The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1880-04-24
SOME ONE PAYS.
CHAPTER 1.


BRINDIsI, August.
DEAR HARRY-Our plans are all formed.
We start from this on Tuesday for Corfu,
where we have secured a small cutter of some
thirty tons, by which we mean to drop down
the Albanian coast, making woodcocks our
object on all the days pigs do not offer. We
are four-Gerard, Hope, Lasceles and myself
of whom you know all but Lascelles, but are
sure to like when you meet him. We want
you, and will take no refusal. Hope declares
on his honor that he will never pay you hun
dred you lent him if you fail us and he will
which is more remarkable still-book up the
day you join us. Seriously, however, | entreat
you to be one of us. Take no trouble about
guns, etc. We are amply provided. We only
ask yourself. Yours ever, GEORGE OGLE.
Ifyou cannot join at Corfu, we shall rendez-
vous at Prevesa, a little town on the Turkish
side, where you can address us, to the care OF
This note reached me one day in the
late autumn, while l was soiourning at
the Lamm, at Innspruck. 1t had fol
lowed me from Paris to Munich, to Ba-
den, the Ammergan, and at last over
took me at lnnspruck, some four weeks
after it had been written. If was ANNOYED
at the delay which lost me such pleas
ant companionship, for three of the four
were old friends, glance at the post
script reconciled me at once to the dis
experimentation and the name
Lydyard, awoke very sad memories; and
do not know what would have induced
me to refresh them by seeing either
again. tits not story, nor is it scene,
that l am about to relate. 1t is one of
those little incidents which are ever oc-
curing through life, and which serve to
remind us how our moral health, like
our physical, is the sport of accident;
and that just as the passing breeze may
carry on its breast a pleurisy, the chance
meetings in the world may be scarcely
less fatal!
l have been an idler and wanderer
for years. left the army after short
experience of military life, imagining
that | could not endure the restraints of
discipline, and slowly discovered after
wards that there is no such slavery as an
untrammelled will, and that the most
irksome bondage is nothing in COMPARE
son with the vacillations and uncertain
ties of a purposeless existence.
was left early in life my own master,
with no relatives except distant ones, and
with means, not exactly ample, but
quite sufficient for the ordinary needs of
a gentleman. was free to 90 anywhere
or do anything, which, in my case at
least, meant to be everlastingly project
ing and ABANDONING determining
on some pursuit that should give me an
object or goal in life, and now assuring
myself that all such determinations were
slaveries, and that to conform to the
usages by which men sought success in
public or professional life was an ignoble
drudgery, and unworthy of him who
could live without it.
In this unsettled frame of mind /
travelled about the world for years-at
first over the cognate parts of the Cont
nent, with which / became thoroughly
familiar, knowing Rome, Paris, Vienna,
and Naples, as | knew London. | then
ran all over the States, crossing the
Rocky Mountains, and spending above
year on the Pacific Coast. visited China
and India. | camel will not say home,
for have none--by Constantinople, and
thence to Belgrade, where l made the
acquaintance of a Turkish Pacha, then
Governor of Scutari in Albania, and re-
turned along with him to his seat of
government. A Vice-Governor of Pre-
vesa induced me to go back with him to
that unpromising spot, assuring me how
easy / should always find means of reach
ing Corfu or Italy; and that meantime,
the quail-shooting, which was then be-
ginning, would amply reward me for my
stay.
Prevesa was about as wretched vii
lage as poverty, sloth and Turkish indif-
ference could accomplish. The inhabit-
ants, who combined trade and fishing
Ostensibly, really lived by smuggling,
and only needed the opportunity to be
brigands on shore. Their wretched
"bazaar" displayed only the commonest
wares of Manchester or Glasgow, with