,” replied the stranger: “false witnesses are as common in England as blackberries; it is of late years become a profession. But the law would ruin any man in the expenses upon justice.”

“And therefore,” resumed Robert, “as I cannot hold up my head where I once could do so, I have retired to this village; and am not sorry I have done so, since it affords me the pleasure of welcoming an old friend of my father’s. This is my house: though small, it is convenient; and although I am obliged to forego the luxuries, yet I have the necessaries of life. Pray, walk in, sir; and if you are inclined to pass some time in this retreat, allow me to offer you a bed, and whatever my humble roof contains. But as I have made you acquainted with my name, will you allow me to know that which must have been familiar to my father?”

The stranger walked in without answering; he placed his hat on a peg, shook the wet and rubbed the dirt from his coat, hung it up, pulled the tails down to avoid any wrinkles, produced an old pocket-handkerchief and flourished it over his hat, pocketed his gloves, wiped his feet, and then walked into a small front parlour. Instead of warming his hands, he began to take off some of the coals, until he left the mere skeleton of a fire, although he shivered with cold. He took up so close a position as to endanger his inexpressibles.

“ You are extravagant, Mr. Robert, — that is the name, ay ?” and he took out an old almost worn-out pocket-book, and after rubbing some animation into his hands he wrote down, “ Robert, the son of John Douglass.” “ Now,” he continued, “ who is your banker, or your lawyer, or any body you know in London where I may find or hear of you ; because if you come that way I shall be most happy to see you, and I sometimes like to make inquiries for my friends instead of their being

THE GAMESTER.

obliged to hunt me up. But come near the fire; you must be cold so far away.”

It was quite evident to Robert that his friend was a character, and although he wished him any where else than in the place of which he had possessed himself, for he was a screen when it was least wanted, yet he resolved to humour him to the height of his bent.

The conversation soon took a much more extended range than finding fault; and when five o’clock came, they had tried many subjects, and amongst others gambling. — “ Of all vices,” said the stranger, “ this is the worst. The libertine may be reclaimed; the drunkard may listen to the warnings of disease; the prodigal may become sensible of the necessity of frugality ; the liar may see the beauty of truth ; the reprobate may be charmed by virtue : but the gambler never can be reclaimed, I speak not now of those who idle away, or while away, whichever you like, an hour, holding thirteen pieces of painted pasteboard, and putting down in silence the same colour and kind as their adversaries might have played ; I speak not of the innocent amusement of a round-table party, or of those who, to gratify curiosity, pay the penalty of being inquisitive ; but I speak of the real downright gamester, whose only occupation is play — who dreams of hazard, who awakes but to rattle the dice, and calculates nothing but chances — whose whole existence consists in robbing, or perhaps wishing to possess himself of the property of another — to whom the ravings of the ruined are music, whose enjoyment is purchased by the sacrifice of others, whose smiles are provoked by the tears of the distressed, whose whole soul and body is^ bent upon the destruction of his neighbour for the aggrandizement of himself. That man is beyond the reach of redemption. Gambling is to the mind what opium is to the body ; deprive the one or the other of the now necessary excitement, and the patient dies. I do not speak these words as idle loungers retail the borrowed sentences of great writers, — too well I know the consequences from the horror I have experienced : I lost my only son from this infernal vice, and painful as it is to me to recall the bitter lesson, yet I shrink not from the task of warning others from that destructive path. My poor, poor boy ! yes, willingly would I lay down those riches, which make me the envy of my neighbours, for the {)leasure of again folding you in my arms ; and as I bathed your face from the tears of my heart, pour out my blessings and forgiveness on your repentant head ! But he is gone Tor ever !

never nnore shall I gaze upon his face, never more shall I listen to the animated description which youth gives when pleasure is the subject; but now an old decrepid pilgrim, fast verging to that end where I shall again rest near him, and where the staff of age shall be thrown aside, and the quiet of the Christian’s grave obtained.” Here the old gentleman’s feelings got the better of his resolution, and after wiping his eyes and going to the window with the intention of concealing his emotion, he returned again to his seat, and taking Robert by the hand, he said : “ After dinner I will hold up a mirror which shall scare you, if you are a gambler; I will convince you of the folly, the madness, the iniquity of the act ; and as I am already wearied,

I will accept your offer of a bed. My portmanteau is at the public-house where I alighted as the coach passed through. I had intended proceeding onwards to-night to Cheltenham ; but I am feeble and ill, and want the requisite stamina for the undertaking.” Saying which, he arose, and taking down his great-coat, he again removed some few specks of dirt, and was proceeding to wear it, when Robert suggested that as he was younger, he could go and have the portmanteau conveyed to his house. “ No,” he replied, “ I will do it myself and aldiough faltering in his steps, he crossed the street, and shortly afterwards Robert saw him return carrying his own luggage, and tottering fearfully at every step.

From the words which had escaped him, and the extreme contradiction between his expressions and his apparent condition, Robert was anxious if possible to glean some records of his life. His name he had carefully concealed ; his portmanteau was without an address; his hat had the word “ Golgotha,” the place of a skull, marked therein ; and his pocket-handkerchief had hardly a corner whereon to fix an initial; — yet had he talked of the wealth which made others envious, he had hinted that he would lay down all for one glimpse of his departed son, and Ids conversation was so much above the common run of familiar phrases that Robert was lost in conjecture. It was evident he was of a miserly turn : the attention to his coat and hat, the manner in which he deprived himself of the fire, the niggard care with which he fed the flame, all convinced Robert that if he had a fortune, it had been one of the many saved, not made.

During his absence, Robert mounted two bottles of good old port, and placed them not far from the fire. The evening was closing in, and the drizzling rain rendered it more obscure than

THE GAMESTER.

was usual at that season of the year. The little fire was stirred, which Robert ventured to increase; and when the curtains were drawn, the shutters fastened, the two candles lighted, the table-cloth clean, and the silver polished, Robert flattered himself, (for he afterwards looked back with some satisfaction upon the remembrance of that evening,) although the home was small, it was comfortable, and while the wind increased, and the rain fell in torrents, he and his aged companion were sheltered from both, and in the enjoyment of all that the frugal could require.

Chapter II

Douglass directed the servant, a rather plnmp-looking redarmed country-girl, to assist the stranger with his load ; and shortly he heard him stumping about over his head. The maid was instructed to tell him that the sheets were before the kitchen fire, and begged to know if he would have one in his room. This last he refused in a sullen manner, saying that three fires in a house were sufficient to warm Windsor Castle. Douglass resolved not to make any addition to his usual Sunday’s cheer, which consisted of a piece of roast-beef, some bursting potatoes, and a Yorkshire-pudding : a small plum-pudding, was to form the centre of the repast, whilst some apples and dried fruit brought up the rear.

It was just six o’clock when the stranger entered the parlour ; and no man could have recognised, in the clean gentlemanly deportment, the ragman resurrectionist of the morning. His hair, white by nature, had been carefully powdered, and his whole appearance would have done credit to a finished courtier. Douglass now saw what a tailor and a powder-puff could do for a man : the stiff air of the first acquaintance was superseded by an easy smile, his manner had changed with his habits, and scarcely ever could Robert remember to have seen a gentleman at his age who had fewer of the dirty appendages of seventy. With a good appetite, seeing he was most heartily welcome, he began his dinner ; and although the fire burned brightly, and the sherry and the port were produced, he never once made a remark upon the extravagance of the repast. He asked if Robert was generally as comfortable as he appeared to be ; and being assured that he had made no addition to his dinner, the stranger expressed himself pleased, and his heart soon began to warm with the wine.

The frugal fare finished, Robert begged him to accept of a large arm-chair, and to turn towards the fire. They drew the table a little nearer, and placing the port wine within reach of both, might have challenged the world to have shown a happier couple, at least in appearance. It was one of those delectable December evenings when the rain seemed to come from a fire

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man’s engine, and falling with such regularity on the windows, that a novice might fancy the winter was employed to wash away the dust of the summer, and that the task was not easily performed.

“ I have not known for five years the pleasure I experience at this moment,” began the stranger : “ a kind calm satisfaction steals over my heart, and life, which this morning I would have laid down without paying a doctor’s fee to have avoided so doing, now seems worth preserving. It is five years since I lost my only child : he was six-and-twenty years of age, and a handsomer man breathed not in Europe. From that hour I became a weed thrown upon the wide ocean of existence, if carried by the current north or south I cared not; I wandered over the world a poor old miserable being, I hated the society of men, and I dreaded that of the other sex ; I became indiflferent as to my dress, the luxuries of life I detested, and when I heard the laugh and merriment of others, I flew from it like a stricken deer with the barbed arrow rankling in its side. For five years I have never felt the ease, the comfort, the Relief of the load I carried, that I do at this minute ; and such is the extraordinary change which lias crept over me, that I hardly feel inclined to hold up the mirror to you which before dinner I had promised to produce, in order to warn you from the dreadful, dangerous path of gambling.”

Robert begged the stranger on no account to return to his sorrows, but if possible to forget them, and for once afford him the gratification of believing that he had been instrumental to his happiness.

“ No, no,” he replied ; “ we have all our duties to perform in this life, and mine is to save the purchase of experience in others. And now to my task : the story is long, the subject is painful, but the moral is good.

“After my having remained,” he began, “ a bachelor until I was fifty-five years of age, I conceived a violent passion for a lady of thirty, who at the expiration of six weeks became my wife. About a year after my marriage, my wife was safely delivered of a male child, which was christened Henry. His early youth was not distinguished by any very particular circumstance : he grew up to manhood without being a poet at twelve, or a sailor at thirteen. The great error / made : and that was, not obliging him to have a profession. I had in India amassed an ample fortune, and the settlements on my wife, which must have descended to him, were sufiicient to have gratified the vanity of

VOL. I. 2 even a nobleman. To this first error of mine 1 am inclined to attribute all the mischief which followed his steps. There is no mistake more fatal than the encouragement of idleness: it is, as the copy says, the root of all evil, I never knew an idle man who, if he escaped burthening his neighbours, avoided being vicious : the mind that is not directed to one object, generally neglects all, or only flippantly skims the surface over which it hurries. The first consequence of idleness was love. Love, as Johnson says, has no power but over 'those it finds unemployed : so it occurred that rny son Henry at the age of nineteen imagined himself in love with the second daughter of a respectable clergyman, who was encumbered with a large family, and not a very ample fortune. On my discovering this fatal step, I opposed all the authority of a parent. It has been urged by some autliors, that, providing no blot is upon the fair fame of the lady, and that an equality of birth is beyond a doubt, the parent has no sufficient grounds for withholding his consent: but the man who first circulated this erroneous doctrine contributed his portion of mischief to the world ; for if the law does not consider the act of a minor valid, it is because that law imagines the mind not sufficiently formed, and consequently leaves him under the direction of the parent. The more I opposed this foolish match, the more resolutely he maintained his determination to gain his point. I loved — dearly, fondly loved him, and his mother doted with maternal affection on her offspring: never had we differed in.opinion, and now we both were the ruin of our son from this ill-placed affection. He argued, and justly, that the daughter of a clergyman of the Established Church was equal to any man in rank ; and in this, as I am no leveller of the church, no overthrower of its ancient establishment, no violator of its rights orpurloiner of its wealth, I fidly and frankly acknowledged it was the youth of both parties, and their exact equality of age, which caused my dissent: for although the woman may be of a sufficient age at nineteen, and it is dangerous in most cases to allovv them a settled plan of life before marriage, and although I would rather they married at that age or twenty than any other, yet I did not consider this argument as applicable to my son ; for no man should marry until he is past his thirty-fourth year: — the mind is then properly formed, the dearly-bought experience of youth will guide him steadily through life, and his affections, not the hasty ebullition of youth, will be lasting and sincere : besides which, at the age of forty the woman would be verging upon wrinkles, whilst the man would be in the «f Hfe. I look a raiddel