Parson Codling, then, took the common clerical fever. During the railway mania he saw men spring suddenly from poverty to great wealth, and very soon came to the conclusion that nothing would be easier than for him to do as they did. Entirely ignorant of the game of speculation, Codling took to speculating with the fearlessness of a master in the art, and following a common rut of fortune, he for a time succeeded. One land speculation in which he joined, and where the shareholders of a new line of railway were fleeced of fabulous thousands, cleared him, it was said, about L1800, and he did well with sundry purchases of shares. Naturally, success made him bolder. He bought anything and everything, became an expert user of stock exchange slang, and deeply versed in the "rigs" and dodges of the share market. Some of the squires around began to envy him, others cursed him for a nuisance, but still he made money, and no doubt would have gone on making it indefinitely had somebody always been found ready to buy when he wanted to sell. Unluckily for him, the day came when he could not sell at any price, and as he had been lifted clean off his feet by the elation of his early speculative successes, he only came back to the hard earth to find himself ruined. The crisis of 1847 did not break out without much foreshadowing to prudent men, but to the Rev. Josiah Codling it came like the trumpet of doom. Till the very last he clung to the hope that a rise in the share markets would set him free. That fatal October therefore passed like a whirlwind, leaving Codling stripped of all he had previously made and some L40,000 in debt. To save him from public exposure and disgrace, his wife had to part with nearly all her property in Worcester, and they were glad, ultimately, to escape with as much as yielded about L200 a-year beyond the value of the living. Had all the creditors been fairly paid they would not have retained a penny, but Codling struggled and wheedled, and, it is said, shed copious floods of tears over his hard fate, until pitying people let him go. Such an untoward end of the glorious visions in which the vicar had indulged naturally embittered his home circle. Mrs. Codling could not forgive her lord for ruining her, and took to reviling the poor wretch early and late. The miserable fellow would have borne his misfortunes ill enough even if sympathised with. Being reviled, he bore them not at all. He drowned them in drink. At first he stupified himself with brandy; but that proving too dear for his means, he relapsed to gin, and led a sodden existence.