Page:The Mystery of a Hansom Cab.djvu/196

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According to the copy books of our youth, "Procrastination is the thief of time," and certainly, Brian found that the remark was a true one. He had been nearly a week in town, yet could not make up his mind to go and see Calton, and though morning after morning he set out with the determination to go straight to Chancery Lane, yet he never arrived there. He had gone back to his lodgings in East Melbourne, and passed his time either in the house or in taking long walks in the gardens, or along the banks of the muddy Yarra. When he did go into town, on business connected with the sale of his station, he drove there and back in a hansom, for he had a curious shrinking against seeing any of his friends. He quite agreed with Byron's remark about "d——d good natured friends," and was determined that he would not meet or talk with people, whose every word and action would imperceptibly remind him of the disgrace which had fallen on him of standing in the criminal dock. Even when walking by the Yarra he had a sort of uneasy feeling that he was looked upon as an object of curiosity, and as being very handsome, many people turned and looked at him, he attributed their admiration to a morbid desire for seeing a man who had nearly been hanged for murder.

As soon as his situation was sold and he married to Madge, he determined to leave Australia, and never set foot on it again. But until he could leave the place he saw no one, nor mixed with his former friends, so great was his dread at being stared at. Mrs. Sampson, who had welcomed him back with shrill exclamations of delight, was loud in her expressions of disapproval as to the way he was shutting himself up.

"Your eyes bein' 'ollow," said the sympathizing cricket, "it is nat'ral as it's want of air, which my 'usband's uncle, bein' a druggist, an' well-to-do, in Collingwood, ses as 'ow a want of ox-eye-gent, bein' a French name, as 'e called the atmispeare, were fearful for pullin' people down, an'