The traveller who had
saved his life, and whose opinion was to be trusted, declared that the
letter represented a sincerely penitent state of mind. There were good
qualities in the vagabond, which only wanted a little merciful
encouragement to assert themselves. The reply that he received from
England came from the lawyers employed by the new Earl. They had
arranged with their agents in New York to pay to the younger brother a
legacy of a thousand pounds, which represented all that had been left
to him by his father's will. If he wrote again his letters would not be
answered; his brother had done with him. Treated in this inhuman
manner, the wild lord became once more worthy of his name. He tried a
new life as a betting man at races and trotting-matches. Fortune
favoured him at the outset, and he considerably increased his legacy.
With the customary infatuation of men who gain money by risking the
loss of it, he presumed on his good luck. One pecuniary disaster
followed another, and left him literally penniless. He was found again,
in England, exhibiting an open boat in which he and a companion had
made one of those foolhardy voyages across the Atlantic, which have now
happily ceased to interest the public.
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