edition, and all that. Yet positively one-half is
fine writing. Fancy one of our medical fellows
writing such stuff. Bosh! I can't read
French well. Here is the English of it:
'There is nothing more miserable than the
condition of these poor creatures. Let us picture
their condition a moment. The night sets in—
the door of the cell is closed. He thinks of
his friends. "Oh, come to me and help me in
my abandonment," he cries.' And I assure you,
sir, half a dozen pages of that stuff; and that's
a medical book, sir!"

With this introduction, the two gentlemen
grew friendly and communicative. It came
out presently the stranger knew France very
well, and Dieppe too. "Passed through it
the other day. The fact is, there is an
establishment near Paris in which I have two
or three patients. You know, all that is my
department. I dare say you have seen or
heard of Adams on Idiocy. Well, I am
Adams, and I do a good deal in the idiocy way.
The French are more humane and skilful
in their treatment, though when they come
to theory, like this fellow, they break down.
No, Poisson, my boy; you are a charlatan. I
assure you the quantity of miles I have to get
over, flying from one part of the world to the
other to see this and that patient, is astonishing,
and very fatiguing. Now, I am posting down
to a baronet, who has got something wrong
with his son—a great trial for him—an old
friend of mine."

"What! Sir John Trotter?" said Mr. West,
eagerly. " I was going to him also."

"Really?" cried the other, "a brother, a
rival, a double-horse power. No?"

Mr. West smiled, and set him right. A long
journey, a day and a night, and such
companionship, dining together, travelling together,
in those days often made warm friendships;
and when they reached the Scotch town,
and took a chaise together to go out to
Trotterstown, the physician had learned what
was his companion's errand, and had promised
to aid it in every way. It was a gloomy
hill, and they found Sir John to be a
strange, short, wiry, eccentric little man. He
was, besides, a nineteenth-century Jacobite,
and had portraits and relics of "Charles
Edward," and talked of the Pretender as if he
were alive. The misfortune that was coming on
his son seemed to affect him very little as
compared with politics; and the physician's
introduction of his friend as a gentleman whom he
met on the road, and who had some business
in that part of the country, seemed to him quite
a matter of course. Politics was his craze, and
he talked them at dinner, inveighing against
what he called the " arrant old Whigs of 1688,"
who were the ruin of this country. " The
present Royal line, sir, is effete. We want the true
old stock back again. I am told it still exists
in a Neapolitan house. Ah, if that could be
followed up, and relations opened with them,
there would be plenty found to rally round the
old standard."

Mr. West had travelled, had seen that part
of Italy where this royal house flourished, and,
to the great interest of his host, described all of
them minutely, especially the heir of the house,
about whom Sir John was very curious. Sir
John was a complete oddity, and the physician
said, later, the infirmity of the son was but a
stage off. Then, coming to talk of the French
and Dieppe, the baronet started off:

"By the way, there was an Irishman I had
to do with who lived there. I wonder what's
become of him? He behaved very badly—a
wild, scatterbrained fellow, but still
uncommonly pleasant. I assure you he sang
'Charley is my darling,' in this very room, in
the most ravishing way. It runs in my ears
now. You could hear the pipes and the
Highlanders coming up the street—as fine a
thing as ever I heard. He spoke very free and
easy, but independently. I couldn't blame him.
What a voice and spirit! A true Celt! a true
Celt, sir!"

With the baronet in this tone, it was not
difficult, it may be conceived, for Mr. West to
accomplish what he came for. And he went
his way that night, after Sir John had seen
him out to his carriage, with an assurance
that he would be very glad to see Mr. Dacres
there again, talk the matter over, and hear his
noble-spirited friend join in "Charlie is my
darling!"

Such were Mr. West's adventures during
nearly six weeks of a time which he
afterwards looked back to as one of the pleasant
eras in his life. The clouds had broken;
there was a tranquil sunlight over the sweetest
flowers. The fair objects of daily life seemed
to bask in this sunshine, and in his journeys
and progresses. Sometimes through the long
night he had no solitude, but a calm, tranquil
happiness, an endless succession of pleasant
pictures, an ineffable sense of looking forward,
and a confidence for the delightful future
that was approaching. He had by long
practice during those solitary walks when
he was in a different mood, trained his
mind to an endless play, and it could
entertain him, as he walked, with perpetual
pictures. This that obedient servant will do,
if it only gets practice. Thus he had always
found himself good and interesting company.
But the picture, thus inexhaustible in its
variety of patterns, was one where was a gentle
face of trusting affection in the centre—with the
fluttering emotions of surprise, joy, delight,
as he unfolded his news.

So at last, all being happily accomplished, he
turned his face once more to the little French
port, and set off for Brighton, then the favourite
port for embarkation. There was the familiar
churn-shaped Eagle, ready to plod her steady
course across and back again—much what an old
coach would be to our railway carriage. It
was a fine cheerful day. There were pleasant
families going across, about to stop for the
night merely, among the détenus at the
French port, going on in the morning to Paris,