'
'Oh!--ho!--certainly--very good, Sir. I beg pardon--and--and--he's just
done his breakfast--a late dog, Sir--ha! ha! Your servant, Doctor
Walsingham.'
Devereux puzzled his comrade Puddock more than ever. Sometimes he would
descend with his blue devils into the abyss, and sit there all the
evening in a dismal sulk. Sometimes he was gayer even than his old gay
self; and sometimes in a bitter vein, talking enigmatical ironies, with
his strange smile; and sometimes he was dangerous and furious, just as
the weather changes, without rhyme or reason. Maybe he was angry with
himself, and thought it was with others; and was proud, sorry, and
defiant, and let his moods, one after another, possess him as they came.
They were his young days--beautiful and wicked--days of clear, rich
tints, and sanguine throbbings, and _gloria mundi_--when we fancy the
spirit perfect, and the body needs no redemption--when, fresh from the
fountains of life, death is but a dream, and we walk the earth like
heathen gods and goddesses, in celestial egotism and beauty. Oh, fair
youth!--gone for ever. The parting from thee was a sadness and a
violence--sadder, I think, than death itself.
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