Many things occurred to him in later life of the sort men would avoid, but never came much greater mental shock than on that black occasion.
Stunned, dazed, he went outside and threw himself upon the grass and tried to reason out what could be done.

Was he never to know the fate of Don Sebastian?
It was beyond endurance! A cheap quality of literature the book was, no doubt, but he was not critical at that age, and in later years he often sought the volume out of curiosity to learn what in his boyhood had entranced him, but he never found it.

It was a small, fat volume, very like a pocket Bible in shape, bound cheaply in green cloth, and printed in England, probably somewhere in the '30's, but it had disappeared.

The bereaved youth was, henceforth, in as sore a retrospective strait over "Don Sebastian" as Mr.Andrew Lang declares he is, to-day, with his "White Serpent" story.
Byron--"Don Juan," in particular--had an effect upon the youth, and "The Prisoner of Chillon" gave him dreams.

"Snarleyow" was the book, though, which struck him as something great in literature.