3IC WILD SPORTS OF THE WEST. 



who love the moon : ' — if this be pleasure, 1 had no 

 reason to repine. In these affairs ' our loving cousin ' 

 was an absolute dictator, and against his decrees there was 

 no appeal. To me, a quiet and nervous gentleman, 

 Marc*s arrangements were detestable. What he called 

 life, was death to me — his ideas of pleasure were formed 

 on the keep-moving plan — and to sleep a second night 

 in the same place, would be, according to his theories, 

 an atrocity. I found myself sinking under this excessive 

 happiness ; and when I ventured a gentle protest against 

 being whirled off in a thunder-storm from the ' Star and 

 Garter ' to the * Greyhound,' I received a cross-fire 

 that silenced me effectually, From that period I sub- 

 mitted without a murmur ; my days were numbered ; 

 another month like that entitled the honey-one, would 

 consign me to my fathers ; the last of the Dawkinses 

 would vanish from among men, and a mural monument 

 in St. Saviour's record my years and virtues. But 

 accident saved my life, though it annihilated my property 

 " Years before I led Drusilla to the altar, a Connemara 

 estate, which had belonged to her progenitors, and had 

 been ruined in succession by the respective lords, was 

 utterly demolished by a gentleman whom she termed 

 her ' lamented father.' The property had been in 

 chancery for half a century, and advertised for sale 

 beyond the memory of man ; but as it was overloaded 

 with every species of encumbrance, no one in his senses 

 would have accepted the fee simple as a gift. But my 

 wife had determined that Castle Toole should be 

 redeemed, and rise once more, Phcenix-like, from its 

 embarrassments. It owed, she admitted, more than it 

 was worth, twice told — but then, sure, it was the family 

 property. There , for four centuries, 0*Tooles had died. 



