“That circumstance awakened me,” added Gray. “Oh! It did me a world of good, I then saw on what slippery ground I stood. I let my revenge sleep, and had its proper time for awaking. You taught me a useful lesson, squire, a lesson on prudence.”
“Jacob Gray,” said Learmont, gravely. “You have great talent. Think over my offers. If you can, procure me Britton’s papers. Give me up the boy, and spend your life in any other land you choose. I will charge my lands with an annuity of five thousand pounds per annum.”
“I will, you having rendered him innoxious by depriving him of the papers, undertake to destroy him. He shall not live four-and-twenty hours after that event.”
“You had better,” cried Learmont. “Here is more money now; but you had better take my offer. It is a large one.”
“And before you go, now,” added Learmont in a tone of excitement, “since you have been so candid with me, know that I am not altogether so much in your power as you, in your great cunning and admirable wisdom, may imagine.”
“Then I tell you there is a point of endurance beyond which even I may be goaded: pass that by your demands, and I collect all my portable wealth and leave England forever, first handing you over to the tender mercy of the laws.”
“Indeed!” said Gray; “I have too much faith.”
“Ay—for yourself. I wish you a good evening, and pleasant dreams. Hem!”
Ada’s Lone Home.—The Summer.—An Adventure.
“Blessed,” says the simple squire of Don Quixote, “is the man who first invented sleep.” What would the spirit-worn—the persecuted—the heart-stricken—and the desolate do without sleep? Oh, if there be one heavenly seal set upon the pure and innocent heart, it is that dear impressive slumber—deep and dreamless as infants, which, like a soft south wind in dreariest winter, lays for a time the wearied senses, in a blessed repose. Then is the imagination freed from earthly dross, and clinging cares, carried far, far away to happier times. The poor prisoner then escapes from his dungeon—his fetters drop from his benumbed limbs, and he lives again in the glorious sunshine, with the blue heavens alone looking down upon him, and the green earth in all its wondrous beauty stretching far before him. The wave-tossed mariner,