Homely Tragedy. 261 



ruin. His brother it is said, made him a bank- 

 rupt. " The din of populous cities had long 

 stunned his brain, and his soul had sickened in 

 the presence of the money-hunting eyes of sel- 

 fish men, all madly pursuing their multifarious 

 machinations in the great mart of commerce. 

 The very sheeted masts of ships, bearing the 

 flags of foreign countries, in all their pomp and 

 beauty sailing homeward or outward bound, had 

 become hateful to his spirit for what were 

 they but the floating enginery of Mammon ? 

 Truth, integrity, honour, were all recklessly 

 sacrificed to gain by the friends he loved and 

 had respected most sacrificed without shame 

 and without remorse repentance being with 

 them a repentance only over ill-laid schemes of 

 villainy plans for the ruination of widows and 

 orphans blasted in the bud of their iniquity." 

 Following upon the loss of worldly fortune 

 Gough's mother died, and had it not been for a 

 legacy which came to him about this time he 

 would have been absolutely penniless. A rela- 

 tive had died abroad almost his only one, and 

 the last of his name. Upon his small means he 

 determined to seek an asylum among the 

 northern mountains, where he might study 

 nature and daily stand face to face with her 

 most majestic forms and moods. He left the 

 city which had wrought his ruin at midnight, 

 the last definite object which his eyes rested 



