Look again at the financial difficulties which were thickening around him. Between sixty and seventy thousand pounds had been already raised on mortgage of the Yatton estates!--and not a shilling more could now be obtained without additional and collateral security, which Gammon could not procure. Then there was the interest payable half-yearly on these mortgages, which alone swallowed up some £3,500 annually. In addition to this, Titmouse was over head-and-ears in debt; and he must be supported all the while in a manner suitable to his station; and an establishment must be kept up at Yatton. How, with all this, was Mr. Gammon's own dearly bought rent-charge to be realized? The already overburdened property was totally unequal to bear this additional pressure. Again, if his motion, which was to be made in the ensuing term for a new trial in the case of _Wigley_ v. _Gammon_, should fail, there he was left at the mercy of the plaintiff for a sum very considerably exceeding £3,000 (including the heavy costs,) and capable of being immediately enforced by incarceration of his person, or seizure of his goods! Mr. Gammon, moreover, had been unfortunate in some gambling speculations in the funds, by which means the money he had so quickly made, had been as quickly lost. It was true, there were the probable proceeds of the two promissory notes now put in suit against Mr. Aubrey, and also the bond of Lord De la Zouch himself, in all amounting to twenty thousand pounds, with interest: but months must necessarily elapse before, even in the ordinary course, the actions for the recovery of these sums could be brought to a successful issue--to say nothing of any disastrous occurrence which Gammon could just conceive the possibility of, and which might have the effect of fatally impugning the right of action of Mr. Titmouse. Gammon had repeatedly turned in his mind the propriety of raising money by assignment of the bond of Lord De la Zouch, but for several reasons had deemed it inexpedient to venture upon such a step. For instance, the bond would be due within a month or two; and who would advance any serious sum on so large a security, without rigorous inquiries into the original validity of the instrument, and into the right of the obligee to put it in suit. Supposing the issue of the ecclesiastical inquiry to be adverse, and Titmouse's title to the Yatton property to be destroyed; would not that at once invalidate his claims upon the bond, and also upon the two promissory notes--at all events in equity? Lastly, his hopes of political advancement, to which he clung with incredible tenacity, full blooming though they had been till the moment of his being sued for the bribery penalties, were all in danger of being blighted forever, unless he could succeed in defeating the verdict during the ensuing term, of which he entertained scarce any expectation at all. But even supposing him successful there--what was to become of him if the issue of the pending ecclesiastical proceedings should brand him as abetting imposture of the most gross and glaring description--nay, as being in fact its originator? Once or twice, during his frequent agitating reviews of all these events and circumstances, he caught, as it were, a ghastly glimpse of a sort of system of RETRIBUTION in progress--and was able to trace evil consequences--of defeat and misery--from every single act which he had done!