In the evening Richard proceeded to the humble but comfortable lodging which the Major now occupied in the neighbourhood of the Tottenham Court Road; and from the lips of the individual whom his bounty had restored to comparative happiness, did our hero learn the following terrible narrative of a Gambler's Life.
CHAPTER CCXLIV.
THE HISTORY OF A GAMESTER.
"I was born in 1790, and am consequently in my fifty-third year. My father was a merchant, who married late in life, upon his retirement from business; and I was an only child. Your Highness may therefore well imagine that I was spoilt by my affectionate parents, whose mistaken tenderness would never permit me to be thwarted in any inclination which it was possible for them to gratify. Instead of being sent to school at a proper age, I was kept at home, and a master attended daily to give me instruction in the rudiments of education; but as I preferred play to learning, and found that if I pleaded headach my mother invariably suggested the propriety of giving me a holiday, I practised that subterfuge so constantly, that my master's place was a sinecure, and I could scarcely read two words correctly when I was ten years old.
"At that period my mother died; and my father, yielding to the representations of his friends, agreed to send me to a boarding-school. The resolution was speedily carried into effect; and during the next six years of my existence, I made up for the previously neglected state of my education. At the school alluded to, and which was in a town about fifteen miles from London, there were youths of all ages between eight and eighteen; and the younger ones thought that nothing could be more manly than to imitate the elder in all shapes and ways. Thus I was scarcely twelve when I began to play pitch and toss, odd man, shuffle-halfpenny, and other games of the kind; and as my father gave me a more liberal weekly allowance of pocket-money than any other lad of my own age possessed, I was enabled to compete with the elder youths in the spirit of petty gambling. The passion grew upon me; and that which I had at first commenced through a merely imitative motive, gradually became a pleasure and delight.
"I had just completed my sixteenth year, and was one afternoon passing the half-holiday at pitch and toss with several other boys in a remote corner of the spacious play-ground, when an usher came to inform me that my father had just arrived, and was waiting in the parlour. Thither I accordingly repaired; and in a few minutes after I had been closeted with my parent, I learnt that he had just purchased an ensign's commission for me in the —th regiment of Light Infantry, and that I was to return home with him that very day to prepare my outfit previously to joining the corps. Thus was I suddenly transformed from a raw school-boy into an officer in His Majesty's service.
"Two months afterwards I joined my regiment, which was quartered at Portsmouth. My father had intimated his intention of allowing me three hundred a-year in addition to my pay: I was therefore enabled to keep a couple of horses, and to cut a better figure in all respects than any other subaltern in the regiment. The lieutenant-colonel, who was in command of the regiment, and whose name was Beaumont, was a young man of scarcely eight-and-twenty; but his father was the member for a county, a stanch supporter of the Tories, and therefore possessed of influence sufficient to push his son on with astonishing rapidity. It was a ridiculous—nay, a cruel thing to see lieutenants of five or six-and-thirty, captains of eight-and-forty, and the major of nearly sixty, under the command of this colonel, who was a mere boy in comparison with them. But so it was—and so it is still with many, many regiments in the service; and the fact is most disgraceful to our military system.
"Colonel Beaumont was mightily annoyed when he heard that a merchant's son had obtained a commission in his regiment; for, aristocratic as military officers are even now-a-days in their opinions, they were far more illiberal and proud at the time when I entered the army. It was then the year 1807—during the war, and when the deaths of Pitt and Fox, which both occurred in the previous year, had left the country in a very distracted condition. When, however, the colonel learnt that my father was a rich man, that I had a handsome allowance, and was possessed of a couple of fine horses, his humour underwent an immediate change, and he received me with marked politeness.
"I had not been many weeks in the regiment when I discovered that several of the officers were accustomed to meet in each other's rooms for the purpose of private play; and I speedily became one of the party. The colonel himself joined these assemblies, which took place under the guise of 'wine-parties;' and though the play was not high, the losses were frequently large enough to cause serious embarrassment to those officers whose means were not extensive. Thus they were very often compelled to absent themselves from the wine-parties for several weeks until they received fresh supplies from their agents or friends; whereas those who had capital sufficient to continue playing, were sometimes enabled to retrieve in the long run what they had previously lost. This was the case with the colonel, myself, and two or three others; and we soon obtained the credit of being the only winners. Such a reputation was by no means an enviable one; for though not a suspicion existed against the fairness of our play, we were looked upon with aversion by those officers who never joined the parties, and with something like hatred by those who lost to us. We stood in the light of individuals who made use of the advantages of superior income to prey upon those of far more slender means; and although there was no open hostility towards us, yet we certainly made many private enemies. For the very atmosphere in which gamblers live is tainted by the foulness of their detestable vice!
"One evening—when I had been about a year in the regiment—it was my turn to give the wine-party in my room; but at the usual hour of meeting no one made his appearance save the colonel. 'Well,' he said, laughing, 'I suppose we cleaned the others out so effectually last night, that they have not a feather left to fly with. But that need not prevent us from having a game together.'—I readily assented, for cards and dice already possessed extraordinary fascinations in my eyes; and we sat down to écarté. At first we played for small stakes, and drank our wine very leisurely; but as I won nearly every game, the colonel became excited, and made more frequent applications to the bottle. Still he lost—and the more he lost, the more wine he took; until, getting into a passion, he threw down the cards, exclaiming, 'Curse my ill-luck to-night! I have already paid over to you a hundred and seventeen guineas at this miserable peddling work; and I will have no more of it. Damn it, Anderson, if you've any pluck you'll let me set you fifty guineas at hazard?'—'Done!' cried I; and the cards being thrown aside, we took to the dice. My luck still continued: I won three hundred pounds—all the ready money the colonel had about him; and he then played on credit, scoring his losses on a sheet of paper. His excitement increased to a fearful pitch, and he drank furiously. Still we played on, and the grey dawn of morning found us at our shameful work. At length Beaumont started up, dashed the dice-box upon the floor, crushed it beneath his heel, and uttered a terrible imprecation upon his ill-luck. He drank soda-water to cool himself; and we then examined the account that had been kept. The colonel owed me four thousand four hundred pounds, in addition to the ready money he had already lost. Pale as death, and with quivering lip, he gave me his note of hand for the amount; and having enjoined me in a low hoarse voice not to mention the affair to a single soul, rushed out of the room. I retired to bed, as happy as if I had performed some great and honourable achievement.