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THE

NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE.

THE GURNEY PAPERS.-NO. XVIII.

To a man who has been subjected from his earliest days, if not to the vicissitudes of fortune in a pecuniary point of view, at least to the vagaries of fate in every other, and who has lived for many-if not very many years amidst the fluctuations of hope and anxiety, the arrival of the post is unquestionably the most exciting event of the day. A thousand apprehensions are conjured up, a thousand feelings called into action, by the sight of his letters; indeed, at least, such is the effect of their appearance upon me that, within one day's reach of London, I look upon Monday as a season of delightful and undisturbable repose.

If this was my ordinary state of mind, it does not seem very strange that, upon the particular morning on which I expected a line from my kind-hearted old friend Nubley announcing the time at which we might expect him, or perhaps conveying some further intelligence of his proceedings, or perhaps announcing his return, upon which much at all events depended, and from which more perhaps than was generally anticipated by others might probably result, I should be somewhat violently excited. I was up before the post arrived in Blissfold in order to wait and watch its arrival. I paced first the hall, and then the gravel sweep up to the hall-door, resolved to get the earliest intelligence by intercepting the boy with the bag, of which since certain discoveries had been made I had kept the key; and as I walked up and down I felt an aching, sinking feeling at my heart, more painful than I had ever felt before, and which proved to me how much interest I took-as naturally I might-in the expected intelligence for which I so earnestly hoped, and yet so seriously dreaded.

How minutes turn to hours, and hours to days-ay, and days to years -while the mind is thus employed! how every sound that breaks upon the ear seems to take the tone and character of that which we long to hear! and oh! what a thousand thoughts flitted through my mind, fleeting and fading, as to the probabilities-the possibilities of Nubley's success even yet in restoring me to the affection of a brother whose love I never had deserved to lose.

The church clock struck nine-never was the mail so late beforeit must have been overturned-robbed-or, which would at the moment have affected me, with all my sympathy and humanity, even more than either, the mail itself was all right and there was no letter for me; still, said I to myself, I will not give up my watch, I will persevere; and so I did, till the chimes informed me that it was then half-past nine. And, by the way, the chimes at Blissfold, which were particularly Sept.-VOL. LIV. NO. CCXIII.

B

harmonious, and upon which the inhabitants particularly piqued themselves, appeared to me to be of a most singular and somewhat perilous order as to their construction and arrangement; for the Sundays they were so managed that they gave us psalm-tunes for the quarters, and halves, and three-quarters of hours, but during the week they varied extremely from that orthodox style of harmony. On Mondays they played "Charley over the water;" on Tuesdays that favourite air from "The Beggar's Opera," "I'm like a ship on the ocean toss'd;" on Wednesdays" Nancy Dawson;" on Thursdays "Rule Britannia ;" and so on for the other days: and it certainly appeared to me somewhat more curious than agreeable as a coincidence that, when we were entering the churchyard on the funeral of Gunpowder Tom (as Wells always called him), these melodious carillons should strike up, as if at the particular moment for the particular purpose, another of the popular airs from Gay's travestie

"If thus much bolder a man can die
With brandy-"

which really happened; and, even now, "I'm like a ship on the ocean toss'd," sounded somewhat apposite: nevertheless, however well the air might accord with my circumstances, I could find no peal to chime in with my feelings, and when the clock struck ten I came to the resolution that I was doomed, if not to disappointment, at least to a day of suspense, and walked despondingly into the breakfast-parlour, when the first object that met my eyes, lying on the table, was the letter-bag itself, which, it appears, had arrived at the usual time, but nobody had imagined that I should care enough about an event which happened in the house seven times in every week to desire to be called in from my walk to open it, and so I was left to perambulate. "The boy never came by the lodge "-" always came across the fields," and so on; and there had I been fuming and fidgeting myself for one hour and a half through the tender solicitude of the servants, who were too delicate to disturb me in my promenade up and down a gravel drive between two hedges of evergreens.

I was vexed and cross, and I might have said-I will not write it -suffice it to say it was quite enough to have convicted me in a fiveshilling penalty before my reverend father-in-law in his magisterial capacity. The storm, however, soon blew over, and, with a hand trembling more from anxiety than anger, I opened my Pandora's box. There were several letters, the writers of whom I knew by their calligraphy, and one or two which at any other time might have interested me, but the one-single-(there I am wrong, for it was double) letter for which my eyes eagerly searched was, when seen, the only one upon which I pounced with eagerness and almost agony. It was the one I so much dreaded, yet so much desired.

I broke the seal and read:

"Bath, Monday.

"Dear Gilbert,-Strange things have happened. One of the letters which you forwarded to me, as I requested, contained some thundering news for Cuthbert-which I cannot tell you, because it probably might involve the reputation of other people. I may, however, say that it is likely to prolong my stay here; it will take time to explain the particulars to your poor rickety brother, who seems to me very likely to be

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