Eastern times. [volume] (Bath, Me.) 1846-1857, 1850-08-01
s ELEC CT TALE.
EXPERIENCES OF A BAR
RlSTER.
I" THE ACCOMMODATION BILL"


late Mr.. Ralph Symonds, and the dying con-
fessions of James Hornby, one of the persons
killed BY the falling in Of the iron roof Of the
Brunswick Theatre. A conversation the other
tiay with a son of Mr.. Symonds, who has been
long settled in London, recalled the entire
chain Of circumstances to my memory with all
the vivid dis,inctness of first impression.
One evening towards the close of the year
lso6, the Leeds coach brought Mr. James
Horribly to the village of Pool. on the Wharf.
in the West-Riding of Yorkshire A small
but respectable house on the confines of the
place had been prepared for his reception, and
a few minutes after his descent from the top of
the coach, the pale, withered-looking man dis
appeared within it. Except for occasional trips
TO Otley, a small market-towu about three
miles from Pool, he rarely afterwards emerged
from its seclusion. Ii was not Time, we shall
presently see-he was indeed but four-and-for-
ty years of age-that had bowed his figure,
thinned his whitening hair, and banished from
his countenance all signs of healthy, cheerful
life. This, too, appeared to be the opinion of
the gossips of the village, who, congregated
as usual, to witness the arrival and departure
Of the coach, indulged, thought Mr. Symonds
who was an inside passenger proceeding on to
Otley, in remarkable free-and-easy commenta-
ries upon the past, present, and future of the
new conner.
i mind him WE'LL quavered an old white
haired man. Its just three-and-twenty years
ago last Michaelmas. l remember it because
ct the hand frost two years before. that Young
Jim Hornby left Obey to GO to London just
the place, I'm told, TO give the finishing polish
to such a msscteant As he seemed likely to be-
He was just out OF his time to old Hornby, his
uncle, the grocer
He that's left such heaps of money!
'Ay, boy, the very same, though he wouldn't
have given him or any one else cheese-paring
whilst he lived. This one is true chip of
the old block, I'll warrant. You noticed that
he rode outside, bitter cold as it isl
Surely, CATER Alexis. But do We mind
what it was he went off in such skurry fort
Tom Harris was saying last night at the Horse
Shoe it was something concerning horse race
or young woman he warnt quite sensible
which
i can't say rejoined the more ancient ora
Gle, that quite mind all the ups and downs
S< u Henry Barton horsewhipped him on
the Doncaster race-course, that know but
whether it was about Cinderella, that had, they
said, been tampered with the night before the
race, or Miss Elizabeth Gainsford, whom Bur-
ton married few weeks afterwards, can't. as
Tom Harris says, quite clearly rsmember.'
-Old Hornby had a heavy grip of Burton's
farm for long time before he died, they were
saving yesterday at oiey- The sheepskins
will now no doubt be in the aephew's strong
box
True, lad and let's hope Master Burton
will be regular with his payments; for if not,
there's Jail and Ruin for him written in capi-
tal letters, on yon fellows cast-iron phiz, can
see
The random hits of these Pool gossips,
which were here interrupted BY the departure
'st tiae coach, were not very wide Of the mark
James Hornby, it was quite true, had been
publicly horsewhipped twenty-three years be-
fore, by Henry Burton on the Doncaster race
course. ostensibly on account of the sudden
withdrawal of horse that should have started,
a transaction with which Hcruby was in some
measure mixed up; ba, especially and really
ser having dared, npon the strength of pre-
sumptive heirship to his uncle's wealth, to ad-
vance pretensions to the fair hand of Elizabeth
Gainsford the eldest daughter of Mr. Robert
Gainsford, surgeon of Otley-pretensions indi-
rectly favored, it was said, by the father, but
contemptuously repudiated by the lady. Be
that as it may, three weeks after the races,
Elizabeth Gainsford became Mrs. Burton, and
James Hornby hurried off to London, grudg-
ingly furnished for the journey by his uncle
He obtained situation as shopman in one of
the large grocer establishments of the metrop-
oils; and twenty-three years afterwards, the
attorneys letter, informing him that he had
succeeded to all his deceased uncle's property,
found him in the same place, and in the same
capacity
A perfect veil of delight broke from the lips
of the taciturn man as his glance devoured the
welcome intelligence. AT last he shouted,
with maniacal glee, and fiercely crumpling the
letter in his hand, as if he held living foe in
his grasp, whilst flash of hendish passion
broke from the deep caverns ofhis sunken eyes
-sat last | have thee on the hip, All mine
enemv,-it is the dead-the dead alone that
never return to hurl back on the head Of the
wrong-doer the shame, the misery, the ruin he
inflicted in his hour of triumph" The vio-
Ience of passion suddenly unreined after years
of Jealous curb and watchfulness, for moment
overcame him. and he reeled, as if fainting into
a chair. The fierce, stern nature of the man,
soon mastered the unwonted excitement, and in
few minutes he was cold, silent, impossible
as ever. The letter which he despatched the
same evening, gave calm, business orders as TO
his nncie's funeral, and other pressing matters
upon which the attorney had demanded instruc-
lions, and concluded by intimating that he
should be in Yorkshire before many days
elapsed. He arrived, as we have seen, and
took up his abode at one of the houses be-
queathed to him in Pool, which happened to be
unlet.
Yes, for more than twenty bitter years James
Hornby had savagely brooded over the shame