The cavalcade halted at the sight of the new landlord. Some saucy-looking servants of the house, young boys and women, began to laugh and cut jokes at the expense of the young couple, particularly the ladies'-maids, who thought themselves a great deal prettier, and saw that they had infinitely smarter clothes. A shudder passed over Emilius. He looked round for Roderick, but he had run away again. An impudent-looking boy, a servant of one of the visitors, who wanted to be thought witty, pressed up to Emilius, and said, "What does your worship say to this brilliant couple? neither of them know where they are to get a piece of bread for to-morrow, and this afternoon they are going to give a ball, and have engaged the services of that good gentleman yonder."
"Not know where they are to get bread?" cried Emilius; "can these things be?"
"Oh, yes," the other went on; "every one knows how miserably poor they are; but the fellow says he will do his duty to the creature, though she has not a farthing. Yes, indeed, love is all-powerful: the ragamuffins haven't got so much as a bed; they have begged enough small beer to get drunk upon, and they are to sleep to-night in the straw."
There was a loud laugh at this, and the two unlucky objects of it did not dare to raise their eyes.
Emilius pushed the chattering fool in bitter anger from him. "Here, take this," he cried, and flung a hundred ducats, which he had received that morning, into the hands of the astonished bridegroom: the parents and the bridal pair wept aloud, threw themselves on their knees, and kissed his hands and clothes. He struggled to free himself. "Keep want from your bodies with that so long as it will last," he said, half bewildered.
"Oh, you have made us happy for our lives, best, kindest sir!" they all cried.
He scarcely knew how he broke from them. He found himself alone, and ran with tottering steps into the wood, where, in the most secluded spot that he could find, he flung himself down upon a bank and burst into a flood of tears.
"I am sick of life," he sobbed, in the deepest emotion. "I cannot enjoy it, I cannot, will not be happy in it. Oh, take me quickly to thyself, kind Earth, and hide me in thy cold arms from these wild beasts that call themselves men. O God in heaven, what have I done, that I sleep on down and wear silk apparel? that the grape spends her choicest blood for me, and men crowd round and cringe to me with love, and honour, and respect? This poor fellow is better, is nobler than I; yet misery is his nurse, and scorn and bitter mockery wish him joy upon his wedding-day. Every dainty morsel I enjoy, every draught from my cut glasses, my soft couches, and all this gold and ornament, oh, they are tainted with the poison of sin, so long as the world hunts to and fro these thousands upon thousands of poor wretches that hunger for the dry crumbs that fall from my table, and have never known what comfort means. Oh, now I understand you, ye holy saints; though the proud world turned from you with disdain and scorn when ye gave your all, even the cloak upon your back, to poverty, and chose rather as poor beggars to be trodden under foot, and bear the scoffs and sneers with which pride and selfish gluttony drive misery from their tables, rather to endure yourselves the last extreme of wretchedness, than bear upon your consciences this vile sin of wealth."