He held it up to the light; a smile was at first on his features; he had nerved himself to the ordeal. His friends would not find that he shrank from it--he even smiled, after a manner, as he read the thing--but suddenly his jaw fell, his face became pale. In another second he had crushed the paper between his hands. He crushed it and tore it, and then flung it on the floor and trampled on it. He walked to and fro in the room with bent head. Then he did a strange thing: he removed his sword and placed it in a corner, as if he were going to dine, and, without a word to any of his friends, left the room, carrying with him his cane only. CHAPTER XVII. Kenrick's article in the _London Packet_ remains to this day as the vilest example of scurrility published under the form of criticism. All the venom that can be engendered by envy and malice appears in every line of it. It contains no suggestion of literary criticism; it contains no clever phrase. It is the shriek of a vulgar wretch dominated by the demon of jealousy. The note of the Gadarene herd sounds through it, strident and strenuous. It exists as the worst outcome of the period when every garret scribbler emulated “Junius,” both as regards style and method, but only succeeded in producing the shriek of a wildcat, instead of the thunder of the unknown master of vituperation. Goldsmith read the first part of the scurrility without feeling hurt; but when he came to that vile passage--“For hours the _great_ Goldsmith will stand arranging his grotesque orangoutang figure before a pier-glass. Was but the lovely H------k as much enamoured, you would not sigh, my gentle swain”--his hands tore the paper in fury. He had received abuse in the past without being affected by it. He did not know much about natural history, but he knew enough to make him aware of the fact that the skunk tribe cannot change their nature. He did not mind any attack that might be made upon himself; but to have the name that he most cherished of all names associated with his in an insult that seemed to him diabolical in the manner of its delivery, was more than he could bear. He felt as if a foul creature had crept behind him and had struck from thence the one who had been kindest to him of all the people in the world. There was the horrible thing printed for all eyes in the town to read. There was the thing that had in a moment raised a barrier between him and the girl who was all in all to him. How could he look Mary Horneck in the face again? How could he ever meet any member of the family to whom he had been the means of causing so much pain as the Hornecks would undoubtedly feel when they read that vile thing? He felt that he himself was to blame for the appearance of that insult upon the girl. He felt that if the attack had not been made upon him she would certainly have escaped. Yes, that blow had been struck by a hand that stretched over him to her.