Every thing is irrevocable. The word spoken, the deed done, is registered in that book of fate from the page of which no solvent can blot it out. Nay, more: every word or action, however small, has some effect on all that surrounds it; and that effect is often quite out of all proportion to the cause. It is hard for the narrow, slippery mind of man to conceive and hold fast the fact that a pebble dropped into the Atlantic produces a ripple which is more or less felt to all the Atlantic's shores: yet it is a fact. The eye may not be keen enough to detect it ten yards from the spot where the stone displaced the waters; but, though unseen, it exists. It may be crossed by counteracting causes, but still it acts upon them while they act upon it; and it has its effect,--permanent, persisting, never ending. It is the same with man's actions. Deeds done a thousand years ago are affecting every one of us now; and Julius Cæsar has more to do with a common-councilman of the city of London than that common-councilman ever dreams of. We have seen that Edward Langdale had little to do but to think. The surgeons would not let him read. He was enjoined to speak as little as possible, for there was a shrewd suspicion that the sword which wounded him had passed through, or very near, one of the lungs. But he employed thought to good purpose,--to calm all angry feelings, to quench repinings, to humble himself to God's will. He was naturally led by this train of thought to follow, in reference to his own case, some of the fine threads out of which the great network of cause and effect is wrought. "Why should I be so angry with my brother?" he thought. "If he had not taken from me my property, what a different creature I should have been!--a country squire with a pack of hounds; a justice of the peace some day, to hear old women's plaints about robbed orchards and violated hen-roosts! I should never have been Lord Montagu's page; I should never have met with dear, dear Lucette. Sweet girl! where is she now? Does she think of me still? Does she ever regret the indissoluble bond that binds us together?" Then the train of thought became somewhat more gloomy. He recollected that for two long years--how sadly, sadly long they seemed in prospect!--he was not to see her. And what might happen in the interval? All means, all arts, would be used to induce her to forget him, to break their union, perhaps to make her love some other; and he felt for an instant, as he thus pondered, the little, sharp sting of jealousy,--the most poignant of pangs.