Never did I endure so long, so miserable a night as that. And yet it was not wholly sleepless. Towards morning my distracting thoughts began to lose all pretensions to coherency, and shape themselves into confused and feverish dreams, and, at length, there followed an interval of unconscious slumber. But then the dawn of bitter recollection that succeeded⁠—the waking to find life a blank, and worse than a blank, teeming with torment and misery⁠—not a mere barren wilderness, but full of thorns and briers⁠—to find myself deceived, duped, hopeless, my affections trampled upon, my angel not an angel, and my friend a fiend incarnate⁠—it was worse than if I had not slept at all.

It was a dull, gloomy morning; the weather had changed like my prospects, and the rain was pattering against the window. I rose, nevertheless, and went out; not to look after the farm, though that would serve as my excuse, but to cool my brain, and regain, if possible, a sufficient degree of composure to meet the family at the morning meal without exciting inconvenient remarks. If I got a wetting, that, in conjunction with a pretended overexertion before breakfast, might excuse my sudden loss of appetite; and if a cold ensued, the severer the better⁠—it would help to account for the sullen moods and moping melancholy likely to cloud my brow for long enough.

“My dear Gilbert, I wish you would try to be a little more amiable,” said my mother one morning after some display of unjustifiable ill-humour on my part. “You say there is nothing the matter with you, and nothing has happened to grieve you, and yet I never saw anyone so altered as you within these last few days. You haven’t a good word for anybody⁠—friends and strangers, equals and inferiors⁠—it’s all the same. I do wish you’d try to check it.”

“Check what?”

“Why, your strange temper. You don’t know how it spoils you. I’m sure a finer disposition than yours by nature could not be, if you’d let it have fair play: so you’ve no excuse that way.”

While she thus remonstrated, I took up a book, and laying it open on the table before me, pretended to be deeply absorbed in its perusal, for I was equally unable to justify myself and unwilling to acknowledge my errors; and I wished to have nothing to say on the matter. But my excellent parent went on lecturing, and then came to coaxing, and began to stroke my hair; and I was getting to feel quite a good boy, but my mischievous brother, who was idling about the room, revived my corruption by suddenly calling out⁠—“Don’t touch him, mother! he’ll bite! He’s a very tiger in human form. I’ve given him up for my part⁠—fairly disowned him⁠—cast him off, root and branch. It’s as much as my life is worth to come within six yards of him. The other day he nearly fractured my skull for singing a pretty, inoffensive love-song, on purpose to amuse him.”

“Oh, Gilbert! how could you?” exclaimed my mother.

“I told you to hold your noise first, you know, Fergus,” said I.

“I’m not going to defile my fingers with him,” said I, in answer to the maternal intercession. “I wouldn’t touch him with the tongs.”

“I desired you not to speak of her, Miss Eliza.”