Being a handsome
lad, with a good figure and a fine clear voice, he did very well for a
while on the country stage. Hard times came; salaries were reduced; the
adventurer wearied of the society of actors and actresses. His next
change of life presented him in North Britain as a journalist, employed
on a Scotch newspaper. An unfortunate love affair was the means of
depriving him of this new occupation. He was recognised, soon
afterwards, serving as assistant steward in one of the passenger
steamers voyaging between Liverpool and New York. Arrived in this last
city, he obtained notoriety, of no very respectable kind, as a "medium"
claiming powers of supernatural communication with the world of
spirits. When the imposture was ultimately discovered, he had gained
money by his unworthy appeal to the meanly prosaic superstition of
modern times. A long interval had then elapsed, and nothing had been
heard of him, when a starving man was discovered by a traveller, lost
on a Western prairie. The ill-fated Irish lord had associated himself
with an Indian tribe--had committed some offence against their
laws--and had been deliberately deserted and left to die. On his
recovery, he wrote to his elder brother (who had inherited the title
and estates on the death of the old Earl) to say that he was ashamed of
the life that he had led, and eager to make amendment by accepting any
honest employment that could be offered to him.
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