After leaving Juanita I walked round by the guard-house in which I had been imprisoned, and through the ruins where Carmen and I had hidden when we were making our escape. They suggested some stirring memories—Carera (who, as I learned from Juanita, had been dead several years) and his chivalrous friendship; Salvador and his reckless courage; our midnight ride; Gahra and the bivouac by the mountain-tarn (poor Gahra, what had become of him?); Majia and his guerillas; Griscelli and his blood-hounds (how I hated that man, but surely by this time he had got his deserts); Gondocori and Queen Mamcuna; the man-killer; and Quipai.

My mind was still busied with these memories when I reached the hotel. There seemed to be much more going on than there had been earlier in the day—horsemen were coming and going, servants hurrying to and fro, people promenading on the patio, a group of uniformed officers deep in conversation. One of them, a tall, rather stout man, with grizzled hair, a pair of big epaulettes, and a coat covered with gold lace, had his back toward me, and as my eye fell on his sword-hilt it struck me that I had seen something like it before. I was trying to think where, when the owner of it turned suddenly round, and I found myself face to face with—GRISCELLI!!

For some seconds we stared at each other in blank amazement. I could see that though he recognized me, he was trying to make believe that he did not; or, perhaps, he really doubted whether I was the man I seemed.

"That is my sword," I said, pointing to the weapon by his side, which had been given to me by Carera.

"Your sword! What do you mean?" "You took it from me eleven years ago, when I fell into your hands at San Felipe, and you hunted my friend Carmen and myself with bloodhounds."

"What folly is this? Hunted you with bloodhounds, forsooth! Why, this is the first time I ever set eyes on you—the man is mad—or drunk" (addressing his friends).

"You lie, Griscelli; and you are not a liar merely, but a murderer and a coward."

"Por Dios, you shall pay for this insult with your heart's blood!" he shouted, furiously, half drawing his sword.

"It is like you to draw on an unarmed man." I said, laying hold of his wrist. "Give me a sword, and you shall make me pay for the insult with my blood—if you can. Senores" (by this time all the people in the patio had gathered round us), "Senores, are there here any Venezuelan caballeros who will bear me out in this quarrel. I am an Englishman, by name Fortescue; eleven years ago, while serving under General Mejia on the patriot side, I fell into the hands of General Griscelli, who deprived me of the sword he now wears, which I received as a present from Senor Carera, whose name you may remember. Then, after deceiving us with false promises—my friend General Carmen and myself—he hunted us with his bloodhounds, and we escaped as by a miracle. Now he protests that he never saw me before. What say you, senores, am I not right in stigmatizing him as a murderer and liar?"

"Quite right!" said a middle-aged, soldierly-looking man. I also served in the war of liberation, and remember Griscelli's name well. It would serve him right to poniard him on the spot."

"No, no. I want no murder. I demand only satisfaction."

"And he shall give it you or take the consequences. I will gladly act as one witness, and I am sure my friend here, Senor Don Luis de Medina, who is also a veteran of the war, will act as the other. Will you fight, Griscelli?"

"Certainly—provided that we fight at once, and to the death. You can arrange the details with my friends here."

"Be it so." I said, "A la muerte."

"To the death! To the death!" shouted the crowd, whose native ferocity was now thoroughly roused.

After a short conference and a reference to Griscelli and myself, the seconds announced that we were to fight with swords in Senor de Medina's garden, whither we straightway wended, for there were no police to meddle with us, and at that time duels a la muerte were of daily occurrence in the city of Caracas. When we arrived at the garden, which was only a stone's-throw walk from the posada, Senor de Medina produced two swords with cutting edges, and blades five feet long; for we were to fight in Spanish fashion, and Spanish duelists both cut and thrust, and, when occasion serves, use the left hand as a help in parrying.

Then the spectators, of whom there were fully two score, made a ring, and Griscelli and I (having meanwhile doffed our hats, coats, and shirts), stepped into the arena.

I had not handled a sword for years, and for aught I knew Griscelli might be a consummate swordsman and in daily practice. On the other hand, he was too stout to be in first-rate condition, and, besides being younger, I had slightly the advantage in length of arm.

When the word was given to begin, he opened the attack with great energy and resolution, and was obviously intent on killing me if he could. For a minute or two it was all I could do to hold my own; and partly to test his strength and skill, partly to get my hand in, I stood purposely on the defensive.

At the end of the first bout neither of us had received a scratch, but Griscelli showed signs of fatigue while I was quite fresh. Also he was very angry and excited, and when we resumed he came at me with more than his former impetuosity, as if he meant to bear me down by the sheer weight and rapidity of his strokes. His favorite attack was a cut aimed at my head. Six several times he repeated this manoeuvre, and six times I stopped the stroke with the usual guard. Baffled and furious, he tried it again, but—probably because of failing strength—less swiftly and adroitly. My opportunity had come. Quick as thought I ran under his guard, and, thrusting his right arm aside with my left hand, passed my sword through his body.

Then there were cries of bravo, for the popular feeling was on my side, and my seconds congratulated me warmly on my victory. But I said little in reply, my attention being attracted by a young man who was kneeling beside Griscelli's body and, as it might seem, saying a silent prayer. When he had done he rose to his feet, and as I looked on his face I saw he was the dead man's son.

"Sir, you have killed my father, and I shall kill you," he said, in a calm voice, but with intense passion. "Yes, I shall kill you, and if I fail my cousins will kill you. If you escape us all, then we will charge our children to avenge the death of the man you have this day slain. We are Corsicans, and we never forgive. I know your name; mine is Giuseppe Griscelli."

"You are distraught with grief, and know not what you say," I said as kindly as I could, for I pitied the lad. "But let not your grief make you unjust. Your father died in fair fight. If I had not killed him he would have killed me, and years ago he tried to hunt me to death for his amusement."

"And I and mine—we will hunt you to death for our revenge. Or will you fight now? I am ready."

"No, I have no quarrel with you, and I should be sorry to hurt you."

"Go your way, then, but remember—"

"Better leave him; he seems half-crazed," interposed Medina. "Come into my house while my slaves remove the body."



CHAPTER XXXV.

A NOVEL WAGER.

Three days afterward Carmen, apprised by his wife of my arrival, returned to Caracas, and I became their guest, greatly to my satisfaction, for the duel with Griscelli, besides making me temporarily famous, had brought me so many friends and invitations that I knew not how to dispose of them.

In discussing the incident with Salvador, I expressed surprise that Griscelli should have dared to return to a country where he had committed so many cruelties and made so many enemies.

"He left Venezuela the year after you disappeared, and much is forgotten in ten years," was the answer. "All the same, I don't suppose he would have come back if Olivarez—the last president and a Yellow—had not made it known that he would bestow commissions on Spanish officers of distinction and give them commands in the national army. It was a most absurd proceeding. But we shot Olivarez three months ago, and I will see that these Spanish interlopers are sent out of the country forthwith, that young spark who threatens to murder you, included."

"Let him stay if he likes. I doubt whether he meant what he said."

"I have no doubt of it, whatever, amigo mio, and he shall go. If he stayed in the country I could not answer for your safety; and if you come across any of the Griscellis in Europe, take my advice and be as watchful as if you were crossing a river infested with caribe fish."

Carmen was much discouraged by the state of the republic, as well he might be. By turning out the Spaniards the former colonies had merely exchanged despotism for anarchy; instead of being beaten with whips they were beaten with scorpions. But though discouraged Carmen was not dismayed. He belonged to the Blues, who being in power, regarded their opponents, the Yellows, as rebels; and he was confident that the triumph of his party would insure the tranquillity of the country. As he was careful to explain to me, he was a Blue because he was a patriot, and he pressed me so warmly to return with him to La Victoria, accept a command in his army, and aid in the suppression of the insurrection, that I ended by consenting.

At Carmen's instance, the president gave me the command of a brigade, and would have raised me to the rank of general. But when I found that there were about three generals for every colonel I chose the nominally inferior but actually more distinguished grade.

I remained in Venezuela two years, campaigning nearly all the time. But it was an ignoble warfare, cruel and ruthless, and had I not given my word to Carmen, to stand by him until the country was pacified, I should have resigned my commission much sooner than I did. Ramon, who acted as one of my orderlies, bore himself bravely and was several times wounded.

In the meanwhile I received several communications from Van Voorst, and made two visits to Curacoa. The cutting and disposal of my diamonds being naturally rather a long business, it was nearly two years after I had shipped them to Holland before I learned the result of my venture.

After all expenses were paid they brought me nearly three hundred thousand pounds, which account Goldberg, Van Voorst & Company "held at my disposal."

It was to arrange and advise with the Amsterdam people, as to the investment of this great fortune, that I went to Europe. But I did not depart until my promise was fulfilled. I left Venezuela pacified—from exhaustion—and Carmen in somewhat better spirits than I had found him.

His last words were a warning, which I have had frequent occasion to remember: "Beware of the Griscellis."

I sailed from Curacoa (Ramon, of course, accompanying me), in a Dutch ship, bound for Rotterdam, whither I arrived in due course, and proceeding thence to Amsterdam, introduced myself to Goldberg, Van Voorst & Company. They were a weighty and respectable firm in every sense of the term, and received me with a ponderous gravity befitting the occasion.

Though extremely courteous in their old-fashioned way, they neither wasted words nor asked unnecessary questions. But they made me a momentous proposal—no less than to become their partner. They had an ample capital for their original trade of diamond merchants; but having recently become contractors for government loans, they had opportunities of turning my fortune to much better account than investing it in ordinary securities. Goldberg & Company did not make it a condition that I should take an active part in the business—that would be just as I pleased. After being fully enlightened as to the nature of their transactions, and looking at their latest balance-sheets, I closed with the offer, and I have never had occasion to regret my decision. We opened branch houses in London and Paris; the firm is now one of the largest of its kind in Europe; we reckon our capital by millions, and, as I have lived long, and had no children to provide for, the amount standing to my credit exceeds that of all the other partners put together, and yields me a princely income.

But I could not settle down to the monotonous career of a merchant, and though I have always taken an interest in the business of the house, and on several important occasions acted as its special agent in the greater capitals, my life since that time—a period of nearly fifty years—has been spent mainly in foreign travel and scientific study. I have revisited South America and recrossed the Andes, ridden on horseback from Vera Cruz to San Francisco, and from San Francisco to the headwaters of the Mississippi and the Missouri. I served in the war between Belgium and Holland, went through the Mexican campaign of 1846, fought with Sam Houston at the battle of San Jacinto, and was present, as a spectator, at the fall of Sebastopol and the capture of Delhi. In the course of my wanderings I have encountered many moving accidents by flood and field. Once I was captured by Greek brigands, after a desperate fight, in which both Ramon and myself were wounded, and had to pay four thousand pounds for my ransom. For the last twenty years, however, I have avoided serious risks, done no avoidable fighting, and travelled only in beaten tracks; and, unless I am killed by one of the Griscelli, I dare say I shall live twenty years longer.

While studying therapeutics and pathology under Professor Giessler, of Zurich, shortly after my return to Europe, I took up the subject of longevity, as to which Giessler had collected much curious information, and formed certain theories, one being that people of sound constitution and strong vitality, with no hereditary predisposition to disease may, by observing a correct regimen, easily live to be a hundred, preserving until that age their faculties virtually intact—in other words, only begin to be old at a hundred. So far I agree with him, but as to what constituted a "correct regimen" we differed. He held that the life most conducive to length of years was that of the scholar—his own, in fact—regular, uneventful, reflective, and sedentary. I, on the other hand, thought that the man who passed much of his time in the open air, moving about and using his limbs, would live the longer—other things being equal, and assuming that both observed the accepted rules of health.

The result of our discussion was a friendly wager. "You try your way; I will try mine," said Giessler, "and we will see who lives the longer—at any rate, the survivor will. The survivor must also publish an account of his system, pour encourageur les autres."

As we were of the same age, equally sound in constitution and strong in physique, and not greatly dissimilar in temperament, I accepted the challenge. The competition is still going on. Every New Year's day we write each other a letter, always in the same words, which both answers and asks the same questions: "Still alive?" If either fails to receive his letter at the specified time, he will presume that the other is hors de combat, if not dead, and make further inquiry. But I think I shall win. Three years ago I met Giessler at the meeting of the British Association, and, though he denied it, he was palpably aging. His shoulders were bent, his hearing and eye-sight failing, and the area senilis was very strongly marked, while I—am what you see.

I have, however, had an advantage over the professor, which it is only fair to mention. In my wanderings I have always taken occasion, when opportunity offered, to observe the habits of tribes who are remarkable for longevity. None are more remarkable in this respect than the Callavayas of the Andes, and I satisfied myself that they do really live long, though perhaps not so long as some of them say. Now, these people are herbalists, and when they reach middle age make a practice of drinking a decoction which, as they believe, has the power of prolonging life. I brought with me to Europe specimens and seeds of the plant (peculiar to the region) from which the simple is distilled, analyzed the one and cultivated the other. The conclusion at which I arrived was, that the plant in question did actually possess the property of retarding that softening of the arteries which more than anything else causes the decrepitude of old age. It contains a peculiar alkaloid of which, for thirty years past, I had taken (in solution) a much-diluted dose almost daily. You see the result. I also give Ramon an occasional dose, and he is the most vigorous man of his years I know. I sent some to Giessler, but he said it was an empirical remedy, and declined to take it. He preferred electric baths. I take my electric baths by horseback exercise, and riding to hounds.

Yes, I believe I shall finish my century—without becoming senile either in body or mind—if I can escape the Griscelli. I was in hopes that I had escaped them by coming here; but I never stay long in Europe that they don't sooner or later find me out. I think I shall have to spend the remainder of my life in America or the East. The consciousness of being continually hunted, that at any moment I may be confronted with a murderer and perchance be murdered, is too trying for a man of my age. To tell the truth, I am beginning to feel that I have nerves; though my elixir delays death, it does not insure perpetual youth; and propitiating these people is out of the question—I have tried it.

Three years after my return from Venezuela, Guiseppe, son of the man whom I killed at Caracas, tried to kill me at Amsterdam, fired at me point-blank with a duelling pistol, and so nearly succeeded that the bullet grazed my cheek and cut a piece out of my ear. Yet I not only pardoned him, but bribed the police to let him go, and gave him money. Well, seven years later he repeated the attempt at Naples, waylaid me at night and attacked me with a dagger, but I also happened to be armed, and Guiseppi Griscelli died.

At Paris, too—indeed, while the empire lasted—I found it expedient to shun France altogether. At that time Corsicans were greatly in favor; several members of the Griscelli family belonged to the secret police and had great influence, and as I never took an alias and my name is not common, I was tracked like a criminal. Once I had to leave Paris by stealth at dead of night; another time I saved my life by simulating death. But why recount all the attempts on my life? Another time, perhaps. The subject is not a pleasant one, but this I will say: I never spared a Griscelli that I had not cause to regret my clemency. The last I spared was the young man who tried to murder me down in the wood there; and if he does not repay my forbearance by repeating the attempt, he will be false to the traditions of his race.



CHAPTER XXXVI.

EPILOGUE.

It is scarcely necessary to observe that the deciphering of Mr. Fortescue's notes and the writing of his memoirs were not done in a day. There were gaps to be filled up, obscure passages to be elucidated, and parts of several chapters and the whole of the last were written to his dictation, so that the summer came and went, and another hunting-season was "in view," before my work, in its present shape, was completed. I would fain have made it more complete by giving a fuller account of Mr. Fortescue's adventures (some of which must have been very remarkable) between his first return from South America and his appearance at Matching Green, and I should doubtless have been able to do so (for he had promised to continue and amplify his narrative during the winter, as also to give me the recipe of his elixir), had not our intercourse been abruptly terminated by one of the strangest events in my experience and, I should think, in his.

But, before going further, I would just observe that Mr. Fortescue's cynicism, which, when I first knew him, had rather repelled me, was only skin-deep. Though he held human life rather cheaper than I quite liked, he was a kind and liberal master and a generous giver. His largesses were often princely and invariably anonymous, for he detested everything that savored of ostentation and parade. On the other hand, he had no more tolerance for mendicants in broadcloth than for beggars in rags, and to those who asked he gave nothing. As an instance of his dislike of publicity, I may mention that I had been with him several months before I discovered that he had published, under a pseudonym, several scientific works which, had he acknowledged them, would have made him famous.

After Guiseppe Griscelli's attempt on his life, I prevailed on Mr. Fortescue never to go outside the park gates unaccompanied; when he went to town, or to Amsterdam, Ramon always went with him, and both were armed. I also gave strict orders to the lodge-keepers to admit no strangers without authority, and to give me immediate information as to any suspicious-looking characters whom they might see loitering about.

These precautions, I thought, would be quite sufficient to prevent any attack being made on Mr. Fortescue in the daytime. It was less easy to guard against a surprise during the night, for the park-palings were not so high as to be unclimbable; and the idea of a night-watchman was suggested only to be dismissed, for the very sufficient reason that when he was most wanted he would almost certainly be asleep. I had no fear of Griscelli breaking in at the front door; but the house was not burglar-proof, and, as it happened, the weak point in our defence was one of the windows of Mr. Fortescue's bedroom. It looked into the orchard, and, by climbing a tree which grew hard by, an active man could easily reach it, even without a ladder. The danger was all the greater, as, when the weather was mild, Mr. Fortescue always slept with the window open. I proposed iron bars, to which he objected that iron bars would make his room look like a prison. And then I had a happy thought.

"Let us fix a strong brass rod right across the window-frame," I said, "in such a way that nobody can get in without laying hold of it, and by connecting it with a strong dynamo-battery inside, make sure that the man who does lay hold of it will not be able to let go."

The idea pleased Mr. Fortescue, and he told me to carry it out, which I did promptly and effectively, taking care to make the battery so powerful that, if Mr. Griscelli should try to effect an entrance by the window, he would be disagreeably surprised. The circuit was, of course, broken by dividing the rod in two parts and interposing a non-conductor between them.

To prevent any of the maids being "shocked," I told Ramon (who acted as his master's body servant) to connect the battery every night and disconnect it every morning. From time to time, moreover, I overhauled the apparatus to see that it was in good working order, and kept up its strength by occasionally recharging the cells.

Once, when I was doing this, Mr. Fortescue said, laughingly: "I don't think it is any use, Bacon; Griscelli won't come in that way. If, as some people say, it is the unexpected that happens, it is the expected that does not happen."

But in this instance both happened—the expected and the unexpected.

As I mentioned at the outset of my story, the habits of the Kingscote household were of an exemplary regularity. Mr. Fortescue, who rose early, expected everybody else to follow his example in this respect, and, as a rule, everybody did so.

One morning, at the beginning of October, when the sun rose about six o'clock, and we rose with it, I got up, donned my dressing-gown, and went, as usual, to take my matutinal bath. In order to reach the bath-room I had to pass Mr. Fortescue's chamber-door. As I neared it I heard within loud exclamations of horror and dismay, in a voice which I recognized as the voice of Ramon. Thinking that something was wrong, that Mr. Fortescue had perchance been taken suddenly ill, I pushed open the door and entered without ceremony.

Mr. Fortescue was sitting up in bed, looking with startled gaze at the window; and Ramon stood in the middle of the room, aghast and dismayed.

And well he might, for there hung at the window a man—or the body of one—his hands convulsively grasping the magnetized rod, the distorted face pressed against the glass, the lack-lustre eyes wide open, the jaw drooping. In that ghastly visage I recognized the features of Giuseppe Griscelli!

"Is he dead, doctor?" asked Mr. Fortescue.

"He has been dead several hours," I said, as I examined the corpse.

"So much the better; the brood is one less, and perhaps after this they will let me live in peace. They must see that so far as their attempts against it are concerned, I bear a charmed life. You have done me a great service, Doctor Bacon, and I hold myself your debtor."

Ramon and I disconnected the battery and dragged the body into the room. We found in the pockets a butcher's knife and a revolver, and round the waist a rope, with which the would-be murderer had doubtless intended to descend from the window after accomplishing his purpose.

This incident, of course, caused a great sensation both at Kingscote and in the country-side, and, equally of course, there was an inquest, at which Mr. Fortescue, Ramon, and myself, were the only witnesses. As Mr. Fortescue did not want it to be known that he was the victim of a vendetta, and detested the idea of having himself and his affairs discussed by the press, we were careful not to gainsay the popular belief that Griscelli was neither more nor less than a dangerous and resolute burglar, and, as his possession of lethal weapons proved, a potential murderer. As for the cause of death I said, as I then fully believed (though I have since had occasion to modify this opinion somewhat), that the battery was not strong enough to kill a healthy man, and that Griscelli had died of nervous shock and fear acting on a weak heart. In this view the jury concurred and returned a verdict of accidental death, with the (informal) rider that it "served him right." The chairman, a burly farmer, warmly congratulated me on my ingenuity, and regretted that he had not "one of them things" at every window in his house.

So far so good; but, unfortunately, a London paper which lived on sensation, and happened at the moment to be in want of a new one, took the matter up. One of the editor's jackals came down to Kingscote, and there and elsewhere picked up a few facts concerning Mr. Fortescue's antecedents and habits, which he served up to his readers in a highly spiced and amazingly mendacious article, entitled "old Fortescue and his Strange Fortunes." But the sting of the article was in its tail. The writer threw doubt on the justice of the verdict. It remained to be proved, he said, that Griscelli was a burglar, and his death accidental. And even burglars had their rights. The law assumed them to be innocent until they were proved to be guilty, and it could be permitted neither to Mr. Fortescue nor to any other man to take people's lives, merely because he suspected them of an intention to come in by the window instead of the door. By what right, he asked, did Mr. Fortescue place on his window an appliance as dangerous as forked lightning, and as deadly as dynamite? What was the difference between magnetized bars in a window and spring-guns on a game-preserve? In conclusion, the writer demanded a searching investigation into the circumstances attending Guiseppe Griscelli's death, likewise the immediate passing of an act of Parliament forbidding, under heavy penalties, the use of magnetic batteries as a defence against supposed burglars.

This effusion (which he read in a marked copy of the paper obligingly forwarded by the enterprising editor) put Mr. Fortescue in a terrible passion, which made him, for a moment, look younger than ever I had seen him look before. The outrage rekindled the fire of his youth; he seemed to grow taller, his eyes glowed with anger, and, had the enterprising editor been present, he would have passed a very bad quarter of an hour.

"The fellow who wrote this is worse than a murderer!" he exclaimed. "I'll shoot him—unless he prefers cold steel, and then I shall serve him as I served General Griscelli; and 'pon my soul I believe Griscelli was the least rascally of the two! I would as lief be hunted by blood-hounds as be stabbed in the back by anonymous slanderers!"

And then he wanted me to take a challenge to the enterprising editor, and arrange for a meeting, which rendered it necessary to remind him that we were not in the England of fifty years ago, and that duelling was abolished, and that his traducer would not only refuse to fight, but denounce his challenger to the police and gibbet him in his paper. I pointed out, on the other hand, that the article was clearly libellous, and recommended Mr. Fortescue either to obtain a criminal information against the proprietor of the paper, or sue him for damages.

"No, sir!" he answered, with a gesture of indignation and disdain—"no, sir, I shall neither obtain a criminal information nor sue for damages. The man who goes to law surrenders his liberty of action and becomes the sport of chicaning lawyers and hair-splitting judges. I would rather lose a hundred thousand pounds!"

Mr. Fortescue passed the remainder of the day at his desk, writing and arranging his papers. The next morning I heard, without surprise, that he and Ramon were going abroad.

"I don't know when I shall return," said Mr. Fortescue, as we shook hands at the hall door, "but act as you always do when I am from home, and in the course of a few days you will hear from me."

I did hear from him, and what I heard was of a nature so surprising as nearly to take my breath away.

"You will never see me at Kingscote again," he wrote; "I am going to a country where I shall be safe, as well from the attacks of Corsican assassins as from the cowardly outrages of rascally newspapers." And then he gave instructions as to the disposal of his property at Kingscote. Certain things, which he enumerated, were to be packed up in cases and forwarded to Amsterdam. The furniture and effects in and about the house were to be sold, and the proceeds placed at the disposal of the county authorities for the benefit of local charities. Every outdoor servant was to receive six months' pay, every in-door servant twelve months' pay, in lieu of notice. Geirt was to join Mr. Fortescue in a month's time at Damascus; and to me, in lieu of notice, and as evidence of his regard, he gave all his horses, carriages, saddlery, harness, and stable equipments (not being freehold) of every description whatsoever, to be dealt with as I thought fit for my personal advantage. His solicitors, with my help, would wind up his affairs, and his bankers had instructions to discharge all his liabilities.

His memoirs, or so much of them as I had written down, I might (if I thought they would interest anybody) publish, but not before the fiftieth year of the Victorian era, or the death of the German emperor, whichever event happened first. The letter concluded thus: "I strongly advise you to buy a practice and settle down to steady work. We may meet again. If I live to be a hundred, you shall hear from me. If I die sooner you will probably hear of my demise from the house at Amsterdam, to whom please send your new address."

I was exceedingly sorry to lose Mr. Fortescue. Our intercourse had been altogether pleasant and agreeable, and to myself personally in a double sense profitable; for he had taught me many things and rewarded me beyond my deserts. Also the breaking up of Kingscote and the disposal of the household went much against the grain. Yet I freely confess that Mr. Fortescue's splendid gift proved a very effective one, and almost reconciled me to his absence.

All the horses and carriages, except five of the former, and two traps, I sent up to Tattersall's. As the horses, without exception, were of the right sort, most of them perfect hunters, and it was known that Mr. Fortescue would not have an unsound or vicious animal in his stables, they fetched high prices. The sale brought me over six thousand pounds. Two-thirds of this I put out at interest on good security; with the remainder I bought a house and practice in a part of the county as to which I will merely observe that it is pleasantly situated and within reach of three packs of hounds. The greater part of the year I work hard at my profession; but when November comes round I engage a second assistant and (weather permitting) hunt three and sometimes four days a week, so long as the season lasts.

And often when hounds are running hard and I am well up, or when I am "hacking" homeward after a good day's sport, I think gratefully of the man to whom I owe so much, and wonder whether I shall ever see him again.

THE END