Colin Clink, Volume 1 (of 3)

long. Colin Clink's boyhood and character. A trap is laid for him by Mr. Longstaff,

e became a man. In that little vessel, it would have been contended, was contained a large measure of latent importance; although, contrary to the most approved and authentic cases of this nature, neither mark, spot, mole, nor even pimple, was to be found upon him; no strawberry on his shoulder, no cherry on his neck, no fairy's signet on his breast, by which the Fates are sometimes so

y, I firmly believe, he laid the foundation of that excellent figure in which he appeared after arriving at the age of manhood. Sometimes, when his mother was in a mood prospective and reflective, she w

e corner; and in and about the window was displayed a varied collection of pipes, penny loaves, tobacco, battledores, squares of pictures twenty-four for a halfpenny, cotton-balls, whipcord, and red worsted nightcaps. In this varied storehouse, with poor pale little Fanny for his nurse, until he grew too big for her any longer to carry him, did our hero Colin live and thrive. After he had found his own legs, his nurse became his companion; and many a time, as he grew older,-pitying her hungry looks, an

he knew, must accompany so unusual a style of behaviour; but then, she said to herself, "Let him but carry it out through life, and, if no other good come of it but this, it will far outbalance all the rest,-that, by him at least, no other young heart will be destroyed, as mine has been. No lasting misery will by him be entailed on the confiding and the helpless, under the promise of protection

to think as correctly as he could, and then to sa

hey never honoured society with their presence. The annoyance resulting to Mr. Longstaff from this comparison was rendered more bitter in consequence of the formerly alleged, but now universally disowned, relationship between himself and our hero. He could not endure that the very child whose mother had endeavoured to cast disgrace upon him, and whom he hated on that account with intense hatred, should thus not only, as it were, exalt poverty above riches, but overtop intellectually in their native village as fine a family as any Suffolk grazier could wish to see. Mr. Longstaff determined, at length, to use his utmost exertions in order to rid the village of him; and, the better to effect his object, he endeavoured, by descending to meannesses which would not have graced anybody half so well as himself, to worm himself again into the good opinion of Colin's mother, by pr

would both sleep on thorns, and wake to pass his days in no garden of roses. He would lower his crest for him,-he would take the spirit out of him,-he would contrive to place him where he should learn on the wrong side of his mouth how to make himself the

. Clink, and that he should, at the first convenient opportunity, have it wholly in his power to d

curious adventures which befel him in his new situation, will be related in the ensuing chapter, as it is imperative upon me t

Miss Shirley seized the earliest opportunity to make an earnest inquiry of

ate at all to state that, because I know it to be the fact; and I have invariably remarked, that amongst the great majority of insane persons that have been under my care, and no practitioner could have had more, there is a peculiarity,-a difference,-an organic something or other, which,-I am as much convinced of as of my own existence,-might have been perceptible to a clever man at the period of their very earliest mental development, and which marked them out, if I may so say, to become at one period or other of their lives inmates of such establishments as this extensive one of mine at Nabbfield. But the good lady of this house has not

as he says, an organic something about him that renders him very repulsive to me; and, if nothing wor

y-chair by her friend's bedside, and remaine

r, with slow steps, and a deep-seated expression of melancholy, pacing the gardens and woods of Kiddal, regardless almost of times and seasons. Though now perfectly recovered, her recent illness for

ime the dull monotonous life of the gloomy old hall, for the more gay and spirit-stirring society of some busy city. He therefore impressed upon her, as a condition absolutely indispensable to a

am here, or here as I should be there. The time that I spend here seems to me only like one long thought of the hour, whether it come soon or late, when all that I endure shall be at an end. The only thing I love here, Mary, is that sweet little churchyard,-it looks so peaceful! When I am away, my onl

ained, for the time of which I have spoken, living apart, as though formally separated from her husband, during a lengthened period of some years. Under these circumstances, her friend Miss Shirley continued a