This, however, was not to be his lot; like a man
cursed with creaking shoes, stepping lightly, and tiptoeing availed not;
a _creak_ always betrayed him when he was most anxious to creep
into a corner.
At his father's death he found himself possessed of a competency and a
villa; but he was unhappy, he was known in the neighbourhood, people
called on him, and he was expected to call on them, and these calls and
recalls bored him. He never, in his life, could abide looking any one
straight in the face; a pair of human eyes meeting his own was actually
painful to him. It was not to be endured. He sold his villa, and
determined to go to some place where, being a total stranger, he might
pass unnoticed and unknown, attracting no attention, no remarks.
He went to Cheltenham and consulted Boisragon about his nerves, was
recommended a course of the waters, and horse exercise.
The son of the weeper very naturally thought he had already "too much
of water;" he, however, hired a nag, took a small suburban lodging, and
as nobody spoke to him, nor seemed to care about him, he grew better,
and felt sedately happy. This blest seclusion, "the world forgetting,
by the world forgot," was not the predestined fate of Sighmon: odd
circumstances always brought him into notice.
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