Varney the Vampire; Or, the Feast of Blood by Prest and Rymer (most recommended books .txt) 📕

"Thus matters went on; I sometimes won and sometimes lost, until I won a few hundreds, and this determined me to play for higher stakes than any I had yet played for.

"It was no use going on in the peddling style I had been going on; I had won two hundred and fifty pounds in three months, and had I been less fearful I might have had twenty-five thousand pounds. Ah! I'll try my fortune at a higher game.

"Having once made this resolution, I was anxious to begin my new plan, which I hoped would have the effect of placing me far above my then present position in society, which was good, and with a little attention it would have made me an independent man; but then it required patience, and nothing more. However, the other method was so superior since it might all be done with good luck in a few months. Ah! good luck; how uncertain is good luck; how changeful is fortune; how soon is the best prospect blighted by the frosts of adversity. In less than a month I had lost more than I could pay, and then I gambled on for a living.

"My wife had but one child; her first and only one; an infant at her breast; but there was a change came over her; for one had come over me—a fearful one it was too—one not only in manner but in fortune too. She would beg me to come home early; to attend to other matters, and leave the dreadful life I was then leading.

"'Lizzy,' said I, 'we are ruined.'—'Ruined!' she exclaimed, and staggered back, until she fell into a seat. 'Ruined!'

"'Ay, ruined. It is a short word, but expressive.'—'No, no, we are not ruined. I know what you mean, you would say, we cannot live as we have lived; we must retrench, and so we will, right willingly.'

"'You must retrench most wonderfully,' I said, with desperate calmness, 'for the murder must out.'—'And so we will; but you will be with us; you will not go out night after night, ruining your health, our happiness, and destroying both peace and prospects.'

"'No, no, Lizzy, we have no chance of recovering ourselves; house and home—all gone—all, all.'—'My God!' she exclaimed.

"'Ay, rail on,' said I; 'you have cause enough; but, no matter—we have lost all.'—'How—how?'

"'It is useless to ask how; I have done, and there is an end of the matter; you shall know more another day; we must leave this house for a lodging.'—'It matters little,' she said; 'all may be won again, if you will but say you will quit the society of those who have ruined you.'

"'No one,' said I, 'has ruined me; I did it; it was no fault of any one else's; I have not that excuse.'—'I am sure you can recover.'

"'I may; some day fortune will shower her favours upon me, and I live on in that expectation.'—'You cannot mean that you will chance the gaming-table? for I am sure you must have lost all there?'

"'I have.'—'God help me,' she said; 'you have done your child a wrong, but you may repair it yet.'

"'Never!'—''Tis a long day! let me implore you, on my knees, to leave this place, and adopt some other mode of life; we can be careful; a little will do, and we shall, in time, be equal to, and better than what we have been.'

"'We never can, save by chance.'—'And by chance we never shall,' she replied; 'if you will exert yourself, we may yet retrieve ourselves.'

"'And exert myself I will.'—'And quit the gaming-table?'

"'Ask me to make no promises,' said I; 'I may not be able to keep them; therefore, ask me to make none.'—'I do ask you, beg of, entreat of you to promise, and solemnly promise me that you will leave that fearful place, where men not only lose all their goods, but the feelings of nature also.'

"'Say no more, Lizzy; if I can get a living elsewhere I will, but if not, I must get it there.'

"She seemed to be cast down at this, and she shed tears. I left the room, and again went to the gambling-house, and there that night, I won a few pounds, which enabled me to take my wife and child away from the house they had so long lived in, and took them afterwards to a miserable place,—one room, where, indeed, there were a few articles of furniture that I had saved from the general wreck of my own property.

"She took things much less to heart than I could have anticipated; she seemed cheerful and happy,—she endeavoured to make my home as comfortable as she could.

"Her whole endeavour was to make me as much as possible, forget the past. She wanted, as much as possible, to wean me away from my gambling pursuits, but that was impossible. I had no hope, no other prospect.

"Thus she strove, but I could see each day she was getting paler, and more pale; her figure, before round, was more thin, and betrayed signs of emaciation. This preyed upon me; and, when fortune denied me the means of carrying home that which she so much wanted, I could never return for two days at a time. Then I would find her shedding tears, and sighing; what could I say? If I had anything to take her, then I used to endeavour to make her forget that I had been away.

"'Ah!' she would exclaim, 'you will find me dead one of these days; what you do now for one or two days, you will do by-and-bye for many days, perhaps weeks.'—'Do not anticipate evil.'

"'I cannot do otherwise; were you in any other kind of employment but that of gambling,' she said, 'I should have some hope of you; but, as it is, there is none.'—'Speak not of it; my chances may turn out favourable yet, and you may be again as you were.'

"'Never.'—'But fortune is inconstant, and may change in my favour as much as she has done in others.'

"'Fortune is indeed constant, but misfortune is as inconstant.'—'You are prophetic of evil."

"'Ah! I would to Heaven I could predict good; but who ever yet heard of a ruined gambler being able to retrieve himself by the same means that he was ruined?'

"Thus we used to converse, but our conversation was usually of but little comfort to either of us, for we could give neither any comfort to the other; and as that was usually the case, our interviews became less frequent, and of less duration. My answer was always the