Page:The Romance of Isabel, Lady Burton.djvu/79

Rh attack the Sikhs. Yet, notwithstanding all these unique qualifications, when Richard Burton applied for the post of interpreter to accompany the second expedition to Mooltan in 1849, he was passed over on account of a feeling against him in high quarters, on which it is unnecessary here to dwell. This disappointment, and the mental and physical worry and fatigue which he had undergone, broke down his health. He applied for sick leave, and came home on a long furlough.

After a sojourn in England, he went to France (1850) to join his family, who were then staying at Boulogne, like the Arundells and most of the English colony, for change, quiet, and economy. Whilst at Boulogne he brought out two or three books and prepared another. Burton took a gloomy view of his prospects at this time; for he writes, "My career in India has been in my eyes a failure, and by no fault of my own; the dwarfish demon called 'Interest' has fought against me, and as usual has won the fight." There was a good deal of prejudice against him even at Boulogne, for unfounded rumours about him had travelled home from India.

Burton, as it may be imagined, did not lead the life which was led by the general colony at Boulogne. "He had a little set of men friends," Isabel notes; "he knew some of the French; he had a great many flirtations—one very serious one. He passed his days in literature and fencing. At home he was most domestic; his devotion to his parents, especially to his sick mother, was very beautiful." At this time he was twenty-eight years of age. The Burton family