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enormity of this offence against all manly and honourable sentiment proved, beyond doubt, the main if not the
sole reason of the impunity with which it was committed. Who, indeed, among my most abandoned
associates, would not rather have disputed the clearest evidence of his senses, than have suspected of such
courses, the gay, the frank, the generous William Wilson -- the noblest and most commoner at Oxford -- him
whose follies (said his parasites) were but the follies of youth and unbridled fancy -- whose errors but
inimitable whim -- whose darkest vice but a careless and dashing extravagance?
I had been now two years successfully busied in this way, when there came to the university a young parvenu
nobleman, Glendinning -- rich, said report, as Herodes Atticus -- his riches, too, as easily acquired. I soon
found him of weak intellect, and, of course, marked him as a fitting subject for my skill. I frequently engaged
him in play, and contrived, with the gambler's usual art, to let him win considerable sums, the more
effectually to entangle him in my snares. At length, my schemes being ripe, I met him (with the full intention
that this meeting should be final and decisive) at the chambers of a fellow-commoner, (Mr. Preston,) equally
intimate with both, but who, to do him Justice, entertained not even a remote suspicion of my design. To give
to this a better colouring, I had contrived to have assembled a party of some eight or ten, and was solicitously
careful that the introduction of cards should appear accidental, and originate in the proposal of my
contemplated dupe himself. To be brief upon a vile topic, none of the low finesse was omitted, so customary
upon similar occasions that it is a just matter for wonder how any are still found so besotted as to fall its
victim.
We had protracted our sitting far into the night, and I had at length effected the manoeuvre of getting
Glendinning as my sole antagonist. The game, too, was my favorite ecarte! The rest of the company,
interested in the extent of our play, had abandoned their own cards, and were standing around us as spectators.
The parvenu, who had been induced by my artifices in the early part of the evening, to drink deeply, now
shuffled, dealt, or played, with a wild nervousness of manner for which his intoxication, I thought, might
partially, but could not altogether account. In a very short period he had become my debtor to a large amount,
when, having taken a long draught of port, he did precisely what I had been coolly anticipating -- he proposed
to double our already extravagant stakes. With a well-feigned show of reluctance, and not until after my
repeated refusal had seduced him into some angry words which gave a color of pique to my compliance, did I
finally comply. The result, of course, did but prove how entirely the prey was in my toils; in less than an hour
he had quadrupled his debt. For some time his countenance had been losing the florid tinge lent it by the wine;
but now, to my astonishment, I perceived that it had grown to a pallor truly fearful. I say to my astonishment.
Glendinning had been represented to my eager inquiries as immeasurably wealthy; and the sums which he had
as yet lost, although in themselves vast, could not, I supposed, very seriously annoy, much less so violently
affect him. That he was overcome by the wine just swallowed, was the idea which most readily presented
itself; and, rather with a view to the preservation of my own character in the eyes of my associates, than from
any less interested motive, I was about to insist, peremptorily, upon a discontinuance of the play, when some
expressions at my elbow from among the company, and an ejaculation evincing utter despair on the part of
Glendinning, gave me to understand that I had effected his total ruin under circumstances which, rendering
him an object for the pity of all, should have protected him from the ill offices even of a fiend. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]