As he passed the gates of the stable-yard, the keeper came out—a sturdy bullet-headed fellow, in a velveteen coat, and cord breeches and gaiters—and touched his hat. Tom returned the salute, and wished him good morning.

"Mornin', sir; you be about early."

"Yes; I reckon it's the best time for sport at the end of June."

"'Tis so, Sir. Shall I fetch a net, and come along!"

"No, thank you, I'll manage the ladle myself. But which do you call the best water?"

"They be both middling good. They ain't much odds atwixt 'em. But I see most fish movin' o' mornin's in the deep water down below."

"I don't know; the night was too hot," said Tom, who had examined the water the day before, and made up his mind where he was going. "I'm for deep water on cold days; I shall begin with the stickles up above. There's a good head of water on, I suppose?"

"Plenty down this last week, sir."

"Come along, then; we'll walk together, if you're going that way." So Tom stepped off, brushing through the steaming long grass, gemmed with wild flowers, followed by the keeper; and, as the grasshoppers bounded chirruping out of his way, and the insect life hummed and murmured, and the lark rose and sang above his head, he felt happier than he had done for many a long month. So his heart opened towards his companion, who kept a little behind him.

"What size do you take 'em out, keeper?"

"Anything over nine inches, sir. But there's a smartish few fish of three pounds, for them as can catch 'em."

"Well, that's good; but they ain't easy caught, eh?"

"I don't rightly know, sir; but there's gents comes as stands close by the water, and flogs down stream with the sun in their backs, and uses all manner o' vlies, wi' long names; and then they gwoes away, and says, 'tain't no use flying here, 'cas there's so much cadis bait and that like."

"Ah, very likely," said Tom, with a chuckle.

"The chaps as catches the big fishes, sir," went on the keeper, getting confidential, "is thay cussed night-line poachers. There's one o' thay as has come here this last spring-tide—the artfullest chap as ever I come across, and down to every move on the board. He don't use no shove-nets, nor such-like tackle; not he; I s'pose he don't call that sport. Besides, I got master to stake the whole water, and set old knives and razors about in the holes, but that don't answer; and this joker all'us goes alone—which, in course, he couldn't do with nets. Now, I knows within five or six yards where that chap sets his lines, and I finds 'em, now and again, set the artfullest you ever see. But 'twould take a man's life to look arter him, and I knows he gets, maybe, a dozen big fish a week, do all as I knows."

"How is it you can't catch him, keeper?" said Tom, much amused.

"Why you see sir, he don't come at any hours. Drat un!" said the keeper, getting hot; "blessed if I don't think he sometimes comes down among the haymakers and folk at noon, and up lines and off, while they chaps does nothing but snigger at un—all I knows is, as I've watched till midnight, and then on again at dawn for'n, and no good come on it but once."

"How was that?"

"Well, one mornin', sir, about last Lady-day, I comes quite quiet up stream about dawn. When I get's to Farmer Giles's piece (that little rough bit, sir, as you sees t'other side the stream, two fields from our outside bounds), I sees un a stooping down and hauling in's line. 'Now's your time, Billy,' says I, and up the hedge I cuts, hotfoot, to get betwixt he and our bounds. Wether he seen me or not, I can't mind; leastways, when I up's head t'other side the hedge, vorights where I seen him last, there was he a-trotting up stream quite cool, a-pocketing a two-pounder. Then he sees me and away we goes side by side for the bounds—he this side the hedge and I t'other; he takin' the fences like our old greyhound-bitch, Clara. W e takes the last fence on to that fuzzy field as you sees there, Sir (parson's glebe and out of our liberty), neck and neck, and I turns short to the left, 'cos there warn't no fence now betwixt he and I. Well, I thought he'd a dodged on about the fuz. Not he; he slouches his hat over's eyes, and stands quite cool by fust fuz bush—I minded then as we was out o' our beat. Hows'ever my blood was up; so I at's him then and there, no words lost, and fetches a crack at's head wi my stick.' He fends wi' his'n; and then, as I rushes in to collar'n, dash'd if 'e didn't meet I full, and catch I by the thigh and collar, and send I slap over's head into a fuz bush.

"Then he chuckles fit to bust hisself, and cuts his stick, while I creeps out full o' prickles, and wi' my breeches torn shameful. Dang un!" cried the keeper, while Tom roared, "he's a lissum wosbird, that I 'ool say, but I'll be up sides wi' he next time I sees un. Whorson fool as I was, not to stop and look at 'n and speak to un! Then I should ha' know'd 'n again; and now he med be our parish clerk for all as I know."

"And you've never met him since?"

"Never sot eye on un, sir, arly or late—wishes I had."

"Well, keeper, here's a half crown to go towards mending the hole in your breeches, and better luck at the return match. I shall begin fishing here."

"Thank'ee, sir. You keep your cast pretty nigh that there off bank, and you med have a rare good un ther'. I seen a fish suck there just now as warn't spawned this year, nor last nether."

And away went the communicative keeper.

"Stanch fellow, the keeper," said Tom to himself, as he reeled out yard after yard of his tapered line, and with a gentle sweep dropped his collar of flies lightly on the water, each cast covering another five feet of the dimpling surface. "Good fellow, the keeper—don't mind telling a story against himself—can stand being laughed at—more than master can. Ah, there's the fish he saw sucking, I'll be bound. Now, you beauties, over his nose, and fall light, don't disgrace your bringing up!" and away went the flies quivering through the air and lighting close to the opposite bank, under a bunch of rushes. A slight round eddy flowed below the rushes as the cast came gently back across the current.

"Ah, you see them, do you, old boy?" thought Tom. "Say your prayers, then, and get shrived!" and away went the flies again, this time a little below. No movement. The third throw, a great lunge and splash, and the next moment the lithe rod bent double, and the gut collar spun along, cutting through the water like mad. Up goes the great fish twice into the air, Tom giving him the point; then up stream again, Tom giving him the butt, and beginning to reel up gently. Down goes the great fish into the swaying weeds, working with his tail like a twelve-horse screw. "If I can only get my nose to ground," thinks he. So thinks Tom, and trusts to his tackle, keeping a steady strain on trouty, and creeping gently down stream. "No go," says the fish as he feels his nose steadily hauled round, and turns a swirl downstream. Away goes Tom, reeling in, and away goes the fish in hopes of a slack—away, for twenty or thirty yards—the fish coming to the top lazily, and again, and holding on to get his second wind. Now a cart track crosses the stream, no weeds, and shallow water at the side. "Here we must have it out," thinks Tom, and turns fish's nose up stream again. The big fish gets sulky, twice drifts towards the shallow, and twice plunges away at the sight of his enemy into the deep water. The third time he comes swaying in, his yellow side gleaming and his mouth open; and, the next moment Tom scoops him out onto the grass, with a "whoop" that might have been heard at the house.

"Two pounder, if he's an ounce," says Tom, as he gives him the coup de grace, and lays him out lovingly on the fresh green sward.

Who amongst you, dear readers, can appreciate the intense delight of grassing your first big fish after a nine month's fast? All first sensations have their special pleasure; but none can be named, in a small way, to beat this of the first fish of the season. The first clean leg-hit for four in your first match at Lord's—the grating of the bows of your racing boat against the stern of the boat ahead in your first race—the first half-mile of a burst from the cover side in November, when the hounds in the field ahead may be covered with a table-cloth, and no one but the huntsman and a top sawyer or two lies between you and them—the first brief after your call to the bar, if it comes within the year—the sensations produced by these are the same in kind; but cricket, boating, getting briefs, even hunting lose their edge as time goes on. As to lady readers, it is impossible, probably, to give them an idea of the sensation in question. Perhaps some may have experienced something of the kind at their first balls, when they heard whispers and saw all eyes turning their way, and knew that their dresses and gloves fitted perfectly. But this joy can be felt but once in a life, and the first fish comes back as fresh as ever, or ought to come, if all men had their rights, once in a season. So, good luck to the gentle craft, and its professors, may the Fates send us much into their company! The trout fisher, like the landscape painter, haunts the loveliest places of the earth, and haunts them alone. Solitude and his own thoughts—he must be on the best terms with all of these; and he who can take kindly the largest allowance of these is likely to be the kindliest and truest with his fellow men.

Tom had splendid sport that summer morning. As the great sun rose higher, the light morning breeze, which had curled the water, died away; the light mist drew up into light cloud, and the light cloud vanished, into cloudland, for anything I know; and still the fish rose, strange to say, though Tom felt it was an affair of minutes, and acted accordingly. At eight o'clock he was about a quarter of a mile from the house, at a point in the stream of rare charms both for the angler and the lover of gentle river beauty. The main stream was crossed by a lock, formed of a solid brick bridge with no parapets, under which the water rushed through four small arches, each of which could be closed in an instant by letting down a heavy wooden lock gate, fitted in grooves on the upper side of the bridge. Such locks are frequent in the west-country streams—even at long distances from mills and millers, for whose behoof they were made in old days, that the supply of water to the mill might be easily regulated. All pious anglers should bless the memories of the old builders of them, for they are the very paradises of the great trout, who frequent the old brickwork and timber foundations. The water in its rush through the arches, had of course worked for itself a deep hole, and then, some twenty yards below, spread itself out in wanton joyous ripples and eddies over a broad surface some fifty yards across, and dashed away towards a little island some two hundred yards below, or rolled itself slowly back towards the bridge again, up the backwater by the side of the bank, as if longing for another merry rush through one of those narrow arches. The island below was crowned with splendid alders, willows forty feet high, which wept into the water, and two or three poplars; a rich mile of water meadow, with an occasional willow or alder, lay gleaming beyond; and the view was bounded by a glorious wood, which crowned the gentle slope, at the foot of which the river ran. Another considerable body of water, which had been carried off above from the main stream to flush the water meadows, joined its parent at this point; it came slowly down a broad artificial ditch running parallel with the main stream; and the narrow strip of land which divided the two streams ended abruptly just below the lock, forming a splendid point for bather or angler.

Tom had fixed on this pool as his bonne bouche, as a child keeps its plums till the last, and stole over the bridge, stooping low to gain the point indicated. Having gained it, he glanced round to be aware of the dwarf ash-trees and willows which were scattered along the strip, and might catch heedless collars and spoil sport, when, lying lazily almost on the surface where the backwater met the stream from the meadows, he beheld the great grandfather of all trout, a fellow two feet long and a foot in girth at the shoulders, just moving fin enough to keep him from turning over on to his back. He threw himself flat on the ground and crept away to the other side of the strip; the king fish had not seen him; and the next moment Tom saw him suck in a bee, laden with his morning's load of honey, who touched the water unwarily close to his nose. With trembling hand, Tom took off his tail fly, and, on his knee, substituted a governor; then shortening his line, after wetting his mimic bee in the pool behind him, tossed it gently into the monster's very jaws. For a moment the fish seemed scared, but the next, conscious in his strength, lifted his nose slowly to the surface and sucked in the bait.

Tom struck gently, and then sprang to his feet. But the Heavens had other work for the king fish, who dived swiftly under the bank; a slight jar followed, and Tom's rod was straight over his head, the line and scarcely a yard of his trusty gut collar dangling about his face. He seized this remnant with horror and unsatisfied longing, and examined it with care. Could he have overlooked any fraying which the gut might have got in the morning's work? No; he had gone over every inch of it not five minutes before, as he neared the pool. Besides it was cut clean through, not a trace of bruise or fray about it. How could it have happened? He went to the spot and looked into the water; it was slightly discolored and he could not see the bottom. He threw his fishing coat off, rolled up the sleeve of his flannel shirt, and, lying on his side, felt about the bank and tried to reach the bottom but couldn't. So, hearing the half-hour bell ring, he deferred further inquiry, and stripped in silent disgust for a plunge in the pool. Three times he hurled himself into the delicious rush of the cold chalk stream, with that utter abandon in which man, whose bones are brittle, can only indulge when there are six or seven feet of water between him and mother earth; and, letting the stream bear him away at its own sweet will to the shallows below, struck up again through the rush and the roar to his plunging place. Then, slowly and luxuriously dressing, he lit his short pipe—companion of meditation—and began to ruminate on the escape of the king fish. What could have cut his collar? The more he thought, the less he could make it out. When suddenly he was aware of the keeper on his way back to the house for orders and breakfast.

"What sport, sir?"

"Pretty fair," said Tom, carelessly, lugging five plump speckled fellows, weighing some seven and a half pounds, out of his creel, and laying them out for the keeper's inspection.

"Well, they be in prime order, sir, surely," says the keeper, handling them; "they allus gets mortal thick across the shoulders while the May-fly be on. Loose any sir?"

"I put in some little ones up above, and lost one screamer just up the black ditch there. He must have been a four-pounder, and went off, and be hanged to him, with two yards of my collar and a couple of first-rate flies. How on earth he got off I can't tell!" and he went on to unfold the particulars of the short struggle.

The keeper could hardly keep down a grin. "Ah, sir," said he, "I thinks I knows what spwiled your sport. You owes it all to that chap as I was a telling you of, or my name's not Willum Goddard;" and then, fishing the lockpole with a hook at the end of it out of the rushes, he began groping under the bank, and presently hauled up a sort of infernal machine, consisting of a heavy lump of wood, a yard or so long, in which were carefully inserted the blades of four or five old knives and razors, while a crop of rusty jagged nails filled up the spare space.

Tom looked at it in wonder. "What devil's work have you got hold of there?" he said at last.

"Bless you, sir," said the keeper, "'tis only our shove net traps as I was a telling you of. I keeps hard upon a dozen on 'em and shifts 'em about in the likeliest holes; and I takes care to let the men as is about the water meadows see me a-sharpening on 'em up a bit wi' a file, now and again. And since master gev me orders to put 'em in, I don't think they tries that game on not once a month."

"Well but where do you and your master expect to go to if you set such things as those about?" said Tom, looking serious. "Why, you'll be cutting some fellow's hand or foot half off one of these days. Suppose I'd waded up the bank to see what had become of my cast?"

"Lor', sir, I never thought o' that," said the keeper, looking sheepish and lifting the back of his short hat off his head to make room for a scratch; "but," added he turning the subject, "if you wants to keep they artful wosbirds off the water, you must frighten 'em wi' summat out o' the way. Drattle 'em, I knows they puts me to my wit's end; but you'd never 'a had five such fish as them afore breakfast, sir, if we didn't stake the waters."

"Well, and I don't want 'em if I can't get 'em without. I'll tell you what it is, keeper, this razor business is going a bit too far; men ain't to be maimed for liking a bit of sport. You set spring-guns in the woods, and you know what that came to. Why don't you, or one of your watchers, stop out here at night, and catch the fellows, like men?

"Why, you see, sir, master don't allow me but one watcher and he's mortal feared o' the water, he be, specially o' nights. He'd sooner by half stop up in the woods. Daddy Collins (that's an old woman as lives on the heath, sir, and a bad sort she be, too) well, she told him once, when he wouldn't gee her some baccy as he'd got, and she'd a mind to, as he'd fall twice into the water for once as he'd get out; and th' poor chap ever since can't think but what he'll be drownded. And there's queer sights and sounds by the river o' nights, too, I 'ool say, sir, let alone the white mist, as makes everything look unket, and gives a chap the rheumatics."

"Well, but you ain't afraid of ghosts and rheumatism?"

"No, I don't know as I be, sir. But then there's the pheasants a-breedin', and there's four brood of flappers in the withey bed, and a sight of young hares in the spinneys. I be hard put to to mind it all."

"I daresay you are," said Tom, putting on his coat and shouldering his rod; "I've a good mind to take a turn at it myself, to help you, if you'll only drop those razors."

"I wishes you would, sir," said the keeper, from behind; "if genl'men'd sometimes take a watch at nights, they'd find out as keepers hadn't all fair weather work, I'll warrant, if they're to keep a good head o' game about a place. 'Taint all popping off guns, and lunching under hayricks, I can tell 'em—no, nor half on it."

"Where do you think, now, this fellow we are talking of sells his fish?" said Tom, after a minute's thought.

"Mostly at Reading Market, I hears tell, sir. There's the guard of the mail, as goes by the cross-roads three days a week, he wur a rare poaching chap hisself down in the west afore he got his place along of his bugle-playing. They do say as he's open to any game, he is, from a buck to a snipe, and drives a trade all down the road with the country chaps.

"What day is Reading Market?"

"Tuesdays and Saturdays, sir."

"And what time does the mail go by?"

"Six o'clock in the morning, sir, at the cross-roads."

"And they're three miles off, across the fields?"

"Thereabouts, sir. I reckons it about a forty minutes' stretch, and no time lost."

"There'll be no more big fish caught on the fly to-day," said Tom, after a minute's silence, as they neared the house.

The wind had fallen dead, and not a spot of cloud in the sky.

"Not afore nightfall, I think, sir;" and the keeper disappeared towards the offices.



CHAPTER XXXVII

THE NIGHT WATCH

"You may do as you please, but I'm going to see it out."

"No, but I say do come along; that's a good, fellow."

"Not I; why, we've only just come out. Didn't you hear? Wurley dared me to do a night's watching, and I said I meant to do it."

"Yes; so did I. But we can change our minds. What's the good of having a mind if you can't change it! [Greek text] ai denterai poz phrontidez sophoterai—isn't that good Greek and good sense?"

"I don't see it. They'll only laugh and sneer if we go back now."

"They'll laugh at us twice as much if we don't. Fancy they're just beginning pool now, on that stunning table. Come along, Brown; don't miss your chance. We shall be sure to divide the pools, as we've missed the claret. Cool hands and cool heads, you know. Green on brown, pink your player in hand! That's a good deal pleasanter than squatting here all night on the damp grass."

"Very likely."

"But you won't? Now, do be reasonable. Will you come if I stop with you another half-hour?"

"No."

"An hour then? Say till ten o'clock?"

"If I went at all I would go at once."

"Then you won't come?"

"No."

"I'll bet you a sovereign you never see a poacher, and then how sad you will be in the morning! It will be much worse coming in to breakfast with empty hands and a cold in the head, than going in now. They will chaff then, I grant you."

"Well, then, they may chaff and be hanged, for I shan't go in now."

Tom's interlocutor put his hands in the pockets of his heather mixture shooting coat, and took a turn or two of some dozen yards, backwards and forwards above the place where our hero was sitting. He didn't like going in and facing the pool players by himself; so he stopped once more and reopened the conversation.

"What do you want to do by watching all night, Brown?"

"To show the keeper and those fellows indoors that I mean what I say. I said I'd do it, and I will."

"You don't want to catch a poacher, then?"

"I don't much care; I'll catch one if he comes in my way—or try it on, at any rate."

"I say, Brown, I like that; as if you don't poach yourself. Why, I remember when the Whiteham keeper spent the best part of a week outside the college gates, on the lookout for you and Drysdale and some other fellows."

"What has that to do with it?"

"Why, you ought to have more fellow-feeling. I suppose you go on the principle of set a thief to catch a thief?"

Tom made no answer, and his companion went on.

"Come along, now, like a good fellow. If you'll come in now, we can come out again all fresh, when the rest go to bed."

"Not we. I sha'n't go in. But you can come out again if you like; you'll find me hereabouts."

The man in the heather mixture had now shot his last bolt, and took himself off to the house, leaving Tom by the riverside. How they got there may be told in a few words. After his morning's fishing, and conversation with the keeper, he had gone in full of his subject and propounded it at the breakfast table. His strictures on the knife and razor business produced a rather warm discussion, which merged in the question whether a keeper's life was a hard one, till something was said implying that Wurley's men were overworked. The master took this in high dudgeon, and words ran high. In the discussion, Tom remarked (apropos of night-work) that he would never ask another man to do what he would not do himself; which sentiment was endorsed by, amongst others, the man in the heather mixture. The host had retorted, that they had better in that case try it themselves; which remark had the effect of making Tom resolve to cut short his visit, and in the meantime had brought him and his ally to the river side on the night in question.

The first hour, as we have seen, had been enough for the ally; and so Tom was left in company with a plaid, a stick, and a pipe, to spend the night by himself.

It was by no means the first night he had spent in the open air, and promised to be a pleasant one for camping out. It was almost the longest day in the year, and the weather was magnificent. There was yet an hour of daylight, and the place he had chosen was just the right one for enjoying the evening.

He was sitting under one of a clump of huge old alders, growing on the thin strip of land already noticed, which divided the main stream from the deep artificial ditch which fed the water-meadows. On his left the emerald-green meadows stretched away till they met the inclosed corn-land. On his right ran the main stream, some fifty feet in breadth at this point; on the opposite side of which was a rough piece of ground, half withey-bed, half copse, with a rank growth of rushes at the water's edge. These were the chosen haunts of the moor-hen and water-rat, whose tracks could be seen by dozens, like small open doorways, looking out on to the river, through which ran a number of mysterious little paths into the rush-wilderness beyond.

The sun was now going down behind the copse, through which his beams came aslant, chequered and mellow. The stream ran dimpling by him, sleepily swaying the masses of weed, under the surface and on the surface; and the trout rose under the banks, as some moth or gnat or gleaming beetle fell into the stream; here and there one more frolicsome than his brethren would throw himself joyously into the air. The swifts rushed close by him, in companies of five or six, and wheeled, and screamed, and dashed away again, skimming along the water, baffling his eye as he tried to follow their flight. Two kingfishers shot suddenly up on to their supper station, on a stunted willow stump, some twenty yards below him, and sat there in the glory of their blue backs and cloudy red waistcoats, watching with long sagacious beaks pointed to the water beneath, and every now and then dropping like flashes of light into the stream, and rising again, with what seemed one motion, to their perches. A heron or two were fishing about the meadows; and he watched them stalking about in their sober quaker coats, or rising on slow heavy wing, and lumbering away home with a weird cry. He heard the strong pinions of the wood pigeon in the air, and then from the trees above his head came the soft call, "Take-two-cow-Taffy, take-two-cow-Taffy," with which that fair and false bird is said to have beguilled the hapless Welchman to the gallows. Presently, as he lay motionless, the timid and graceful little water-hens peered out from their doors in the rushes opposite, and, seeing no cause for fear, stepped daintily into the water, and were suddenly surrounded by little bundles of black soft down, which went paddling about in and out of the weeds, encouraged by the occasional sharp, clear, parental "keck-keck," and merry little dabchicks popped up in mid-stream, and looked round, and nodded at him, pert and voiceless, and dived again; even old cunning water-rats sat up on the bank with round black noses and gleaming eyes, or took solemn swims out, and turned up their tails and disappeared for his amusement. A comfortable low came at intervals from the cattle, revelling in the abundant herbage. All living things seemed to be disporting themselves, and enjoying, after their kind, the last gleams of the sunset, which were making the whole vault of heaven glow and shimmer; and, as he watched them, Tom blessed his stars as he contrasted the river-side with the glare of lamps and the click of balls in the noisy pool room.

Before it got dark he bethought him of making sure of his position once more; matters might have changed since he chose it before dinner. With all that he could extract from the keeper, and his own experience in such matters, it had taken him several hours' hunting up and down the river that afternoon before he had hit on a night-line. But he had persevered, knowing that this was the only safe evidence to start from, and at last had found several, so cunningly set that it was clear that it was a first-rate artist in the poaching line against whom he had pitted himself. These lines must have been laid almost under his nose on that very day, as the freshness of the baits proved. The one which he had selected to watch by was under the bank, within a few yards of the clump of alders where he was now sitting. There was no satisfactory cover near the others; so he had chosen this one, where he would be perfectly concealed behind the nearest trunk from any person who might come in due time to take up the line. With this view, then, he got up, and, stepping carefully on the thickest grass where his foot would leave no mark, went to the bank, and felt with the hook of his stick after the line. It was all right, and he returned to his old seat.

And then the summer twilight came on, and the birds disappeared, and the hush of night settled down on river, and copse, and meadow—cool and gentle summer twilight after the hot bright day. He welcomed it too, as it folded up the landscape, and the trees lost their outline, and settled into soft black masses rising here and there out of the white mist, which seemed to have crept up to within a few yards all round him unawares. There was no sound now but the gentle murmur of the water and an occasional rustle of reeds, or of the leaves over his head, as a stray wandering puff of air passed through them on its way home to bed. Nothing to listen to and nothing to look at; for the moon had not risen, and the light mist hid everything except a star or two right up above him. So, the outside world having left him for the present, he was turned inwards on himself.

This was all very well at first; and he wrapped the plaid round his shoulders and leant against his tree, and indulged in a little self-gratulation. There was something of strangeness and adventure in his solitary night-watch, which had its charm for a youngster of twenty-one; and the consciousness of not running from his word, of doing what he had said he would do, while others shirked and broke down, was decidedly pleasant.

But this satisfaction did not last very long, and the night began to get a little wearisome, and too cool to be quite comfortable. By degrees, doubts as to the wisdom of his self-imposed task crept into his head. He dismissed them for a time by turning his thoughts to other matters. The neighbourhood of Englebourn, some two miles up above him, reminded him of the previous summer; and he wondered how he should get on with his cousin when they met. He should probably see her the next day, for he would lose no time in calling. Would she receive him well? Would she have much to tell him about Mary?

He had been more hopeful on this subject of late, but the loneliness, the utter solitude and silence of his position as he sat there in the misty night, away from all human habitations, was not favorable somehow to hopefulness. He found himself getting dreary and sombre in heart—more and more so as the minutes rolled on, and the silence and loneliness pressed on him more and more heavily. He was surprised at his own down-heartedness, and tried to remember how he had spent former nights so pleasantly out of doors. Ah, he had always had a companion within call, and something to do—cray fishing, bat fowling, or something of the kind! Sitting there doing nothing, he fancied, must make it so heavy to-night. By a strong effort of will he shook off the oppression. He moved, and hummed a tune to break the silence; he got up and walked up and down, lest it should again master him. If wind, storm, pouring rain, anything to make sound or movement, would but come!

But neither of them came, and there was little help in sound or movement made by himself. Besides it occurred to him that much walking up and down might defeat the object of his watch. No one would come near while he was on the move; and he was probably making marks already which might catch the eye of the setter of the nightlines at some distance, if that cunning party waited for the morning light, and might keep him away from the place altogether.

So he sat down again on his old seat, and leant hard against the alder trunk, as though to steady himself, and keep all troublesome thoughts well in front of him. In this attitude of defense he reasoned with himself on the absurdity of allowing himself to be depressed by the mere accidents of place, and darkness, and silence; but all the reasoning at his command didn't alter the fact. He felt the enemy advancing again, and, casting, about for help, fell back on the thought that he was going through a task, holding to his word, doing what he had said he would do; and this brought him some relief for the moment, He fixed his mind steadily on this task of his; but alas, here again in his very last stronghold, the enemy began to turn his flank, and the position every minute became more and more untenable.

He had of late fallen into a pestilent habit of cross-questioning himself on anything which he was about—setting up himself like a cock at Shrovetide, and pelting himself with inexorable "whys?" and "wherefores?" A pestilent habit truly he had found it, and one which left a man no peace of his life—a relentless, sleepless habit, always ready to take advantage of him, but never so viciously alert, that he remembered, as on this night.

And so this questioning self, which would never be denied for long, began to examine him, as to his proposed night's work. This precious task, which he was so proud of going through with, on the score of which he had been in his heart crowing over others, because they had not taken it on them, or had let it drop, what then was the meaning of it?

"What was he out there for? What had he come out to do?" They were awkward questions. He tried several answers and was driven from one to another till he was bound to admit that he was out there that night partly out of pique, and partly out of pride; and that his object (next to earning the pleasure of thinking himself a better man than his neighbours) was, if so be, to catch a poacher. "To catch a poacher? What business had he to be catching poachers? If all poachers were to be caught, he would have to be caught himself." He had just had an unpleasant reminder of this fact from him of the heather mixture—a Parthian remark which he had thrown over his shoulder as he went off, and which had stuck. "But then," Tom argued, "it was a very different thing, his poaching—going out for a day's lark after game, which he didn't care a straw for, but only for the sport—and that of men making a trade of it, like the man the keeper spoke of." "Why? How different? If there were any difference, was it one in his favour?" Avoiding this suggestion, he took up new ground, "Poachers were always the greatest blackguards in their neighbourhoods, pests of society, and ought to be put down." "Possibly—at any rate he had been one of the fraternity in his time, and was scarcely the man to be casting stones at them." "But his poaching had always been done thoughtlessly. How did he know that others had worse motives?"

And so he went on, tossing the matter backwards and forwards in his mind, and getting more and more uncomfortable, and unable to answer to his own satisfaction the simple question, "What right have you to be out here on this errand?"

He got up a second time and walked up and down, but with no better success than before. The change of position, and exercise, did not help him out of his difficulties. And now he got a step further. If he had no right to be there, hadn't he better go up to the house and say so, and go to bed like the rest? No, his pride couldn't stand that. But if he couldn't go in, he might turn in to a barn or outhouse, nobody would be any the wiser then, and after all he was not pledged to stop on one spot all night? It was a tempting suggestion, and he was very near yielding to it at once. While he wavered, a new set of thoughts came up to back it. How, if he stayed there, and a gang of night-poachers came? He knew that many of them were desperate men. He had no arms; what could he do against them? Nothing; but he might be maimed for life in a night row which he had no business to be in—murdered, perhaps. He stood still and listened long and painfully.

Every moment, as he listened, the silence mastered him more and more, and his reason became more and more powerless. It was such a silence—a great illimitable, vague silence? The silence of a deserted house where he could at least have felt that he was bounded somewhere, by wall, and floor, and roof—where men must have lived and worked once, though they might be there no longer—would have been nothing; but this silence of the huge, wide out-of-doors world, where there was nothing but air and space around and above him, and the ground beneath, it was getting irksome, intolerable, awful! The great silence seemed to be saying to him, "You are alone, alone, alone!" and he had never known before what horror lurked in that thought.

Every moment that he stood still the spell grew stronger on him, and yet he dared not move; and a strange, wild feeling of fear—unmistakable physical fear, which made his heart beat and his limbs tremble—seized on him. He was ready to cry out, to fall down, to run, and yet there he stood listening, still and motionless.

The critical moment in all panics must come at last. A wild and grewsome hissing and snoring, which seemed to come from the air just over his head, made him start and spring forward, and gave him the use of his limbs again at any rate, though they would not have been worth much to him had the ghost or hobgoblin appeared whom he half expected to see the next moment. Then came a screech, which seemed to flit along the rough meadow opposite, and come towards him. He drew a long breath, for he knew that sound well enough; it was nothing after all but the owls.

The mere realized consciousness of the presence of some living creatures, were they only owls, brought him to his senses. And now the moon was well up, and the wayward mist had cleared away, and he could catch glimpses of the solemn birds every now and then, beating over the rough meadow backwards and forwards, and over the shallow water as regularly as trained pointers.

He threw himself down again under his tree, and now bethought himself of his pipe. Here was a companion which, wonderful to say, he had not thought of before since the night set in. He pulled it out, but paused before lighting. Nothing was so likely to betray his whereabouts as tobacco. True, but anything was better than such another fright as he had had, "so here goes," he thought, "if I keep off all the poachers in Berkshire;" and he accordingly lighted up, and, with the help of his pipe, once more debated with himself the question of beating a retreat.

After a sharp inward struggle, he concluded to stay and see it out. He should despise himself, more than he cared to face, if he gave in now. If he left that spot before morning, the motive would be sheer cowardice. There might be fifty other good reasons for going; but, if he went, his reason would be fear and nothing else. It might have been wrong and foolish to come out; it must be to go in now. "Fear never made a man do a right action," he summed up to himself; "so here I stop, come what may of it. I think I've seen the worst of it now. I was in a real blue funk, and no mistake. Let's see, wasn't I laughing this morning at the watcher who didn't like passing a night by the river? Well, he has got the laugh on me now, if he only knew it. I've learnt one lesson to-night at any rate; I don't think I shall ever be very hard on cowards again."

By the time he had finished his pipe, he was a man again, and, moreover, notwithstanding the damp, began to feel sleepy, now that his mind was thoroughly made up, and his nerves were quiet. So he made the best of his plaid, and picked a softish place, and went off into a sort of dog-sleep, which lasted at intervals through the short summer night. A poor thin sort of sleep it was, in which he never altogether lost his consciousness, and broken by short intervals of actual wakefulness, but a blessed release from the self-questionings and panics of the early night.

He woke at last with a shiver. It was colder than he had yet felt it, and it seemed lighter. He stretched his half-torpid limbs, and sat up. Yes, it was certainly getting light, for he could just make out the figures on the face of his watch which he pulled out. The dawn was almost upon him, and his night watch was over. Nothing had come of it as yet, except his fright, at which he could now laugh comfortably enough; probably nothing more might come of it after all, but he had done the task he had set himself without flinching, and that was a satisfaction. He wound up his watch, which he had forgotten to do the night before, and then stood up, and threw his damp plaid aside, and swung his arm across his chest to restore circulation. The crescent moon was high up in the sky, faint and white, and he could scarcely now make out the stars which were fading out as the glow in the north-east got stronger and broader.

Forgetting for a moment the purpose of his vigil, he was thinking of a long morning's fishing, and had turned to pick up his plaid and go off to the house for his fishing-rod, when he thought he heard the sound of dry wood snapping. He listened intently; and the next moment it came again, some way off, but plainly to be heard in the intense stillness of the morning. Some living thing was moving down the stream. Another moment's listening and he was convinced that the sound came from a hedge some hundred yards below.

He had noticed the hedge before; the keeper had stopped up a gap in it the day before, at the place where it came down to the water, with some old hurdles and dry thorns. He drew himself up behind his alder, looking out from behind it cautiously towards the point from which the sound came. He could just make out the hedge through the mist, but saw nothing.

But now the crackling began again, and he was sure that a man was forcing his way over the keeper's barricade. A moment afterwards he saw a figure drop from the hedge into the slip in which he stood. He drew back his head hastily, and his heart beat like a hammer as he waited the approach of the stranger. In a few seconds the suspense was too much for him, for again there was perfect silence. He peered out a second time cautiously round the tree, and now he could make out the figure of a man stopping by the water-side just above the hedge, and drawing in a line. This was enough, and he drew back again, and made himself small behind the tree; now he was sure that the keeper's enemy, the man he had come out to take, was here! His next halt would be at the line which was set within a few yards of the place where he stood. So the struggle which he had courted was come! All his doubts of the night wrestled in his mind for a minute; but forcing them down, he strung himself up for the encounter, his whole frame trembling with excitement, and his blood tingling through his veins as though it would burst them. The next minute was as severe a trial of nerve as he had ever been put to, and the sound of a stealthy tread on the grass just below came to him as a relief. It stopped, and he heard the man stoop, then came a stir in the water, and the flapping as of a fish being landed.

Now was his time! He sprang from behind the tree, and, the next moment, was over the stooping figure of the poacher. Before he could seize him the man sprung up, and grappled with him. They had come to a tight lock at once, for the poacher had risen so close under him that he could not catch his collar and hold him off. Too close to strike, it was a desperate trial of strength and bottom.

Tom knew in a moment that he had his work cut out for him. He felt the nervous power of the frame he had got hold of as he drove his chin into the poacher's shoulder, and arched his back, and strained every muscle in his body to force him backwards, but in vain. It was all he could do to hold his own; but he felt that he might hold it yet, as they staggered on the brink of the back ditch, stamping the grass and marsh marigolds into the ground, and drawing deep breath through their set teeth. A slip, a false foot-hold, a failing muscle, and it would be over; down they must go-who would be uppermost?

The poacher had trod on a soft place and Tom felt it, and, throwing himself forward, was reckoning on victory, but reckoning without his host. For, recovering himself with a twist of the body which brought them still closer together, the poacher locked his leg behind Tom's in a crook which brought the wrestlings of his boyhood into his head with a flash, as they tottered for another moment, and then losing balance, went headlong over with a heavy plunge and splash into the deep back ditch, locked in each other's arms.

The cold water closed over them, and for a moment Tom held as tight as ever. Under or above the surface it was all the same, he couldn't give in first. But a gulp of water, and the singing in his ears, and a feeling of choking, brought him to his senses, helped too, by the thought of his mother and Mary, and love of the pleasant world up above. The folly and uselessness of being drowned in a ditch on a point of honor stood out before him as clearly as if he had been thinking of nothing else all his life; and he let go his hold—much relieved to find that his companion of the bath seemed equally willing to be quit of him—and struggled to the surface, and seized the bank, gasping and exhausted.

His first thought was to turn round and look for his adversary. The poacher was by the bank too, a few feet from him. His cap had fallen off in the struggle, and, all chance of concealment being over, he too had turned to face the matter out, and their eyes met.

"Good God! Harry! is it you?"

Harry Winburn answered nothing; and the two dragged their feet out of the muddy bottom, and scrambled on to the bank, and then with a sort of common instinct sat down, dripping and foolish, each on the place he had reached, and looked at one another. Probably two more thoroughly bewildered lieges of her Majesty were not at that moment facing one another in any corner of the United Kingdom.



CHAPTER XXXVIII

MARY IN MAYFAIR

On the night which our hero spent by the side of the river, with the results detailed in the last chapter, there was a great ball in Brook-street, Mayfair. It was the height of the season, and of course, balls, concerts, and parties of all kinds were going on in all parts of the Great Babylon, but the entertainment in question was the event of that evening. Persons behind the scenes would have told you at once, had you happened to meet them, and enquire on the subject during the previous ten days, that Brook-street was the place in which everybody who went anywhere ought to spend some hours between eleven and three on this particular evening. If you did not happen to be going there, you had better stay quietly at your club, or your home, and not speak of your engagements for that night.

A great awning had sprung up in the course of the day over the pavement in front of the door, and as the evening closed in, tired lawyers and merchants, on their return from the City, and the riders and drivers on their way home from the park, might have seen Holland's men laying red drugget over the pavement, and Gunter's carts coming and going, and the police "moving on" the street boys and servant maids, and other curious members of the masses, who paused to stare at the preparations.

Then came the lighting up of the rooms, and the blaze of pure white light from the uncurtained ballroom windows spread into the street, and the musicians passed in with their instruments. Then, after a short pause, the carriages of a few intimate friends, who came early at the hostess's express desire, began to drive up, and the Hansom cabs of the contemporaries of the eldest son, from which issued guardsmen and Foreign-office men, and other dancing-youth of the most approved description. Then the crowd collected again round the door—a sadder crowd now to the eye of anyone who has time to look at it; with sallow, haggard looking men here and there on the skirts of it, and tawdry women joking and pushing to the front, through the powdered footmen, and linkmen in red waistcoats, already clamorous and redolent of gin and beer, and scarcely kept back by the half-dozen constables of the A division, told off for the special duty of attending and keeping order on so important an occasion.

Then comes a rush of carriages, and by eleven o'clock the line stretches away half round Grosvenor Square, and moves at a foot's-pace towards the lights, and the music, and the shouting street. In the middle of the line is the comfortable chariot of our friend Mr. Porter—the corners occupied by himself and his wife, while Miss Mary sits well forward between them, her white muslin dress looped up with sprigs of heather spread delicately on either side over their knees, and herself in a pleasant tremor of impatience and excitement.

"How very slow Robert is to-day, mamma! We shall never get to the house."

"He can not get on faster, my dear. The carriage in front of us must set down you know."

"But I wish they would be quicker. I wonder whether we shall know many people? Do you think I shall get partners?"

Not waiting for her mother's reply, she went on to name some of her acquaintance who she knew would be there, and bewailing the hard fate which was keeping her out of the first dances. Mary's excitement and impatience were natural enough. The ball was not like most balls. It was a great battle in the midst of the skirmishes of the season, and she felt the greatness of the occasion.

Mr. and Mrs. Porter had for years past dropped into a quiet sort of dinner-giving life, in which they saw few but their own friends and contemporaries. They generally left London before the season was at its height, and had altogether fallen out of the ball-giving and party going world. Mary's coming out had changed their way of life. For her sake they had spent the winter at Rome, and, now that they were at home again, they were picking up the threads of old acquaintance, and encountering the disagreeables of a return into habits long disused and almost forgotten. The giver of the ball was a stirring man in political life, rich, clever, well-connected, and much sought after. He was an old school-fellow of Mr. Porter's, and their intimacy had never been wholly laid aside, notwithstanding the severance of their paths in life. Now that Mary must be taken out, the Brook-street house was one of the first to which the Porters turned, and the invitation to this ball was one of the first consequences.

If the truth must be told, neither her father nor mother were in sympathy with Mary as they gradually neared the place of setting down, and would far rather have been going to a much less imposing place, where they could have driven up at once to the door, and would not have been made uncomfortable by the shoutings of their names from servant to servant. However, after the first plunge, when they had made their bows to their kind and smiling hostess, and had passed on into the already well filled rooms, their shyness began to wear off, and they could in some sort enjoy the beauty of the sight from a quiet corner. They were not long troubled with Miss Mary. She had not been in the ball-room two minutes before the eldest son of the house had found her out and engaged her for the next waltz. They had met several times already, and were on the best terms; and the freshness and brightness of her look and manner, and the evident enjoyment of her partner, as they laughed and talked together in the intervals of the dance, soon attracted the attention of the young men, who began to ask one another, "Who is Norman dancing with?" and to ejaculate with various strength, according to their several temperaments, as to her face, and figure, and dress.

As they were returning towards Mrs. Porter, Norman was pulled by the sleeve more than once, and begged to be allowed to introduce first one and then another of his friends.

Mary gave herself up to the fascination of the scene. She had never been in rooms so perfectly lighted, with such a floor, such exquisite music, and so many pretty and well-bred looking people, and she gave herself up to enjoy it with all her heart and soul, and danced and laughed and talked herself into the good graces of partner after partner, till she began to attract the notice of some of the ill-natured people who are to be found in every room, and who cannot pardon the pure, and buoyant, and unsuspecting mirth which carries away all but themselves in its bright stream. So Mary passed on from one partner to another, with whom we have no concern, until at last a young lieutenant in the guards who had just finished his second dance with her, led up a friend whom he begged to introduce. "Miss Porter—Mr. St. Cloud;" and then after the usual preliminaries, Mary left her mother's side again and stood up by the side of her new partner.

"It is your first season I believe, Miss Porter?"

"Yes, my first in London."

"I thought so; and you have only just come to town?"

"We came back from Rome six weeks ago, and have been in town ever since."

"But I am sure I have not seen you anywhere this season until to-night. You have not been out much yet?"

"Yes, indeed. Papa and mamma are very good-natured, and go whenever we are asked to a ball, as I am fond of dancing."

"How very odd! and yet I am quite sure I should have remembered it if we had met before in town this year."

"Is it so very odd?" asked Mary, laughing; "London is a very large place; it seems very natural that two people should be able to live in it for a long time without meeting."

"Indeed, you are quite mistaken. You will find out very soon how small London is—at least how small society is, and you will get to know every face quite well—I mean the face of everyone in society."

"You must have a wonderful memory!"

"Yes, I have a good memory for faces, and, by the way, I am sure I have seen you before; but not in town, and I cannot remember where. But it is not at all necessary to have a memory to know everybody in society by sight; you meet every night almost; and altogether there are only two or three hundred faces to remember. And then there is something in the look of people, and the way they come into a room or stand about, which tells you at once whether they are amongst those whom you need trouble yourself about."

"Well, I cannot understand it. I seem to be in a whirl of faces, and can hardly ever remember any of them."

"You will soon get used to it. By the end of the season you will see that I am right. And you ought to make a study of it, or you will never feel at home in London."

"I must make good use of my time then. I suppose I ought to know everybody here, for instance?"

"Almost everybody."

"And I really do not know the names of a dozen people."

"Will you let me give you a lesson?"

"Oh, yes; I shall be much obliged."

"Then let us stand here, and we will take them as they pass to the supper-room."

So they stood near the door-way of the ball-room, and he ran on, exchanging constant nods and remarks with the passers by, as the stream flowed to and from the ices and cup, and then rattling on to his partner with the names and short sketches of the characters and peculiarities of his large acquaintance. Mary was very much amused, and had no time to notice the ill-nature of most of his remarks, and he had the wit to keep within what he considered the most innocent bounds.

"There, you know him of course," he said, as an elderly, soldier-like looking man with a star passed them.

"Yes; at least, I mean I know him by sight. I saw him at the Commemoration at Oxford last year. They gave him an honorary degree on his return from India."

"At Oxford! Were you present at the Grand Commemoration, then?"

"Yes. The Commemoration Ball was the first public ball I was ever at."

"Ah! that explains it all. I must have seen you there. I told you we had met before. I was perfectly sure of it."

"What! were you there, then?"

"Yes. I had the honor of being present at your first ball, you see."

"But how curious that you should remember me!"

"Do you really think so? Surely there are some faces which, once seen, one can never forget."

"I am so glad that you know dear Oxford."

"I know it too well, perhaps, to share your enthusiasm."

"How do you mean?"

"I spent nearly three years there."

"What, were you at Oxford last year?"

"Yes. I left before Commemoration; but I went up for the gaieties, and I am glad of it, as I shall have one pleasant memory of the place now."

"Oh, I wonder you don't love it! But what college were you of?"

"Why, you talk like a graduate. I was of St. Ambrose."

"St. Ambrose! That is my college!"

"Indeed! I wish we had been in residence at the same time."

"I mean that we almost lived there at the Commemoration."

"Have you any relation there, then?"

"No, not a relation, only a distant connexion."

"May I ask his name?"

"Brown. Did you know him?"

"Yes. We were not in the same set. He was a boating man, I think?"

She felt that he was watching her narrowly now, and had great difficulty in keeping herself reasonably composed. As it was she could not help showing a little that she felt embarrassed, and looked down; and changed colour slightly, busying herself with her bouquet. She longed to continue the conversation, but somehow the manner of her partner kept her from doing so. She resolved to recur to the subject carelessly, if they met again, when she knew him better. The fact of his having been at St. Ambrose made her wish to know him better, and gave him a good start in her favor. But for the moment she felt that she must change the subject; so, looking up, she fixed on the first people who happened to be passing, and asked who they were.

"Oh, nobody, constituents probably, or something of that sort."

"I don't understand."

"Why, you see, we are in a political house to-night. So you may set down the people whom nobody knows, as troublesome ten-pounders, or that kind of thing, who would he disagreeable at the next election, if they were not asked."

"Then you do not include them in society?"

"By no manner of means."

"And I need not take the trouble to remember their faces?"

"Of course not. There is a sediment of rubbish at almost every house. At the parties here it is political rubbish. To-morrow night, at Lady Aubrey's—you will be there, I hope?"

"No, we do not know her."

"I am sorry for that. Well, there we shall have the scientific rubbish; and at other houses you see queer artists, and writing people. In fact, it is the rarest thing in the world to get a party where there is nothing of the kind, and, after all, it is rather amusing to watch the habits of the different species."

"Well, to me the rubbish, as you call it, seems much like the rest. I am sure these people were ladies and gentlemen."

"Very likely," he said, lifting his eyebrows; "but you may see at a glance that they have not the air of society. Here again, look yourself. You can see that these are constituents."

To the horror of St. Cloud, the advancing constituents made straight for his partner.

"Mary, my dear!" exclaimed the lady, "where have you been? We have lost you ever since the last dance."

"I have been standing here, mamma," she said; and then, slipping from her late partner's arm, she made a demure little bow, and passed into the ball-room with her father and mother.

St. Cloud bit his lip, and swore at himself under his breath as he looked after them. "What an infernal idiot I must have been not to know that her people would be sure to turn out something of that sort!" thought he. "By Jove, I'll go after them, and set myself right before the little minx has time to think it over!" He took a step or two towards the ball-room, but then thought better of it, or his courage failed him. At any rate, he turned round again, and sought the refreshment-room, where he joined a knot of young gentlemen indulging in delicate little raised pies and salads, and liberal potations at iced claret or champagne cup. Amongst them was the guardsman who had introduced him to Mary, and who received him, as he came up, with—

"Well, St. Cloud, I hope you are alive to your obligations to me."

"For shunting your late partner on to me? Yes, quite."

"You be hanged!" replied the guardsman; "you may pretend what you please now, but you wouldn't let me alone till I had introduced you."

"Are you talking about the girl in white muslin with fern leaves in her hair?" asked another.

"Yes what do you think of her?"

"Devilish taking, I think. I say, can't you introduce me? They say she has tin."

"I can't say I think much of her looks," said St. Cloud, acting up to his principle of telling a lie sooner than let his real thoughts be seen.

"Don't you?" said the guardsman. "Well, I like her form better than anything out this year. Such a clean stepper! You should just dance with her."

And so they went on criticizing Mary and others of their partners, exactly as they would have talked of a stud of racers, till they found themselves sufficiently refreshed to encounter new labors, and broke up returning in twos and threes towards the ball-room.

St. Cloud attached himself to the guardsman, and returned to the charge.

"You seem hit by that girl," he began; "have you known her long?"

"About a week—I met her once before to-night."

"Do you know her people? Who is her father?"

"A plain-headed old party—you wouldn't think it to look at her—but I hear he is very solvent."

"Any sons?"

"Don't know. I like your talking of my being hit, St. Cloud. There she is; I shall go and try for another waltz."

The guardsman was successful, and carried off Mary from her father and mother, who were standing together watching the dancing. St. Cloud, after looking them well over, sought out the hostess, and begged to be introduced to Mr. and Mrs. Porter, gleaning, at the same time, some particulars of who they were. The introduction was effected in a minute, the lady of the house being glad to get anyone to talk to the Porters, who were almost strangers amongst her other guests. She managed, before leaving them, to whisper to Mrs. Porter that he was a young man of excellent connexions.

St. Cloud made the most of his time. He exerted himself to the utmost to please, and, being fluent of speech and thoroughly satisfied with himself, had no shyness or awkwardness to get over, and jumped at once into the good graces of Mary's parents. When she returned after the waltz, she found him, to her no small astonishment, deep in conversation with her mother, who was listening with a pleased expression to his small talk. He pretended not to see her at first, and then begged Mrs. Porter to introduce him formally to her daughter, though he had already had the honour of dancing with her.

Mary put on her shortest and coldest manner, and thought she had never heard of such impertinence. That he should be there talking so familiarly to her mother after the slip he had made to her was almost too much even for her temper. But she went off for another dance, and again returned and found him still there; this time entertaining Mr. Porter with political gossip. The unfavourable impression began to wear off, and she soon resolved not to make up her mind about him without some further knowledge.

In due course he asked her to dance again, and they stood in a quadrille. She stood by him looking straight before her, and perfectly silent, wondering how he would open the conversation. He did not leave her long in suspense.

"What charming people your father and mother are, Miss Porter!" he said; "I am so glad to have been introduced to them."

"Indeed! You are very kind. We ought to be flattered by your study of us, and I am sure I hope you will find it amusing."

St. Cloud was a little embarrassed by the rejoinder, and was not sorry at the moment to find himself called upon to perform the second figure. By the time he was at her side again he had recovered himself.

"You can't understand what a pleasure it is to meet some one with a little freshness"—he paused to think how he should end his sentence.

"Who has not the air of society," she suggested. "Yes, I quite understand."

"Indeed you quite mistake me. Surely you have not taken seriously the nonsense I was talking just now?"

"I am a constituent, you know—I don't understand how to take the talk of society."

"Oh, I see, then, that you are angry at my joke, and will not believe that I knew your father perfectly by sight. You really cannot seriously fancy that I was alluding to anyone connected with you;" and then he proceeded to retail the particulars he had picked up from the lady of the house, as if they had been familiar to him for years, and to launch out again into praises of her father and mother. Mary looked straight up in his face, and, though he did not meet her eye, his manner was so composed, that she began to doubt her own senses, and then he suddenly changed the subject to Oxford and the commemoration, and by the end of the set could flatter himself that he had quite dispelled the cloud which had looked so threatening.

Mary had a great success that evening. She took part in every dance, and might have had two or three partners at once, if they would have been of any use to her. When, at last, Mr. Porter insisted that he would keep his horses no longer, St. Cloud and the guardsman accompanied her to the door, and were assiduous in the cloak room. Young men are pretty much like a drove of sheep; anyone who takes a decided line in certain matters, is sure to lead all the rest.

The guardsman left the ball in the firm belief, as he himself expressed it, that Mary "had done his business for life;" and, being quite above concealment, persisted in singing her praises over his cigar at the club, to which many of the dancers adjourned; and from that night she became the fashion with the set in which St. Cloud lived.

The more enterprising of them, he amongst the foremost, were soon intimate in Mr. Porter's house, and spoke well of his dinners. Mr. Porter changed his hour of riding in the park at their suggestion, and now he and his daughter were always sure of companions. Invitations multiplied, for Mary's success was so decided, that she floated her astonished parents into a whirl of balls and breakfasts. Mr. Porter and his wife were flattered themselves, and pleased to see their daughter admired and enjoying herself; and in the next six weeks Mary had the opportunity of getting all the good and the bad which a girl of eighteen can extract from a London season.

The test was a severe one. Two months of constant excitement, of pleasure-seeking pure and simple, will not leave people just as they found them; and Mary's habits, and thoughts, and ways of looking at and judging of people and things, were much changed by the time that the gay world melted away from Mayfair and Belgravia, and it was time for all respectable people to pull down the blinds and shut the shutters of their town houses.



CHAPTER XXXIX

WHAT CAME OF THE NIGHT WATCH

The last knot of the dancers came out of the club, and were strolling up St. James's Street, and stopping to chaff the itinerant coffee vendor, who was preparing his stand at the corner of Piccadilly for his early customers, just about the time that Tom was beginning to rouse himself under the alder-tree, and stretch his stiffened limbs, and sniff the morning air. By the time the guardsman had let himself into his lodgings in Mount Street, our hero had undergone his unlooked for bath, and was sitting in a state of utter bewilderment as to what was next to be said or done, dripping and disconcerted, opposite to the equally dripping and, to all appearance, equally disconcerted, poacher.

At first he did not look higher than his antagonist's boots and gaiters, and spent a few seconds by the way in considering whether the arrangement of nails on the bottom of Harry's boots was better than his own. He settled that it must be better for wading on slippery stones, and that he would adopt it, and then passed on to wonder whether Harry's boots were as full of water as his own, and whether corduroys, wet through, must not be very uncomfortable so early in the morning, and congratulated himself on being in flannels.

And so he hung back for second after second, playing with an absurd little thought that would come into his head and give him ever so brief a respite from the effort of facing the situation, and hoping that Harry might do or say something to open the ball. This did not happen. He felt that the longer he waited the harder it would be. He must begin himself. So he raised his head gently, and took a sidelong look at Harry's face, to see whether he could not get some hint for starting, from it. But scarcely had he brought his eyes to bear, when they met Harry's, peering dolefully up from under his eyebrows, on which the water was standing unwiped, while a piece of green weed, which he did not seem to have presence of mind enough to remove, trailed over his dripping locks. There was something in the sight which tickled Tom's sense of humor. He had been prepared for sullen black looks and fierce words, instead of which he was irresistibly reminded of schoolboys caught by their master using a crib, or in other like flagrant delict.

Harry lowered his eyes at once, but lifted them the next moment with a look of surprise, as he heard Tom burst into a hearty fit of laughter. After a short struggle to keep serious, he joined in it himself.

"By Jove, though, Harry, it's no laughing matter," Tom said at last, getting on to his legs, and giving himself a shake.

Harry only replied by looking most doleful again, and picking the weed out of his hair, as he too got up.

"What in the world's to be done?"

"I'm sure I don't know, Master Tom."

"I'm very much surprised to find you at this work, Harry."

"I'm sure, so be I, to find you, Master Tom."

Tom was not prepared for this line of rejoinder. It seemed to be made with perfect innocence, and yet it put him in a corner at once. He did not care to inquire into the reason of Harry's surprise, or to what work he alluded; so he went off on another tack.

"Let us walk up and down a bit to dry ourselves. Now, Harry, you'll speak to me openly, man to man, as an old friend should—won't you?"

"Ay, Master Tom, and glad to do it."

"How long have you taken to poaching?"

"Since last Michaelmas, when they turned me out o' our cottage, and tuk away my bit o' land, and did all as they could to break me down."

"Who do you mean?"

"Why, Squire Wurley as was then—not this one, but the last—and his lawyer, and Farmer Tester."

"Then it was through spite to them that you took to it?"

"Nay, 'twarn't altogether spite, tho' I won't say but what I might ha' thought o' bein' upsides wi them."

"What was it then besides spite?"

"Want o' work. I havn't had no more'n a matter o' six weeks' reg'lar work ever since last fall."

"How's that? Have you tried for it?"

"Well, Master Tom, I won't tell a lie about it. I don't see as I wur bound to go round wi my cap in my hand a beggin' for a day's work to the likes o' them. They knowed well enough as I wur there, ready and willing to work, and they knowed as I wur able to do as good a day's work as e'er man in the parish; and ther's been plenty o' work goin'. But they thought as I should starve, and have to come and beg for't from one or to'ther on 'em. They would ha' liked to ha' seen me clean broke down, that's wut they would, and in the house," and he paused as if his thoughts were getting a little unmanageable.

"But you might have gone to look for work elsewhere."

"I can't see as I had any call to leave the place where I wur bred up, Master Tom. That wur just wut they wanted. Why should I let 'em drive m'out?"

"Well, Harry, I'm not going to blame you. I only want to know more about what has been happening to you, that I may be able to advise and help you. Did you ever try for work, or go and tell your story, at the Rectory?"

"Try for work there! No, I never went arter work there."

Tom went on without noticing the change in Harry's tone and manner—

"Then I think you ought to have gone. I know my cousin, Miss Winter, is so anxious to help any man out of work, and particularly you; for—" The whole story of Patty flashed into his mind, and made him stop short and stammer, and look anywhere except at Harry. How he could have forgotten it for a moment in that company was a wonder. All his questioning and patronizing powers went out of him and he felt that their positions were changed, and that he was the culprit. It was clear that Harry knew nothing yet of his own relations with Patty. Did he even suspect them? It must all come out now at any rate, for both their sakes, however it might end. So he turned again, and met Harry's eye, which was now cold and keen, and suspicious.

"You knows all about it, then?"

"Yes; I know that you have been attached to Simon's daughter for a long time, and that he is against it; I wish I could help you, with all my heart. In fact, I did feel my way towards speaking to him about it last year, when I was in hopes of getting you the gardener's place. But I could see that I should do no good."

"I've heard say as you was acquainted with her, when she was away?"

"Yes, I was, when she was with her aunt in Oxford. What then?"

"'Twas there as she larnt her bad ways."

"Bad ways! What do you mean?"

"I means as she larnt to dress fine, and to gee herself airs to them as she'd known from a child, and as'd ha' gone through fire to please her."

"I never saw anything of the kind in her. She was a pleasant, lively girl, and dressed neatly, but never above her station. And I'm sure she has too good a heart to hurt an old friend."

"Wut made her keep shut up in the house when she cum back? ah, for days and weeks;—and arter that, wut made her so flighty and fickle? carryin' herself as proud as a lady a mincin' and a trapesin' along, wi' all the young farmer's a follerin' her, like a fine gentleman's miss."

"Come, Harry, I won't listen to that. You don't believe what you're saying, you know her better."

"You knows her well enough by all seeming."

"I know her too well to believe any harm of her."

"What call have you and the likes o' you wi' her? 'Tis no good comes o' such company keepin'."

"I tell you again, no harm has come of it to her."

"Whose hair does she carry about then in that gold thing as she hangs around her neck?"

Tom blushed scarlet, and lowered his eyes without answering.

"Dost know? 'Tis thine, by—." The words came hissing out between his set teeth. Tom put his hands behind him, expecting to be struck as he lifted his eyes, and said,—

"Yes, it is mine; and, I tell you again, no harm has come of it."

"'Tis a lie. I knowed how 'twas, and 'tis thou hast done it."

"Tom's blood tingled in his veins, and wild words rushed to his tongue, as he stood opposite the man who had just given him the lie, and who waited his reply with clinched hands, and laboring breast, and fierce eye. But the discipline of the last year stood him in good stead. He stood for a moment or two, crushing his hands together behind his back, drew a long breath, and answered,—

"Will you believe my oath, then? I stood by your side at your mother's grave. A man who did that won't lie to you, Harry. I swear to you there's no wrong between me and her. There never was fault on her side. I sought her. She never cared for me, she doesn't care for me. As for that locket, I forced it on her. I own I have wronged her, and wronged you. I have repented it bitterly. I ask your forgiveness, Harry; for the sake of old times, for the sake of your mother!" He spoke from the heart, and saw that his words went home. "Come, Harry" he went on, "you won t turn from an old playfellow, who owns the wrong he has done, and will do all he can to make up for it. You'll shake hands, and say you forgive me."

Tom paused, and held out his hand.

The poacher's face worked violently for a moment or two, and he seemed to struggle once or twice to get his hand out in vain. At last he struck it suddenly into Tom's, turning his head away at the same time. "'Tis what mother would ha' done," he said, "thou cassn't say more. There tis then, though I never thought to do't."

This curious and unexpected explanation, brought thus to a happy issue, put Tom into high spirits, and at once roused the castle-building power within him, which was always ready enough to wake up.

His first care was to persuade Harry that he had better give up poaching, and in this he had much less difficulty than he expected. Harry owned himself sick of the life he was leading already. He admitted that some of the men with whom he had been associating more or less for the last year were the greatest blackguards in the neighborhood. He asked nothing better than to get out of it. But how?

This was all Tom wanted. He would see to that; nothing could be easier.

"I shall go with you back to Englebourn this morning. I'll just leave a note for Wurley to say that I'll be back some time in the day to explain matters to him, and then we will be off at once. We shall be at the rectory by breakfast time. Ah, I forgot;—well, you can stop at David's while I go and speak to my uncle and to Miss Winter."

Harry didn't seem to see what would be the good of this; and David, he said, was not so friendly to him as he had been.

"Then you must wait at the Red Lion. Don't see the good of it! Why, of course, the good of it is that you must be set right with the Englebourn people—that's the first thing to do. I shall explain how the case stands to my uncle, and I know that I can get him to let you have your land again if you stay in the parish, even if he can't give you work himself. But what he must do is, to take you up, to show people that he is your friend, Harry. Well then, if you can get good work—mind it must be real, good, regular work—at Farmer Grove's, or one of the best farmers, stop here by all means, and I will myself take the first cottage which falls vacant and let you have it, and meantime you must lodge with old David. Oh, I'll go and talk him round, never fear. But if you can't get regular work here, why you go off with flying colors; no sneaking off under a cloud and leaving no address. You'll go off with me, as my servant, if you like. But just as you please about that. At any rate, you'll go with me, and I'll take care that it shall be known that I consider you as an old friend. My father has always got plenty of work and will take you on. And then, Harry, after a bit you may be sure all will go right, and I shall be your best man, and dance at your wedding before a year's out."

There is something in this kind of thing which is contagious and irresistible. Tom thoroughly believed all that he was saying; and faith, even of such a poor kind as believing in one's own castles, has its reward. Common sense in vain suggested to Harry that all the clouds which had been gathering round him for a year were not likely to melt away in a morning. Prudence suggested that the sooner he got away the better; which suggestion, indeed, he handed on for what it was worth. But Tom treated prudence with sublime contempt. They would go together, he said, as soon as any one was up at the house, just to let him in to change his things and write a note. Harry needn't fear any unpleasant consequences. Wurley wasn't an ill-natured fellow at bottom, and wouldn't mind a few fish. Talking of fish, where was the one he heard kicking just now as Harry hauled in the line. They went to the place, and, looking in the long grass, soon found the dead trout, still on the night-line, of which the other end remained in the water. Tom seized hold of it, and pulling it carefully in, landed landed another fine trout, while Harry stood by, looking rather sheepish. Tom inspected the method of the lines, which was simple but awfully destructive. The line was long enough to reach across the stream. At one end was a heavy stone, at the other a short stake cut sharp, and driven into the bank well under the water. At intervals of four feet along the line short pieces of fine gimp were fastened, ending in hooks baited alternately with lob-worms and gudgeon. Tom complimented his companion on the killing nature of his cross-line.

"Where are your other lines, Harry?" he asked; "we may as well go and take them up."

"A bit higher up stream, Master Tom;" and so they walked up stream and took up the other lines.

"They'll have the finest dish of fish they've seen this long time at the house to-day," said Tom, as each line came out with two or three fine thick-shouldered fish on it. "I'll you what, Harry, they're deuced well set, these lines of yours, and do you credit. They do; I'm not complimenting you."

"I should rather like to be off, Master Tom, if you don't object. The mornin's gettin' on, and the men will be about. 'Twould be unked for I to be caught."

"Well, Harry, if you are so set on it off with you, but"—

"'Tis too late now; here's keeper."

Tom turned sharp round, and, sure enough, there was the keeper coming down the bank towards them, and not a couple of hundred yards off.

"So it is," said Tom; "well, only hold your tongue, and do just what I tell you."

The keeper came up quickly, and touching his hat to Tom, looked inquiringly at him, and then at Harry. Tom nodded to him, as if everything were just as it should be. He was taking a two-pound fish off the last line; having finished which feat he threw it on the ground by the rest. "There keeper," he said, "there's a fine dish of fish. Now, pick 'em up and come along."

Never was keeper more puzzled. He looked from one to the other, lifting the little short hat from the back of his head, and scratching that somewhat thick skull of his, as his habit was when engaged in what he called thinking, conscious that somebody ought to be tackled, and that he, the keeper, was being mystified, but quite at sea as to how he was to set himself straight.

"Wet, bain't 'ee, sir?" he said at last, nodding at Tom's clothes.

"Dampish, keeper," answered Tom; "I may as well go and change, the servants will be up at the house by this time. Pick up the fish and come along. You do up the lines, Harry."

The keeper and Harry performed their tasks, looking at one another out of the corners of their eyes like the terriers of rival butchers when the carts happen to stop suddenly in the street close to one another. Tom watched them, mischievously delighted with the fun, and then led the way up to the house. When they came to the stable-yard he turned to Harry, and said, "Stop here, I shan't be ten minutes;" adding, in an undertone, "Hold your tongue now;" he then vanished through the dark door, and, hurrying up to his room, changed as quickly as he could.

He was within the ten minutes, but, as he descended the back stairs in his dry things, became aware that his stay had been too long. Noise and laughter came up from the stable-yard, and shouts of, "Go it keeper," "Keeper's down," "No he bain't," greeted his astonished ears. He sprang down the last steps and rushed into the stable-yard, where he found Harry at his second wrestling match for the day, while two or three stablemen, and a footman, and the gardener, looked on and cheered the combatants with the remarks he had heard on his way down.

Tom made straight to them, and tapping Harry on the shoulder, said—

"Now then, come along, I'm ready."

Whereupon the keeper and Harry disengaged, and the latter picked up his cap.

"You bain't goin', sir!" said the keeper.

"Yes, keeper."

"Not along wi' he?"

"Yes, keeper."

"What, bain't I to take un?"

"Take him! No, what for?"

"For night poachin', look at all them fish," said the keeper indignantly, pointing to the shining heap.

"No, no, keeper, you've nothing to do with it. You may give him the lines though, Harry. I've left a note for your master on my dressing table," Tom said, turning to the footman, "let him have it at breakfast. I'm responsible for him," nodding at Harry, "I shall be back in a few hours, and now come along."

And, to the keeper's astonishment, Tom left the stable-yard, accompanied by Harry.

They were scarcely out of hearing before the stable-yard broke out into uproarious laughter at the keeper's expense and much rude banter was inflicted on him for letting the poacher go. But the keeper's mind for the moment was full of other things. Disregarding their remarks he went on scratching his head, and burst out at last with—

"Dang un! I knows I should ha' drowed un."

"Drow your grandmother," politely remarked one of the stablemen, an acquaintance of Harry Winburn, who knew his repute as a wrestler.

"I should, I tell 'ee," said the keeper as he stooped to gather up the fish, "and to think as he should ha' gone off. Master 'll be like any wild beast when he hears on't. How s'mever, 'tis Mr. Brown's doin's. 'Tis a queer start for a gen'l'man like he to be goin' off wi' a poacher chap and callin' of un Harry. 'Tis past me altogether. But I s'pose he bain't right in's 'ead;" and, so soliloquizing, he carried off the fish to the kitchen.

Meantime, on their walk to Englebourn, Harry, in answer to Tom's inquiries, explained that in his absence the stable-man, his acquaintance, had come up and begun to talk. The keeper had joined in and accused him point-blank of being the man who had thrown him into the furze bush. The story of the keeper's discomfiture on that occasion being well known, a laugh had been raised in which Harry had joined. This brought on a challenge to try a fall then and there, which Harry had accepted, notwithstanding his long morning's work and the ducking he had had. They laughed over the story, though Harry could not help expressing his fears as to how it might all end. They reached Englebourn in time for breakfast. Tom appeared at the rectory, and soon he and Katie were on their old terms. She was delighted to find that he had had an explanation with Harry Winburn; and that there was some chance of bringing that sturdy offender once more back into decent ways;—more delighted perhaps to hear the way in which he spoke of Patty, to whom after breakfast she paid a visit, and returned in due time with the unfortunate locket.

Tom felt as if another coil of the chain he had tied about himself had fallen off. He went out into the village, consulted again with Harry, and returned again to the rectory, to consider what steps were to be taken to get him work. Katie entered into the matter heartily, though forseeing the difficulties in the case. At luncheon the rector was to be sounded on the subject of the allotments. But in the middle of their plans, they were startled by the news that a magistrate's warrant had arrived in the village for the arrest of Harry as a night poacher.

Tom returned to the Grange furious, and before night had had a worse quarrel with young Wurley than with his uncle before him. Had duelling been in fashion still in England, they would probably have fought in a quiet corner of the park before night. As it was they only said bitter things, and parted, agreeing not to know one another in the future.

Three days afterwards, at petty sessions, where Tom brought upon himself the severe censure of the bench for his conduct on the trial, Harry Winburn was committed to Reading gaol for three months.

Readers who will take the trouble to remember the picture of our hero's mental growth during the past year, attempted to be given in a late chapter, and the state of restless dissatisfaction into which his experiences and thoughts and readings had thrown him by the time long vacation had come around again, will perhaps be prepared for the catastrophe which ensued on the conviction and sentence of Harry Winburn at petty sessions.

Hitherto, notwithstanding the strength of the new and revolutionary forces which were mustering round it, there had always been a citadel holding out in his mind, garrisoned by all that was best in the Toryism in which he had been brought up—by loyalty, reverence for established order and established institutions; by family traditions, and the pride of an inherited good name. But now the walls of that citadel went down with a crash, the garrison being put to the sword, or making away, to hide in an out of the way corner, and wait for a reaction.

It was much easier for a youngster, whose attention was once turned to such subjects as had been occupying Tom, to get hold of wild and violent beliefs and notions in those days than now. The state of Europe generally was far more dead and hopeless. There were no wars, certainly, and no expectations of wars. But there was a dull, beaten-down, pent-up feeling abroad, as if the lid were screwed down on the nations, and the thing which had been, however cruel and heavy and mean, was that which was to remain to the end. England was better off than her neighbours, but yet in bad case. In the south and west particularly, several causes had combined, to spread a very bitter feeling abroad amongst the agricultural poor. First among these stood the new poor law, the provisions of which were vigorously carried out in most districts. The poor had as yet felt the harshness only of the new system. Then the land was in many places in the hands of men on their last legs, the old sporting farmers, who had begun business as young men while the great war was going on, had made their money hand over hand for a few years out of the war prices, and had tried to go on living with greyhounds and yeomanry uniforms—"horse to ride and weapon to wear"—through the hard years which had followed. These were bad masters every way, unthrifty, profligate, needy, and narrow-minded. The younger men who were supplanting them were introducing machinery, threshing machines and winnowing machines, to take the little bread which a poor man was still able to earn out of the mouths of his wife and children—so at least the poor thought and muttered to one another; and the mutterings broke out every now and then in the long nights of the winter months in blazing ricks and broken machines. Game preserving was on the increase. Australia and America had not yet become familiar words in every English village, and the labour market was everywhere overstocked; and, last but not least, the corn laws were still in force, and the bitter and exasperating strife in which they went out was at its height. And while Swing and his myrmidons were abroad in the counties, and could scarcely be kept down by yeomanry and poor law guardians, the great towns were in almost worse case. Here too emigration had not set in to thin the labour market; wages were falling, and prices rising; the corn law struggle was better understood and far keener than in the country; and Chartism was gaining force every day, and rising into a huge threatening giant, waiting to put forth his strength, and eager for the occasion which seemed at hand.

You generation of young Englishmen, who were too young then to be troubled with such matters, and have grown into manhood since, you little know—may you never know!—what it is to be living the citizens of a divided and distracted nation. For the time that danger is past. In a happy home and so far as man can judge, in time, and only just in time, came the repeal of the corn laws, and the great cause of strife and the sense of injustice passed away out of men's minds. The nation was roused by the Irish famine, and the fearful distress in other parts of the country, to begin looking steadily and seriously at some of the sores which were festering in its body, and undermining health and life. And so the tide had turned, and England had already passed the critical point; when 1848 came upon Christendom, and the whole of Europe leapt up into a wild blaze of revolution.

Is anyone still inclined to make light of the danger that threatened England in that year, to sneer at the 10th of April, and the monster petition, and the monster meetings on Kennington and other commons? Well, if there be such persons among my readers, I can only say that they can have known nothing of what was going on around them and below them, at that time, and I earnestly hope that their vision has become clearer since then, and that they are not looking with the same eyes that see nothing, at the signs of today. For that there are questions still to be solved by us in England, in this current half-century, quite as likely to tear the nation to pieces as the corn laws, no man with half an eye in his head can doubt. They may seem little clouds like a man's hand on the horizon just now, but they will darken the whole heaven before long, unless we can find wisdom enough amongst us to take the little clouds in hand in time, and make them descend in soft rain.

But such matters need not be spoken of here. All I want to do is to put my young readers in a position to understand how it was that our hero fell away into beliefs and notions, at which Mrs. Grundy and all decent people could only lift up eyes and hands in pious and respectable horror, and became, soon after the incarceration of his friend for night poaching, little better than a physical force Chartist at the age of twenty-one.



CHAPTER XL

HUE AND CRY

At the end of a gusty wild October afternoon, a man, leading two horses, was marching up and down the little plot of short turf at the top of the Hawk's Lynch. Every now and then he would stop on the brow of the hill to look over the village, and seemed to be waiting for somebody from that quarter. After being well blown, he would turn to his promenade again, or go in under the clump of firs, through which the rising south-west wind, rushing up from the vale below, was beginning to make a moan; and, hitching the horses to some stump or bush, and patting and coaxing them to induce them, if so might be, to stand quiet for a while, would try to settle himself to leeward of one of the larger trees.

But the fates were against all attempts at repose. He had scarcely time to produce a cheroot from his case and light it under many difficulties, when the horses would begin fidgeting, and pulling at their bridles, and shifting round to get their tails to the wind. They clearly did not understand the necessity of the position, and were inclined to be moving stable-wards. So he had to get up again, sling the bridles over his arm, and take to his march up and down the plot of turf; now stopping for a moment or two to try to get his cheroot to burn straight, and pishing and pshawing over its perverseness; now going again and again to the brow, and looking along the road which led to the village, holding his hat on tight with one hand,—for by this time it was blowing half a gale of wind.

Though it was not yet quite the hour for his setting, the sun had disappeared behind a heavy bank of wicked slate-coloured cloud, which looked as though it were rising straight up into the western heavens, while the wind whirled along and twisted into quaint shapes a ragged rift of white vapor, which went hurrying by, almost touching the tops of the moaning firs,—altogether an uncanny evening to be keeping tryst at the top of a wild knoll; and so thought our friend with the horses, and showed it, too, clearly enough, had anyone been there to put a construction on his impatient movements.

There was no one nearer than the village, of which the nearest house was half a mile and more away; so, by way of passing the time, we must exercise our privilege of putting into words what he is half thinking, half muttering to himself:—

"A pleasant night I call this, to be out on a wild goose chase. If ever I saw a screaming storm brewing, there it comes. I'll be hanged if I stop up here to be caught in it for all the crack-brained friends I ever had in the world; and I seem to have a faculty for picking up none but crack-brained ones. I wonder what the plague can keep him so long; he must have been gone an hour. There, steady, steady, old horse. Confound this weed! What rascals these tobacconists are! You never can get a cheroot now worth smoking. Every one of them goes sputtering up the side, or charring up the middle, and tasting like tow soaked in saltpetre and tobacco juice. Well, I suppose I shall get the real thing in India."

"India! In a month from to-day we shall be off. To hear our senior major talk, one might as well be going to the bottomless pit at once. Well, he'll sell out—that's a comfort. Gives us a step, and gets rid of an old ruffian. I don't seem to care much what the place is like if we only get some work; and there will be some work there before long, by all accounts. No more garrison-town life, at any rate. And if I have any luck—a man may get a chance there."

"What the deuce can he be about? This all comes of sentiment, now. Why couldn't I go quietly off to India without bothering up to Oxford to see him? Not but what it's a pleasant place enough. I've enjoyed my three days there uncommonly. Food and drink all that can be wished, and plenty of good fellows and fun. The look of the place, too, makes one feel respectable. But, by George, if their divinity is at all like their politics, they must turn out a queer set of parsons—at least if Brown picked up his precious notions at Oxford. He always was a headstrong beggar. What was it he was holding forth about last night? Let's see. 'The sacred right of insurrection.' Yes, that was it, and he talked as if he believed it all too; and if there should be a row, which don't seem unlikely, by Jove, I think he'd act on it, in the sort of temper he's in. How about the sacred right of getting hung or transported? I shouldn't wonder to hear of that some day. Gad! suppose he should be in for an installment of his sacred right to-night. He's capable of it, and of lugging me in with him. What did he say we were come here for? To get some fellow out of a scrape, he said—some sort of poaching radical foster-brother of his, who had been in gaol, and deserved it too, I'll be bound. And he couldn't go down quietly into the village and put up at the public, where I might have set in the tap, and not run the chance of having my skin blown over my ears, and my teeth down my throat, on this cursed look-out place, because he's too well known there. What does that mean? Upon my soul, it looks bad. They may be lynching a J. P. down there, or making a spread eagle of the parish constable at this minute, for anything I know, and as sure as fate, if they are, I shall get my foot in it."