



Produced by Al Haines









[Frontispiece: "'It is most strange, madam... that you should not be
certain of the name of your husband.'" (Chapter XIII.)]




THE WAYFARERS


BY

J. C. SNAITH


Author of "Mistress Dorothy Marvin," "Fierceheart, the Soldier," "Lady
Barbarity," etc




WARD, LOCK & CO., LIMITED

LONDON, MELBOURNE AND TORONTO

1902




CONTENTS

CHAP.

     I  THE DEVIL TO PAY
    II  LADY CYNTHIA CAREW
   III  INTRODUCES A MERITORIOUS HEBREW
    IV  WE START UPON OUR PILGRIMAGE
     V  I VINDICATE THE NATIONAL CHARACTER.
    VI  CONTAINS A FEW TRITE UTTERANCES ON THE GENTLE PASSION
   VII  AN INSTRUCTIVE CHAPTER; IN WHICH IT IS SHOWN THAT IF A LITTLE
        LEARNING IS DANGEROUS, MUCH MAY BE CALAMITOUS
  VIII  WE GET US TO CHURCH
    IX  WE GO UPON OUR WEDDING TOUR
     X  WE ARE BESET BY A HEAVY MISFORTUNE
    XI  I COME A PRISONER TO A FAMILIAR HOUSE, AND FIND STRANGE COMPANY
   XII  I DISCOVER A GREAT AUTHOR WHERE I LEAST EXPECT TO FIND ONE
  XIII  I FIND OUT CYNTHIA: CYNTHIA FINDS OUT ME
   XIV  AMANTIUM IRAE
    XV  AMORIS INTEGRATIO: WE ARE CLAPT IN THE STOCKS
   XVI  WE ARE SO SORELY TRIED THAT WE FAIN HAVE RECOURSE TO OUR WITS
  XVII  WE MAKE ACQUAINTANCE WITH A PERSON OF DISTINCTION
 XVIII  CONTAINS A PANEGYRIC ON THE GENTLE PASSION
   XIX  WE APPEAR IN A NEW CHARACTER
    XX  DISADVANTAGES OF A CHAISE AND A PAIR OF HORSES
   XXI  WE REAP THE FRUITS OF OUR AUDACITY
  XXII  THE LAST




THE WAYFARERS




CHAPTER I

THE DEVIL TO PAY

When I opened my eyes it was one o'clock in the day.  The cards lay on
the table in a heap, and on the carpet in a greater one, the dead
bottles in their midst.  The candles were burnt out; their holders were
foul with smoke and grease.  As I sat up on the couch on which I had
thrown myself at nine o clock in the morning in the desperation of
fatigue, and stretched the sleep out of my limbs and rubbed it out of
my brain the afternoon strove through the drawn blinds palely.  The
half-light gave such a sombre and appropriate touch to the profligate
scene that it would have moved a moralist to a disquisition of five
pages.  But whatever my errors, that accusation was never urged against
me, even by my friends.  You may continue in your reading, therefore,
in no immediate peril.  The ashes were long since grey in the grate;
there was an intolerable reek of wine-dregs and stale tobacco in the
air; and the condition of the furniture, stained and broken and tumbled
in all directions contributed the final disorder to the room.  Indeed
the only article in it, allowing no exception to myself, that had
emerged from the orgy of the night without an impediment to its dignity
was the picture of my grandfather, that pious, learned nobleman,
hanging above the mantelpiece.  A chip off a corner of his frame might
be urged even against him; but what was that in comparison with the
philosophical severity with which he gazed upon the scene?  In the
grave eyes, the grim mouth, the great nose of his family, he retained
the contemplative grandeur which had enabled him to give to the world
in ten ponderous tomes a Commentary on the _Analects of Confucius_.
The space they had occupied on my book-shelf, between the _Newgate
Calendar_ and the _History of Jonathan Wild the Great_, was now
unfilled, since these memorials of the great mind of my ancestor had
lain three weeks with the Jews.

By the time my wits had returned I was able to recall the fact that the
previous night, whose evidences I now regarded, was the last I should
enjoy.  It was the extravagant ending to a raffish comedy.  Finis was
already written in my history.  As I sat yawning on my couch I was a
thing of the past; I had ceased to be; to-morrow at this hour I should
be forgotten by the world.  I had had my chin off the bridle for ten
years, and had used that period to whirl my heels without regard to the
consequences.  I had played high, drunk deep, paid my court to Venus,
gained the not