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THE AMATEUR GENTLEMAN

BY

JEFFERY FARNOL

TO MY FATHER WHO HAS EVER CHOSEN THE "HARDER WAY," WHICH IS A PATH THAT CAN BE TRODDEN ONLY BY THE FOOT OF A MAN

CONTENTS

CHAPTER

I In which Barnabas Knocks Down his Father, though as Dutifully as may be.

II In which is Much Unpleasing Matter regarding Silk Purses, Sows' Ears, Men, and Gentlemen.

III How Barnabas Set Out for London Town.

IV How Barnabas Fell In with a Pedler of Books, and Purchased a "Priceless Wollum".

V In which the Historian Sees Fit to Introduce a Lady of Quality; and Further Narrates How Barnabas Tore a Wonderful Bottle-green Coat.

VI Of the Bewitchment of Black Eyelashes; and of a Fateful Lace Handkerchief

VII In which may be Found Divers Rules and Maxims for the Art of Bowing.

VIII Concerning the Captain's Arm, the Bo'sun's Leg, and the "Belisarius," Seventy-four.

IX Which Concerns Itself, among Other Matters, with the Virtues of a Pair of Stocks and the Perversity of Fathers.

X Which Describes a Peripatetic Conversation.

XI In which Fists are Clenched; and of a Selfish Man, who was an Apostle of Peace.

XII Of the Stranger's Tale, which, being Short, may perhaps Meet with the Reader's Kind Approbation.

XIII In which Barnabas Makes a Confession.

XIV Concerning the Buttons of One Milo of Crotona.

XV In which the Patient Reader may Learn Something of the Gentleman in the Jaunty Hat.

XVI In which Barnabas Engages One without a Character.

XVII In which Barnabas Parts Company with the Person of Quality.

XVIII How Barnabas Came to Oakshott's Barn.

XIX Which Tells How Barnabas Talks with my Lady Cleone for the Second Time.

XX Of the Prophecy of One Billy Button, a Madman.

XXI In which Barnabas Undertakes a Mission.

XXII In which the Reader is Introduced to an Ancient Finger-post.

XXIII How Barnabas Saved his Life--because he was Afraid.

XXIV Which Relates Something of the "White Lion" at Tenterden.

XXV Of the Coachman's Story.

XXVI Concerning the Duties of a Valet--and a Man.

XXVII How Barnabas Bought an Unridable Horse--and Rode it.

XXVIII Concerning, among Other Things, the Legs of a Gentleman-in-powder.

XXIX Which Describes Something of the Misfortunes of Ronald Barrymaine.

XXX In which Ronald Barrymaine Makes his Choice.

XXXI Which Describes some of the Evils of Vindictiveness.

XXXII Of Corporal Richard Roe, late of the Grenadiers; and Further Concerning Mr. Shrig's Little Reader.

XXXIII Concerning the Duty of Fathers; more Especially the Viscount's "Roman".

XXXIV Of the Luck of Captain Slingsby, of the Guards.

XXXV How Barnabas Met Jasper Gaunt, and what Came of It.

XXXVI Of an Ethical Discussion, which the Reader is Advised to Skip.

XXXVII In which the Bo'sun Discourses on Love and its Symptoms.

XXXVIII How Barnabas Climbed a Wall.

XXXIX In which the Patient Reader is Introduced to an Almost Human Duchess.

XL Which Relates Sundry Happenings at the Garden Fte.

XLI In which Barnabas Makes a Surprising Discovery, that may not Surprise the Reader in the Least.

XLII In which shall be Found Further Mention of a Finger-post.

XLIII In which Barnabas Makes a Bet, and Receives a Warning.

XLIV Of the Tribulations of the Legs of the Gentleman-in-powder.

XLV How Barnabas Sought Counsel of the Duchess.

XLVI Which Concerns Itself with Small Things in General, and a Pebble in Particular.

XLVII How Barnabas Found his Manhood.

XLVIII In which "The Terror," Hitherto Known as "Four-Legs," Justifies his New Name.

XLIX Which, being Somewhat Important, is Consequently Short.

L In which Ronald Barrymaine Speaks his Mind.

LI Which Tells How and Why Mr. Shrig's Case was Spoiled.

LII Of a Breakfast, a Roman Parent, and a Kiss.

LIII In which shall be Found some Account of the Gentleman's Steeplechase.

LIV Which Concerns itself Chiefly with a Letter.

LV Which Narrates Sundry Happenings at Oakshott's Barn.

LVI Of the Gathering of the Shadows.

LVII Being a Parenthetical Chapter on Doubt, which, though Uninteresting, is very Short.

LVIII How Viscount Devenham Found him a Viscountess.

LIX Which Relates, among other Things, How Barnabas Lost his Hat.

LX Which Tells of a Reconciliation.

LXI How Barnabas Went to his Triumph.

LXII Which Tells How Barnabas Triumphed in Spite of All.

LXIII Which Tells How Barnabas Heard the Ticking of a Clock.

LXIV Which Shows Something of the Horrors of Remorse.

LXV Which Tells How Barnabas Discharged his Valet.

LXVI Of Certain Con-clusions Drawn by Mr. Shrig.

LXVII Which Gives some Account of the Worst Place in the World.

LXVIII Concerning the Identity of Mr. Bimby's Guest.

LXIX How Barnabas Led a Hue and Cry.

LXX Which Tells How Barnabas Rode Another Race.

LXXI Which Tells How Barnabas, in his Folly, Chose the Harder Course.

LXXII How Ronald Barrymaine Squared his Account.

LXXIII Which Recounts Three Awakenings.

LXXIV How the Duchess Made up her Mind, and Barnabas Did the Like.

LXXV Which Tells Why Barnabas Forgot his Breakfast.

LXXVI How the Viscount Proposed a Toast.

LXXVII How Barnabas Rode Homewards, and Took Counsel of a Pedler of Books.

LXXVIII Which Tells How Barnabas Came Home Again, and How he Awoke for the Fourth Time.

CHAPTER I

IN WHICH BABNABAS KNOCKS DOWN HIS FATHER, THOUGH AS DUTIFULLY AS MAY BE

John Barty, ex-champion of England and landlord of the "Coursing Hound," sat screwed round in his chair with his eyes yet turned to the door that had closed after the departing lawyer fully five minutes ago, and his eyes were wide and blank, and his mouth (grim and close-lipped as a rule) gaped, becoming aware of which, he closed it with a snap, and passed a great knotted fist across his brow.

"Barnabas," said he slowly, "I beant asleep an' dreaming be I, Barnabas?"

"No, father!"

"But--seven--'undred--thousand--pound. It were seven--'undred thousand pound, weren't it, Barnabas?"

"Yes, father!"

"Seven--'undred--thou--! No! I can't believe it, Barnabas my bye."

"Neither can I, father," said Barnabas, still staring down at the papers which littered the table before him.

"Nor I aren't a-going to try to believe it, Barnabas."

"And yet--here it is, all written down in black and white, and you heard what Mr. Crabtree said?"

"Ah,--I heered, but arter all Crabtree's only a lawyer--though a good un as lawyers go, always been honest an' square wi' me--leastways I 've never caught him trying to bamboozle John Barty yet--an' what the eye don't ob-serve the heart don't grieve, Barnabas my bye, an' there y'are. But seven 'undred thousand pound is coming it a bit too strong--if he'd ha' knocked off a few 'undred thousand I could ha' took it easier Barnabas, but, as it is--no, Barnabas!"

"It's a great fortune!" said Barnabas in the same repressed tone and with his eyes still intent.

"Fortun'," repeated the father, "fortun'--it's fetched me one in the ribs--low, Barnabas, low!--it's took my wind an' I'm a-hanging on to the ropes, lad. Why, Lord love me! I never thought as your uncle Tom 'ad it in him to keep hisself from starving, let alone make a fortun'! My scapegrace brother Tom--poor Tom as sailed away in a emigrant ship (which is a un-common bad kind of a ship to sail in--so I've heered, Barnabas) an' now, to think as he went an' made all that fortun'--away off in Jamaiky--out o' vegetables."

"And lucky speculation, father--!"

"Now, Barnabas," exclaimed his father, beginning to rasp his fingers to and fro across his great, square, shaven chin, "why argufy? Your uncle Tom was a planter--very well! Why is a man a planter--because he plants things, an' what should a man plant but vegetables? So Barnabas, vegetables I says, an' vegetables I abide by, now an' hereafter. Seven 'undred thousand pound all made in Jamaiky--out o' vegetables--an' there y' are!"

Here John Barty paused and sat with his chin 'twixt finger and thumb in expectation of his son's rejoinder, but finding him silent, he presently continued:

"Now what astonishes an' fetches me a leveller as fair doubles me up is--why should my brother Tom leave all this money to a young hop o' me thumb like you, Barnabas? you, as he never see but once and you then a infant (and large for your age) in your blessed mother's arms, Barnabas, a-kicking an' a-squaring away wi' your little pink fists as proper as ever I seen inside the Ring or out. Ah, Barnabas!" sighed his father shaking his head at him, "you was a promising infant, likewise a promising bye; me an' Natty Bell had great hopes of ye, Barnabas; if you'd been governed by me and Natty Bell you might ha' done us all proud in the Prize Ring. You was cut out for the 'Fancy.' Why, Lord! you might even ha' come to be Champion o' England in time--you 're the very spit o' what I was when I beat the Fighting Quaker at Dartford thirty years ago."

"But you see, father--"

"That was why me an' Natty Bell took you in hand--learned you all we knowed o' the game--an' there aren't a fighting man in all England as knows so much about the Noble Art as me an' Natty Bell."

"But father--"

"If you 'd only followed your nat'ral gifts, Barnabas, I say you might ha' been Champion of England to-day, wi' Markisses an' Lords an' Earls proud to shake your hand--if you'd only been ruled by Natty Bell an' me, I'm disappointed in ye, Barnabas--an' so's Natty Bell."

"I'm sorry, father--but as I told you--"

"Still Barnabas, what ain't to be, ain't--an' what is, is. Some is born wi' a nat'ral love o' the 'Fancy' an' gift for the game, like me an' Natty Bell--an' some wi' a love for reading out o' books an' a-cyphering into books--like you: though a reader an' a writer generally has a hard time on it an' dies poor--which, arter all, is only nat'ral--an' there y' are!"

Here John Barty paused to take up the tankard of ale at his elbow, and pursed up his lips to blow off the foam, but in that moment, observing his son about to speak, he immediately set down the ale untasted and continued:

"Not as I quarrels wi' your reading and writing, Barnabas, no, and because why? Because reading and writing is apt to be useful now an' then, and because it were a promise--as I made--to--your mother. When--your mother were alive, Barnabas, she used to keep all my accounts for me. She likewise larned me to spell my own name wi' a capital G for John, an' a capital B for Barty, an' when she died, Barnabas (being a infant, you don't remember), but when she died, lad! I was that lost--that broke an' helpless, that all the fight were took out o' me, and it's a wonder I didn't throw up the sponge altogether. Ah! an' it's likely I should ha' done but for Natty Bell."

"Yes, father--"

"No man ever 'ad a better friend than Natty Bell--Ah! yes, though I did beat him out o' the Championship which come very nigh breaking his heart at the time, Barnabas; but--as I says to him that day as they carried him out of the ring--it was arter the ninety-seventh round, d' ye see, Barnabas--'what is to be, is, Natty Bell,' I says, 'an' what ain't, ain't. It were ordained,' I says, 'as I should be Champion o' England,' I says--'an' as you an' me should be friends--now an' hereafter,' I says--an' right good friends we have been, as you know, Barnabas."

"Indeed, yes, father," said Barnabas, with another vain attempt to stem his father's volubility.

"But your mother, Barnabas, your mother, God rest her sweet soul!--your mother weren't like me--no nor Natty Bell--she were away up over me an' the likes o' me--a wonderful scholard she were, an'--when she died, Barnabas--" here the ex-champion's voice grew uncertain and his steady gaze wavered--sought the sanded floor--the raftered ceiling--wandered down the wall and eventually fixed upon the bell-mouthed blunderbuss that hung above the mantel, "when she died," he continued, "she made me promise as you should be taught to read an' cypher--an' taught I've had you according--for a promise is a promise, Barnabas--an' there y' are."

"For which I can never be sufficiently grateful, both to her--and to you!" said Barnabas, who sat with his chin propped upon his hand, gazing through the open lattice to where the broad white road wound away betwixt blooming hedges, growing ever narrower till it vanished over the brow of a distant hill. "Not as I holds wi' eddication myself, Barnabas, as you know," pursued his father, "but that's why you was sent to school, that's why me an' Natty Bell sat by quiet an' watched ye at your books. Sometimes when I've seen you a-stooping your back over your reading, or cramping your fist round a pen, Barnabas, why--I've took it hard, Barnabas, hard, I'll not deny--But Natty Bell has minded me as it was her wish and so--why--there y' are."

It was seldom his father mentioned to Barnabas the mother whose face he had never seen, upon which rare occasions John Barty's deep voice was wont to take on a hoarser note, and his blue eyes, that were usually so steady, would go wandering off until they fixed themselves on some remote object. Thus he sat now, leaning back in his elbow chair, gazing in rapt attention at the bell-mouthed blunderbuss above the mantel, while his son, chin on fist, stared always and ever to where the road dipped, and vanished over the hill--leading on and on to London, and the great world beyond.

"She died, Barnabas--just twenty-one years ago--buried at Maidstone where you were born. Twenty-one years is a longish time, lad, but memory's longer, an' deeper,--an' stronger than time, arter all, an' I know that her memory will go wi' me--all along the way--d' ye see lad: and so Barnabas," said John Barty lowering his gaze to his son's face, "so Barnabas, there y' are."

"Yes, father!" nodded Barnabas, still intent upon the road.

"And now I come to your uncle Tom--an' speaking of him--Barnabas my lad,--what are ye going to do wi' all this money?"

Barnabas turned from the window and met his father's eye.

"Do with it," he began, "why first of all--"

"Because," pursued his father, "we might buy the 'White Hart'--t' other side o' Sevenoaks,--to be sure you're over young to have any say in the matter--still arter all the money's yours, Barnabas--what d' ye say to the 'White Hart'?"

"A very good house!" nodded Barnabas, stealing a glance at the road again--"but--"

"To be sure there's the 'Running Horse,'" said his father, "just beyond Purley on the Brighton Road--a coaching-house, wi' plenty o' custom, what d' ye think o' the 'Running Horse'?"

"Any one you choose, father, but--"

"Then there's the 'Sun in the Sands' on Shooter's Hill--a fine inn an' not to be sneezed at, Barnabas--we might take that."

"Just as you wish, father, only--"

"Though I've often thought the 'Greyhound' at Croydon would be a comfortable house to own."

"Buy whichever you choose, father, it will be all one to me!"

"Good lad!" nodded John, "you can leave it all to Natty Bell an' me."

"Yes," said Barnabas, rising and fronting his father across the table, "you see I intend to go away, sir."

"Eh?" exclaimed his father, staring--"go away--where to?"

"To London!"

"London? and what should you want in London--a slip of a lad like you?"

"I'm turned twenty-two, father!"

"And what should a slip of a lad of twenty-two want in London? You leave London alone, Barnabas. London indeed! what should you want wi' London?"

"Learn to be a gentleman."

"A--what?" As he spoke, John Barty rose up out of his chair, his eyes wide, his mouth agape with utter astonishment. As he encountered his son's look, however, his expression slowly changed from amazement to contempt, from contempt to growing ridicule, and from ridicule to black anger. John Barty was a very tall man, broad and massive, but, even so, he had to look up to Barnabas as they faced each other across the table. And as they stood thus eye to eye, the resemblance between them was marked. Each possessed the same indomitable jaw, the same square brow and compelling eyes, the same grim prominence of chin; but there all likeness ended. In Barnabas the high carriage of the head, the soft brilliancy of the full, well-opened gray eye, the curve of the sensitive nostrils, the sweet set of the firm, shapely mouth--all were the heritage of that mother who was to him but a vague memory. But now while John Barty frowned upon his son, Barnabas frowned back at his father, and the added grimness of his chin offset the sweetness of the mouth above.

"Barnabas," said his father at last, "did you say a--gentleman, Barnabas?"

"Yes."

"What--you?" Here John Barty's frown vanished suddenly and, expanding his great chest, he threw back his head and roared with laughter. Barnabas clenched his fists, and his mouth lost something of its sweetness, and his eyes glinted through their curving lashes, while his father laughed and laughed till the place rang again, which of itself stung Barnabas sharper than any blow could have done.

But now having had his laugh out, John Barty frowned again blacker than ever, and resting his two hands upon the table, leaned towards Barnabas with his great, square chin jutted forward, and his deep-set eyes narrowed to shining slits--the "fighting face" that had daunted many a man ere now.

"So you want to be a gentleman--hey?"

"Yes."

"You aren't crazed in your 'ead, are ye, Barnabas?"

"Not that I know of, father."

"This here fortun' then--it's been an' turned your brain, that's what it is."

Barnabas smiled and shook his head.

"Listen, father," said he, "it has always been the dream and ambition of my life to better my condition, to strive for a higher place in the world--to be a gentleman. This was why I refused to become a pugilist, as you and Natty Bell desired, this was why I worked and studied--ah! a great deal harder than you ever guessed--though up till to-day I hardly dared hope my dream would ever be realized--but now--"

"Now you want to go to London and be a gentleman--hey?"

"Yes."

"Which all comes along o' your reading o' fool book! Why, Lord! you can no more become a gentleman than I can or the--blunderbuss yonder. And because why? Because a gentleman must be a gentleman born, and his father afore him, and _his_ father afore him. You, Barnabas, you was born the son of a Champion of England, an' that should be enough for most lads; but your head's chock full o' fool's notions an' crazy fancies, an' as your lawful father it's my bounden duty to get 'em out again, Barnabas my lad." So saying, John Barty proceeded to take off his coat and belcher neckerchief, and rolled his shirt sleeves over his mighty forearms, motioning Barnabas to do the like.

"A father's duty be a very solemn thing, Barnabas," he continued slowly, "an' your 'ead being (as I say) full o' wild idees, I'm going to try to punch 'em out again as a well-meaning father should, so help me back wi' the table out o' the road, an' off wi' your coat and neckercher."

Well knowing the utter futility of argument with his father at such a time, Barnabas obediently helped to set back the table, thus leaving the floor clear, which done, he, in turn, stripped off coat and neckcloth, and rolled up his sleeves, while his father watched him with sharply appraising eye.

"You peel well, Barnabas," he nodded. "You peel like a fighting man, you've a tidy arm an' a goodish spread o' shoulder, likewise your legs is clean an' straight, but your skin's womanish, Barnabas, womanish, an' your muscles soft wi' books. So, lad!--are ye ready? Then come on."

Thus, without more ado they faced each other foot to foot, bare-armed and alert of eye. For a moment they sparred watchfully, then John Barty feinted Barnabas into an opening, in that same moment his fist shot out and Barnabas measured his length on the floor.

"Ah--I knowed as much!" John sighed mournfully as he aided Barnabas to his feet, "and 't were only a love-tap, so to speak,--this is what comes o' your book reading."

"Try me again," said Barnabas.

"It'll be harder next time!" said his father.

"As hard as you like!" nodded Barnabas.

Once more came the light tread of quick-moving feet, once more John Barty feinted cunningly--once more his fist shot out, but this time it missed its mark, for, ducking the blow, Barnabas smacked home two lightning blows on his father's ribs and danced away again light and buoyant as a cork.

"Stand up an' fight, lad!" growled his father, "plant your feet square--never go hopping about on your toe-points like a French dancing-master."

"Why as to that, father, Natty Bell, as you know, holds that it is the quicker method," here Barnabas smote his father twice upon the ribs, "and indeed I think it is," said he, deftly eluding the ex-champion's return.

"Quicker, hey?" sneered his father, and with the words came his fist--to whizz harmlessly past Barnabas's ear--"we'll prove that."

"Haven't we had almost enough?" inquired Barnabas, dropping his fists.

"Enough? why we aren't begun yet, lad."

"Then how long are we to go on?"

"How long?" repeated John, frowning; "why--that depends on you, Barnabas."

"How on me, father?"

"Are ye still minded to go to London?"

"Of course."

"Then we'll go on till you think better of it--or till you knock me down, Barnabas my lad."

"Why then, father, the sooner I knock you down the better!"

"What?" exclaimed John Barty, staring, "d' ye mean to say--you think you can?--me?--you?"

"Yes," nodded Barnabas.

"My poor lad!" sighed his father, "your head's fair crazed, sure as sure, but if you think you can knock John Barty off his pins, do it, and there y' are."

"I will," said Barnabas, "though as gently as possible."

And now they fell to it in silence, a grim silence broken only by the quick tread and shuffle of feet and the muffled thud of blows. John Barty, resolute of jaw, indomitable and calm of eye, as in the days when champions had gone down before the might of his fist; Barnabas, taller, slighter, but full of the supreme confidence of youth. Moreover, he had not been the daily pupil of two such past masters in the art for nothing; and now he brought to bear all his father's craft and cunning, backed up by the lightning precision of Natty Bell. In all his many hard-fought battles John Barty had ever been accounted most dangerous when he smiled, and he was smiling now. Twice Barnabas staggered back to the wall, and there was an ugly smear upon his cheek, yet as they struck and parried, and feinted, Barnabas, this quick-eyed, swift-footed Barnabas, was smiling also. Thus, while they smiled upon and smote each other, the likeness between them was more apparent than ever, only the smile of Barnabas was the smile of youth, joyous, exuberant, unconquerable. Noting which Experienced Age laughed short and fierce, and strode in to strike Youth down--then came a rush of feet, the panting hiss of breath, the shock of vicious blows, and John Barty, the unbeaten ex-champion of all England, threw up his arms, staggered back the length of the room, and went down with a crash.

For a moment Barnabas stood wide-eyed, panting, then ran towards him with hands outstretched, but in that moment the door was flung open, and Natty Bell stood between them, one hand upon the laboring breast of Barnabas, the other stretched down to the fallen ex-champion.

"Man Jack," he exclaimed, in his strangely melodious voice. "Oh, John!--John Barty, you as ever was the king o' the milling coves, here's my hand, shake it. Lord, John, what a master o' the Game we've made of our lad. He's stronger than you and quicker than ever I was. Man Jack, 'twas as sweet, as neat, as pretty a knockdown as ever we gave in our best days, John. Man Jack, 'tis proud you should be to lie there and know as you have a son as can stop even _your_ rush wi' his left an' down you wi' his right as neat and proper, John, as clean an' delicate as ever man saw. Man Jack, God bless him, and here's my hand, John."

So, sitting there upon the floor, John Barty solemnly shook the hand Natty Bell held out to him, which done, he turned and looked at his son as though he had never seen him before.

"Why, Barnabas!" said he; then, for all his weight, sprang nimbly to his feet and coming to the mantel took thence his pipe and began to fill it, staring at Barnabas the while.

"Father," said Barnabas, advancing with hand outstretched, though rather diffidently--"Father!"

John Barty pursed up his lips into a soundless whistle and went on filling his pipe.

"Father," said Barnabas again, "I did it--as gently--as I could." The pipe shivered to fragments on the hearth, and Barnabas felt his fingers caught in his father's mighty grip.

"Why, Barnabas, lad, I be all mazed like; there aren't many men as have knocked me off my pins, an' I aren't used to it, Barnabas, lad, but 't was a clean blow, as Natty Bell says, and why--I be proud of thee, Barnabas, an'--there y' are."

"Spoke like true fighting men!" said Natty Bell, standing with a hand on the shoulder of each, "and, John, we shall see this lad, this Barnabas of ours, Champion of England yet." John frowned and shook his head.

"No," said he, "Barnabas'll never be Champion, Natty Bell--there aren't a fighting man in the Ring to-day as could stand up to him, but he'll never be Champion, an' you can lay to that, Natty Bell. And if you ask me why," said he, turning to select another pipe from the sheaf in the mantel-shelf, "I should tell you because he prefers to go to London an' try to turn himself into a gentleman."

"London," exclaimed Natty Bell, "a gentleman--our Barnabas--what?"

"Bide an' listen, Natty Bell," said the ex-champion, beginning to fill his new pipe.

"I'm listening, John."

"Well then, you must know, then, his uncle, my scapegrace brother Tom--you'll mind Tom as sailed away in a emigrant ship--well, Natty Bell, Tom has took an' died an' left a fortun' to our lad here."

"A fortun', John!--how much?"

"Seven--'undred--thousand--pound," said John, with a ponderous nod after each word, "seven--'undred--thousand--pound, Natty Bell, and there y' are."

Natty Bell opened his mouth, shut it, thrust his hands down into his pockets and brought out a short clay pipe.

"Man Jack," said he, beginning to fill the pipe, yet with gaze abstracted, "did I hear you say aught about a--gentleman?"

"Natty Bell, you did; our lad's took the idee into his nob to be a gentleman, an' I were trying to knock it out again, but as it is. Natty Bell, I fear me," and John Barty shook his handsome head and sighed ponderously.

"Why then, John, let's sit down, all three of us, and talk this matter over."

CHAPTER II

IN WHICH IS MUCH UNPLEASING MATTER REGARDING SILK PURSES, SOWS' EARS, MEN, AND GENTLEMEN

A slender man was Natty Bell, yet bigger than he looked, and prodigiously long in the reach, with a pair of very quick, bright eyes, and a wide, good-humored mouth ever ready to curve into a smile. But he was solemn enough now, and there was trouble in his eyes as he looked from John to Barnabas, who sat between them, his chair drawn up to the hearth, gazing down into the empty fireplace.

"An' you tell me, John," said he, as soon as his pipe was well alight,--"you tell me that our Barnabas has took it into his head to set up as a gentleman, do you?"

"Ah!" nodded John. Whereupon Natty Bell crossed his legs and leaning back in his chair fell a-singing to himself in his sweet voice, as was his custom when at all inclined to deep thought:

"A true Briton from Bristol, a rum one to fib, He's Champion of England, his name is Tom Cribb;"

"Ah! and you likewise tell me as our Barnabas has come into a fortun'."

"Seven--'undred--thousand--pound."

"Hum!" said Natty Bell,--"quite a tidy sum, John."

"Come list, all ye fighting gills And coves of boxing note, sirs, While I relate some bloody mills In our time have been fought, sirs."

"Yes, a good deal can be done wi' such a sum as that, John."

"But it can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear, Natty Bell,--nor yet a gentlemen out o' you or me--or Barnabas here."

"For instance," continued Natty Bell, "for instance, John:

"Since boxing is a manly game, And Britain's recreation, By boxing we will raise our fame 'Bove every other nation."

"As I say, John, a young and promising life can be wrecked, and utterly blasted by a much less sum than seven hundred thousand pound."

"Ah!" nodded John, "but a sow's ear aren't a silk purse, Natty Bell, no, nor never can be."

"True, John; but, arter all, a silk purse ain't much good if 't is empty--it's the gold inside of it as counts."

"But a silk purse is ever and always a silk purse--empty or no, Natty Bell."

"An' a man is always a man, John, which a gentleman often ain't."

"But surely," said Barnabas, speaking for the first time, "a gentleman is both."

"No--not nohow, my lad!" exclaimed John, beginning to rasp at his chin again. "A man is ever and allus a man--like me and you, an' Natty Bell, an' a gentleman's a gentleman like--Sir George Annersley--up at the great house yonder."

"But--" began Barnabas.

"Now, Barnabas"--remonstrated his father, rasping his chin harder than ever--"wherefore argufy--if you do go for to argufy--"

"We come back to the silk purses and the sows' ears," added Natty Bell.

"And I believe," said Barnabas, frowning down at the empty hearth, "I'm sure, that gentility rests not so much on birth as upon hereditary instinct."

"Hey?" said his father, glancing at him from the corners of his eyes--"go easy, Barnabas, my lad--give it time--on what did 'ee say?"

"On instinct, father."

"Instinct!" repeated John Barty, puffing out a vast cloud of smoke-- "instinct does all right for 'osses, Barnabas, dogs likewise; but what's nat'ral to 'osses an' dogs aren't nowise nat'ral to us! No, you can't come instinct over human beings,--not nohowsoever, Barnabas, my lad. And, as I told you afore, a gentleman is nat'rally born a gentleman an' his feyther afore him an' his grand-feyther afore him, back an' back--"

"To Adam?" inquired Barnabas; "now, if so, the question is--was Adam a gentleman?"

"Lord, Barnabas!" exclaimed John Barty, with a reproachful look-- "why drag in Adam? You leave poor old Adam alone, my lad. Adam indeed! What's Adam got to do wi' it?"

"Everything, we being all his descendants,--at least the Bible says so.--Lords and Commons, Peers and Peasants--all are children of Adam; so come now, father, was Adam a gentleman, Yes or No?"

John Barty frowned up at the ceiling, frowned down at the floor, and finally spoke:

"What do you say to that, Natty Bell?"

"Why, I should say, John--hum!"

"Pray haven't you heard of a jolly young coal-heaver, Who down at Hungerford used for to ply, His daddles he used with such skill and dexterity Winning each mill, sir, and blacking each eye."

"Ha!--I should say, John, that Adam being in the habit o' going about--well, as you might put it--in a free and easy, airy manner, fig leaves an' suchlike, John,--I should say as he didn't have no call to be a gentleman, seeing as there weren't any tailors."

"Tailors!" exclaimed John, staring. "Lord! and what have tailors got to do wi' it, Natty Bell?"

"A great deal more than you 'd think, John; everything, John, seeing 't was tailors as invented gentlemen as a matter o' trade, John. So, if Barnabas wants to have a try at being one--he must first of all go dressed in the fashion."

"That is very true," said Barnabas, nodding.

"Though," pursued Natty Bell, "if you were the best dressed, the handsomest, the strongest, the bravest, the cleverest, the most honorable man in the world--that wouldn't make you a gentleman. I tell you, Barnabas, if you went among 'em and tried to be one of 'em,--they'd find you out some day an' turn their gentlemanly backs on you."

"Ah," nodded John, "and serve you right, lad,--because if you should try to turn yourself into a gentleman, why, Lord, Barnabas!--you'd only be a sort of a amitoor arter all, lad."

"Then," said Barnabas, rising up from his chair and crossing with resolute foot to the door, "then, just so soon as this law business is settled and the money mine, an Amateur Gentleman I'll be."

CHAPTER III

HOW BARNABAS SET OUT FOR LONDON TOWN

It was upon a certain glorious morning, some three weeks later, that Barnabas fared forth into the world; a morning full of the thousand scents of herb and flower and ripening fruits; a morning glad with the song of birds. And because it was still very early, the dew yet lay heavy, it twinkled in the grass, it sparkled in the hedges, and gemmed every leaf and twig with a flaming pendant. And amidst it all, fresh like the morning and young like the sun, came Barnabas, who, closing the door of the "Coursing Hound" behind him, leapt lightly down the stone steps and, turning his back upon the ancient inn, set off towards that hill, beyond which lay London and the Future. Yet--being gone but a very little way--he halted suddenly and came striding back again. And standing thus before the inn he let his eyes wander over its massive crossbeams, its leaning gables, its rows of gleaming lattices, and so up to the great sign swinging above the door--an ancient sign whereon a weather-beaten hound, dim-legged and faded of tail, pursued a misty blur that, by common report, was held to be a hare. But it was to a certain casement that his gaze oftenest reverted, behind whose open lattice he knew his father lay asleep, and his eyes, all at once, grew suffused with a glittering brightness that was not of the morning, and he took a step forward, half minded to clasp his father's hand once more ere he set out to meet those marvels and wonders that lay waiting for him over the hills--London-wards. Now, as he stood hesitating, he heard a voice that called his name softly, and, glancing round and up, espied Natty Bell, bare of neck and touzled of head, who leaned far out from the casement of his bedchamber above.

"Ah, Barnabas, lad!" said he with a nod--"So you're going to leave us, then?"

"Yes!" said Barnabas.

"And all dressed in your new clothes as fine as ever was!--stand back a bit and let me have a look at you."

"How are they, Natty Bell?" inquired Barnabas with a note of anxiety in his voice--"the Tenderden tailor assured me they were of the very latest cut and fashion--what do you think, Natty Bell?"

"Hum!" said the ex-pugilist, staring down at Barnabas, chin in hand. "Ha! they're very good clothes, Barnabas, yes indeed; just the very thing--for the country."

"The country!--I had these made for London, Natty Bell."

"For London, Barnabas--hum!"

"What do you mean by 'hum,' Natty Bell?"

"Why--look ye now--'t is a good sensible coat, I'll not deny, Barnabas; likewise the breeches is serviceable--but being only a coat and breeches, why--they ain't per-lite enough. For in the world of London, the per-lite world, Barnabas, clothes ain't garments to keep a man warm--they're works of art; in the country a man puts 'em on, and forgets all about 'em--in the per-lite world he has 'em put on for him, and remembers 'em. In the country a man wears his clothes, in the per-lite world his clothes wears him, ah! and they're often the perlitest thing about him, too!"

"I suppose," sighed Barnabas, "a man's clothes are very important--in the fashionable world?"

"Important! They are the most importantest part o' the fashionable world, lad. Now there's Mr. Brummell--him as they call the 'Beau'--well, he ain't exactly a Lord Nelson nor yet a Champion of England, he ain't never done nothing, good, bad, or indifferent--but he does know how to wear his clothes--consequently he's a very famous gentleman indeed--in the per-lite world, Barnabas." Here there fell a silence while Barnabas stared up at the inn and Natty Bell stared down at him. "To be sure, the old 'Hound' ain't much of a place, lad--not the kind of inn as a gentleman of quality would go out of his way to seek and search for, p'r'aps--but there be worse places in London, Barnabas, I was born there and I know. There, there! dear lad, never hang your head--youth must have its dreams I've heard; so go your ways, Barnabas. You're a master wi' your fists, thanks to John an' me--and you might have been Champion of England if you hadn't set your heart on being only a gentleman. Well, well, lad! don't forget as there are two old cocks o' the Game down here in Kent as will think o' you and talk o' you, Barnabas, and what you might have been if you hadn't happened to--Ah well, let be. But wherever you go and whatever you come to be--you're our lad still, and so, Barnabas, take this, wear it in memory of old Natty Bell--steady--catch!" And, with the word, he tossed down his great silver watch.

"Why, Natty Bell!" exclaimed Barnabas, very hoarse of voice. "Dear old Natty--I can't take this!"

"Ah, but you can--it was presented to me twenty and one years ago, Barnabas, the time I beat the Ruffian on Bexley Heath."

"But I can't--I couldn't take it," said Barnabas again, looking down at the broad-faced, ponderous timepiece in his hand, which he knew had long been Natty Bell's most cherished possession.

"Ay, but you can, lad--you must--'t is all I have to offer, and it may serve to mind you of me, now and then, so take it! take it! And, Barnabas, when you're tired o' being a fine gentleman up there in London, why--come back to us here at the old 'Hound' and be content to be just--a man. Good-by, lad; good-by!" saying which, Natty Bell nodded, drew in his head and vanished, leaving Barnabas to stare up at the closed lattice, with the ponderous timepiece ticking in his hand.

So, in a while, Barnabas slipped it into his pocket and, turning his back upon the "Coursing Hound," began to climb that hill beyond which lay the London of his dreams. Therefore as he went he kept his eyes lifted up to the summit of the hill, and his step grew light, his eye brightened, for Adventure lay in wait for him; Life beckoned to him from the distance; there was magic in the air. Thus Barnabas strode on up the hill full of expectancy and the blind confidence in destiny which is the glory of youth.

Oh, Spirit of Youth, to whose fearless eyes all things are matters to wonder at; oh, brave, strong Spirit of Youth, to whom dangers are but trifles to smile at, and death itself but an adventure; to thee, since failure is unknown, all things are possible, and thou mayest, peradventure, make the world thy football, juggle with the stars, and even become a Fine Gentleman despite thy country homespun--and yet--

But as for young Barnabas, striding blithely upon his way, he might verily have been the Spirit of Youth itself--head high, eyes a-dance, his heart light as his step, his gaze ever upon the distance ahead, for he was upon the road at last, and every step carried him nearer the fulfilment of his dream.

"At Tonbridge he would take the coach," he thought, or perhaps hire a chaise and ride to London like a gentleman. A gentleman! and here he was whistling away like any ploughboy. Happily the road was deserted at this early hour, but Barnabas shook his head at himself reproachfully, and whistled no more--for a time.

But now, having reached the summit of the hill, he paused and turned to look back. Below him lay the old inn, blinking in its many casements in the level rays of the newly risen sun; and now, all at once, as he gazed down at it from this eminence, it seemed, somehow, to have shrunk, to have grown more weather-beaten and worn--truly never had it looked so small and mean as it did at this moment. Indeed, he had been wont to regard the "Coursing Hound" as the very embodiment of what an English inn should be--but now! Barnabas sighed--which was a new thing for him. "Was the change really in the old inn, or in himself?" he wondered. Hereupon he sighed again, and turning, went on down the hill. But now, as he went, his step lagged and his head drooped. "Was the change in the inn, or could it be that money can so quickly alter one?" he wondered. And straightway the coins in his pocket chinked and jingled "yes, yes!" wherefore Barnabas sighed for the third time, and his head drooped lower yet.

Well then, since he was rich, he would buy his father a better inn--the best in all England. A better inn! and the "Coursing Hound" had been his home as long as he could remember. A better inn! Here Barnabas sighed for the fourth time, and his step was heavier than ever as he went on down the hill.

CHAPTER IV

HOW BARNABAS FELL IN WITH A PEDLER OF BOOKS, AND PURCHASED A "PRICELESS WOLLUM"

"Heads up, young master, never say die! and wi' the larks and the throstles a-singing away so inspiring too--Lord love me!"

Barnabas started guiltily, and turning with upflung head, perceived a very small man perched on an adjacent milestone, with a very large pack at his feet, a very large hunk of bread and cheese in his hand, and with a book open upon his knee.

"Listen to that theer lark," said the man, pointing upwards with the knife he held.

"Well?" said Barnabas, a trifle haughtily perhaps.

"There's music for ye; there's j'y. I never hear a lark but it takes me back to London--to Lime'us, to Giles's Rents, down by the River."

"Pray, why?" inquired Barnabas, still a trifle haughtily.

"Because it's so different; there ain't much j'y, no, nor yet music in Giles's Rents, down by the River."

"Rather an unpleasant place!" said Barnabas.

"Unpleasant, young sir. I should say so--the worst place in the world--but listen to that theer blessed lark; there's a woice for ye; there's music with a capital M.; an' I've read as they cooks and eats 'em."

"Who do?"

"Nobs do--swells--gentlemen--ah, an' ladies, too!"

"More shame to them, then."

"Why, so says I, young master, but, ye see, beef an' mutton, ducks an' chicken, an' sich, ain't good enough for your Nobs nowadays, oh no! They must dewour larks wi' gusto, and French hortolons wi' avidity, and wi' a occasional leg of a frog throw'd in for a relish--though, to be sure, a frog's leg ain't over meaty at the best o' times. Oh, it's all true, young sir; it's all wrote down here in this priceless wollum." Here he tapped the book upon his knee. "Ye see, with the Quality it is quality as counts--not quantity. It's flavor as is their constant want, or, as you might say, desire; flavor in their meat, in their drink, and above all, in their books; an' see you, I sell books, an' I know."

"What kind of flavor?" demanded Barnabas, coming a step nearer, though in a somewhat stately fashion.

"Why, a gamey flavor, to be sure, young sir; a 'igh flavor--ah! the 'igher the better. Specially in books. Now here," continued the Chapman, holding up the volume he had been reading. "'Ere's a book as ain't to be ekalled nowheers nor nohow--not in Latin nor Greek, nor Persian, no, nor yet 'Indoo. A book as is fuller o' information than a egg is o' meat. A book as was wrote by a person o' quality, therefore a elewating book; wi' nice bold type into it--ah! an' wood-cuts--picters an' engravin's, works o' art as is not to be beat nowheers nor nohow; not in China, Asia, nor Africa, a book therefore as is above an' beyond all price."

"What book is it?" inquired Barnabas, forgetting his haughtiness, and coming up beside the Chapman.

"It's a book," said the Chapman; "no, it's THE book as any young gentleman a-going out into the world ought to have wi' him, asleep or awake."

"But what is it all about?" inquired Barnabas a trifle impatiently.

"Why, everything," answered the Chapman; "an' I know because I 've read it--a thing I rarely do."

"What's the title?"

"The title, young sir; well theer! read for yourself."

And with the words the Chapman held up the book open at the title-page, and Barnabas read:

HINTS ON ETIQUETTE,

OR

THE COMPLEAT ART OF A GENTLEMANLY DEPORTMENT BY A PERSON OF QUALITY.

"You'll note that theer Person o' Quality, will ye?" said the Chapman.

"Strange!" said Barnabas.

"Not a bit of it!" retorted the Chapman. "Lord, love me! any one could be a gentleman by just reading and inwardly di-gesting o' this here priceless wollum; it's all down here in print, an' nice bold type, too--pat as you please. If it didn't 'appen as my horryscope demands as I should be a chapman, an' sell books an' sich along the roads, I might ha' been as fine a gentleman as any on 'em, just by follering the directions printed into this here blessed tome, an' in nice large type, too, an' woodcuts."

"This is certainly very remarkable!" said Barnabas.

"Ah!" nodded the Chapman, "it's the most remarkablest book as ever was!--Lookee--heer's picters for ye--lookee!" and he began turning over the pages, calling out the subject of the pictures as he did so.

"Gentleman going a walk in a jerry 'at. Gentleman eating soup! Gentleman kissing lady's 'and. Gentleman dancing with lady--note them theer legs, will ye--theer's elegance for ye! Gentleman riding a 'oss in one o' these 'ere noo buckled 'ats. Gentleman shaking 'ands with ditto--observe the cock o' that little finger, will ye! Gentleman eating ruffles--no, truffles, which is a vegetable, as all pigs is uncommon partial to. Gentleman proposing lady's 'ealth in a frilled shirt an' a pair o' skin-tights. Gentleman making a bow."

"And remarkably stiff in the legs about it, too!" nodded Barnabas.

"Stiff in the legs!" cried the Chapman reproachfully. "Lord love you, young sir! I've seen many a leg stiffer than that."

"And how much is the book?"

The Chapman cast a shrewd glance up at the tall youthful figure, at the earnest young face, at the deep and solemn eyes, and coughed behind his hand.

"Well, young sir," said he, gazing thoughtfully up at the blue sky--"since you are you, an' nobody else--an' ax me on so fair a morning, wi' the song o' birds filling the air--we'll charge you only--well--say ten shillings: say eight, say seven-an'-six--say five--theer, make it five shillings, an' dirt-cheap at the price, too."

Barnabas hesitated, and the Chapman was about to come down a shilling or two more when Barnabas spoke.

"Then you're not thinking of learning to become a gentleman yourself?"

"O Lord love you--no!"

"Then I'll buy it," said Barnabas, and forthwith handed over the five shillings. Slipping the book into his pocket, he turned to go, yet paused again and addressed the Chapman over his shoulder.

"Shouldn't you like to become a gentleman?" he inquired.

Again the Chapman regarded him from the corners of his eyes, and again he coughed behind his hand.

"Well," he admitted, "I should an' I shouldn't. O' course it must be a fine thing to bow to a duchess, or 'and a earl's daughter into a chariot wi' four 'orses an' a couple o' footmen, or even to sit wi' a markus an' eat a French hortolon (which never 'aving seen, I don't know the taste on, but it sounds promising); oh yes, that part would suit me to a T; but then theer's t'other part to it, y' see."

"What do you mean?"

"Why, a gentleman has a great deal to live up to--theer's his dignity, y' see."

"Yes, I suppose so," Barnabas admitted.

"For instance, a gentleman couldn't very well be expected to sit in a ditch and enj'y a crust o' bread an' cheese; 'is dignity wouldn't allow of it, now would it?"

"Certainly not," said Barnabas.

"Nor yet drink 'ome-brewed out of a tin pot in a inn kitchen."

"Well, he might, if he were very thirsty," Barnabas ventured to think. But the Chapman scouted the idea.

"For," said he, "a gentleman's dignity lifts him above inn kitchens and raises him superior to tin pots. Now tin pots is a perticler weakness o' mine, leastways when theer's good ale inside of 'em. And then again an' lastly," said the Chapman, balancing a piece of cheese on the flat of his knife-blade, "lastly theer's his clothes, an', as I've read somewhere, 'clothes make the man'--werry good--chuck in dignity an' theer's your gentleman!"

"Hum," said Barnabas, profoundly thoughtful.

"An' a gentleman's clothes is a world o' trouble and anxiety to him, and takes up most o' his time, what wi' his walking breeches an' riding breeches an' breeches for dancing; what wi' his coats cut 'igh an' his coats cut low; what wi' his flowered satin weskits; what wi' his boots an' his gloves, an' his cravats an' his 'ats, why, Lord love ye, he passes his days getting out o' one suit of clothes an' into another. And it's just this clothes part as I can't nowise put up wi', for I'm one as loves a easy life, I am."

"And is your life so easy?" inquired Barnabas, eyeing the very small Chapman's very large pack.

"Why, to be sure theer's easier," the Chapman admitted, scratching his ear and frowning; "but then," and here his brow cleared again, "I've only got this one single suit of clothes to bother my 'ead over, which, being wore out as you can see, don't bother me at all."

"Then are you satisfied to be as you are?"

"Well," answered the Chapman, clinking the five shillings in his pocket, "I aren't one to grumble at fate, nor yet growl at fortun'."

"Why, then," said Barnabas, "I wish you good morning."

"Good morning, young sir, and remember now, if you should ever feel like being a gentleman--it's quite easy--all as you've got to do is to read the instructions in that theer priceless wollum--mark 'em--learn 'em, and inwardly di-gest 'em, and you'll be a gentleman afore you know it."

Now hereupon Barnabas smiled, a very pleasant smile and radiant with youth, whereat the Chapman's pinched features softened for pure good fellowship, and for the moment he almost wished that he had charged less for the "priceless wollum," as, so smiling, Barnabas turned and strode away, London-wards.

CHAPTER V

IN WHICH THE HISTORIAN SEES FIT TO INTRODUCE A LADY OF QUALITY; AND FURTHER NARRATES HOW BARNABAS TORE A WONDERFUL BOTTLE-GREEN COAT

Now in a while Barnabas came to where was a stile with a path beyond--a narrow path that led up over a hill until it lost itself in a wood that crowned the ascent; a wood where were shady dells full of a quivering green twilight; where broad glades led away beneath leafy arches, and where a stream ran gurgling in the shade of osiers and willows; a wood that Barnabas had known from boyhood. Therefore, setting his hand upon the stile, he vaulted lightly over, minded to go through the wood and join the high road further on. This he did by purest chance, and all unthinking followed the winding path.

Now had Barnabas gone on by the road how different this history might have been, and how vastly different his career! But, as it happened, moved by Chance, or Fate, or Destiny, or what you will, Barnabas vaulted over the stile and strode on up the winding path, whistling as he went, and, whistling, plunged into the green twilight of the wood, and, whistling still, swung suddenly into a broad and grassy glade splashed green and gold with sunlight, and then stopped all at once and stood there silent, dumb, the very breath in check between his lips.

She lay upon her side--full length upon the sward, and her tumbled hair made a glory in the grass, a golden mane. Beneath this silken curtain he saw dark brows that frowned a little--a vivid mouth, and lashes thick and dark like her eyebrows, that curled upon the pallor of her cheek.

Motionless stood Barnabas, with eyes that wandered from the small polished riding-boot, with its delicately spurred heel, to follow the gracious line that swelled voluptuously from knee to rounded hip, that sank in sweetly to a slender waist, yet rose again to the rounded beauty of her bosom.

So Barnabas stood and looked and looked, and looking sighed, and stole a step near and stopped again, for behold the leafy screen was parted suddenly, and Barnabas beheld two boots--large boots they were but of exquisite shape--boots that strode strongly and planted themselves masterfully; Hessian boots, elegant, glossy and betasselled. Glancing higher, he observed a coat of a bottle-green, high-collared, close-fitting and silver-buttoned; a coat that served but to make more apparent the broad chest, powerful shoulders, and lithe waist of its wearer. Indeed a truly marvellous coat (at least, so thought Barnabas), and in that moment, he, for the first time, became aware how clumsy and ill-contrived were his own garments; he understood now what Natty Bell had meant when he had said they were not polite enough; and as for his boots--blunt of toe, thick-soled and ponderous--he positively blushed for them. Here, it occurred to him that the wearer of the coat possessed a face, and he looked at it accordingly. It was a handsome face he saw, dark of eye, square-chinned and full-lipped. Just now the eyes were lowered, for their possessor stood apparently lost in leisurely contemplation of her who lay outstretched between them; and as his gaze wandered to and fro over her defenceless beauty, a glow dawned in the eyes, and the full lips parted in a slow smile, whereat Barnabas frowned darkly, and his cheeks grew hot because of her too betraying habit.

"Sir!" said he between snapping teeth.

Then, very slowly and unwillingly, the gentleman raised his eyes and stared across at him.

"And pray," said he carelessly, "pray who might you be?"

At his tone Barnabas grew more angry and therefore more polite.

"Sir, that--permit me to say--does not concern you."

"Not in the least," the other retorted, "and I bid you good day; you can go, my man, I am acquainted with this lady; she is quite safe in my care."

"That, sir, I humbly beg leave to doubt," said Barnabas, his politeness growing.

"Why--you impudent scoundrel!"

Barnabas smiled.

"Come, take yourself off!" said the gentleman, frowning, "I'll take care of this lady."

"Pardon me! but I think not."

The gentleman stared at Barnabas through suddenly narrow lids, and laughed softly, and Barnabas thought his laugh worse than his frown.

"Ha! d' you mean to say you--won't go?"

"With all the humility in the world, I do, sir."

"Why, you cursed, interfering yokel! must I thrash you?"

Now "yokel" stung, for Barnabas remembered his blunt-toed boots, therefore he smiled with lips suddenly grim, and his politeness grew almost aggressive.

"Thrash me, sir!" he repeated, "indeed I almost venture to fear that you must." But the gentleman's gaze had wandered to the fallen girl once more, and the glow was back in his roving eyes.

"Pah!" said he, still intent, "if it is her purse you are after--here, take mine and leave us in peace." As he spoke, he flung his purse towards Barnabas, and took a long step nearer the girl. But in that same instant Barnabas strode forward also and, being nearer, reached her first, and, stepping over her, it thus befell that they came face to face within a foot of one another. For a moment they stood thus, staring into each other's eyes, then without a word swift and sudden they closed and grappled.

The gentleman was very quick, and more than ordinarily strong, so also was Barnabas, but the gentleman's handsome face was contorted with black rage, whereas Barnabas was smiling, and therein seemed the only difference between them as they strove together breast to breast, now in sunlight, now in shadow, but always grimly silent.

So, within the glory of the morning, they reeled and staggered to and fro, back and forth, trampling down the young grass, straining, panting, swaying--the one frowning and determined, the other smiling and grim.

Suddenly the bottle-green coat ripped and tore as its wearer broke free; there was the thud of a blow, and Barnabas staggered back with blood upon his face--staggered, I say, and in that moment, as his antagonist rushed, laughed fierce and short, and stepped lightly aside and smote him clean and true under the chin, a little to one side.

The gentleman's fists flew wide, he twisted upon his heels, pitched over upon his face, and lay still.

Smiling still, Barnabas looked down upon him, then grew grave.

"Indeed," said he, "indeed it was a great pity to spoil such a wonderful coat."

So he turned away, and coming to where she, who was the unwitting cause of all this, yet lay, stopped all at once, for it seemed to him that her posture was altered; her habit had become more decorous, and yet the lashes, so dark in contrast to her hair, those shadowy lashes yet curled upon her cheek. Therefore, very presently, Barnabas stooped, and raising her in his arms bore her away through the wood towards the dim recesses where, hidden in the green shadows, his friend the brook went singing upon its way.

And in a while the gentleman stirred and sat up, and, beholding his torn coat, swore viciously, and, chancing upon his purse, pocketed it, and so went upon his way, and by contrast with the glory of the morning his frown seemed the blacker.

CHAPTER VI

OF THE BEWITCHMENT OF BLACK EYELASHES; AND OF A FATEFUL LACE HANDKERCHIEF

Let it be understood that Barnabas was not looking at her as she lay all warm and yielding in his embrace, on the contrary, he walked with his gaze fixed pertinaciously upon the leafy path he followed, nevertheless he was possessed, more than once, of a sudden feeling that her eyes had opened and were watching him, therefore, after a while be it noted, needs must he steal a downward glance at her beauty, only to behold the shadowy lashes curling upon her cheeks, as was but natural, of course. And now he began to discover that these were, indeed, no ordinary lashes (though to be sure his experience in such had been passing small), yet the longer he gazed upon them the more certain he became that these were, altogether and in all respects, the most demurely tantalizing lashes in the world. Then, again, there was her mouth--warmly red, full-lipped and sensitive like the delicate nostrils above; a mouth all sweet curves; a mouth, he thought, that might grow firm and proud, or wonderfully tender as the case might be, a mouth of scarlet bewitchment; a mouth that for some happy mortal might be--here our Barnabas came near blundering into a tree, and thenceforth he kept his gaze upon the path again. So, strong armed and sure of foot, he bore her through the magic twilight of the wood until he reached the brook. And coming to where the bending willows made a leafy bower he laid her there, then, turning, went down to the brook and drawing off his neckerchief began to moisten it in the clear, cool water.

And lo! in the same minute, the curling lashes were lifted suddenly, and beneath their shadow two eyes looked out--deep and soft and darkly blue, the eyes of a maid--now frank and ingenuous, now shyly troubled, but brimful of witchery ever and always. And pray what could there be in all the fair world more proper for a maid's eyes to rest upon than young Alcides, bare of throat, and with the sun in his curls, as he knelt to moisten the neckerchief in the brook?

Therefore, as she lay, she gazed upon him in her turn, even as he had first looked upon her, pleased to find his face so young and handsome, to note the breadth of his shoulders, the graceful carriage of his limbs, his air of virile strength and latent power, yet doubting too, because of her sex, because of the loneliness, and because he was a man; thus she lay blushing a little, sighing a little, fearing a little, waiting for him to turn. True, he had been almost reverent so far, but then the place was so very lonely. And yet--

Barnabas turned and came striding up the bank. And how was he to know anything of all this, as he stood above her with his dripping neckerchief in his hand, looking down at her lying so very still, and pitying her mightily because her lashes showed so dark against the pallor of her cheek? How was he to know how her heart leapt in her white bosom as he sank upon his knees beside her? Therefore he leaned above her closer and raised the dripping neckerchief. But in that moment she (not minded to be wet) sighed, her white lids fluttered, and, sitting up, she stared at him for all the world as though she had never beheld him until that very moment.

"What are you going to do?" she demanded, drawing away from the streaming neckerchief. "Who are you? Why am I here?--what has happened?"

Barnabas hesitated, first because he was overwhelmed by this sudden torrent of questions, and secondly because he rarely spoke without thinking; therefore, finding him silent, she questioned him again--

"Where am I?"

"In Annersley Wood, madam."

"Ah, yes, I remember, my horse ran away."

"So I brought you here to the brook."

"Why?"

"You were hurt; I found you bleeding and senseless."

"Bleeding!" And out came a dainty lace handkerchief on the instant.

"There," said Barnabas, "above your eyebrow," and he indicated a very small trickle of blood upon the snow of her temple.

"And you--found me, sir?"

"Beneath the riven oak in the Broad Glade--over yonder."

"That is a great way from here, sir!"

"You are not--heavy!" Barnabas explained, a little clumsily perhaps, for she fell silent at this, and stooped her head the better to dab tenderly at the cut above her eyebrow; also the color deepened in her cheeks.

"Madam," said Barnabas, "that is the wrong eyebrow."

"Then why don't you tell me where I'm hurt?" she sighed. For answer, after a moment's hesitation, Barnabas reached out and taking her hand, handkerchief and all, laid it very gently upon the cut, though to be sure it was a very poor thing, as cuts go, after all.

"There," said he again, "though indeed it is very trifling."

"Indeed, sir, it pains atrociously!" she retorted, and to bear out her words showed him her handkerchief, upon whose snow was a tiny vivid stain.

"Then perhaps," ventured Barnabas, "perhaps I'd better bathe it with this!" and he held up his dripping handkerchief.

"Nay, sir, I thank you," she answered, "keep it for your own wounds--there is a cut upon your cheek."

"A cut!" repeated Barnabas--bethinking him of the gentleman's signet ring.

"Yes, a cut, sir," she repeated, and stole a glance at him under her long lashes; "pray did _your_ horse run away also?"

Barnabas was silent again, this time because he knew not how to answer--therefore he began rubbing at his injured cheek while she watched him--and after a while spoke.

"Sir," said she, "that is the wrong cheek."

"Then, indeed, this must be very trifling also," said Barnabas, smiling.

"Does it pain you, sir?"

"Thank you--no."

"Yet it bleeds! You say it was not your horse, sir?" she inquired, wonderfully innocent of eye.

"No, it was not my horse."

"Why, then--pray, how did it happen?"

"Happen, madam?--why, I fancy I must have--scratched myself," returned Barnabas, beginning to wring out his neckerchief.

"Scratched yourself. Ah! of course!" said she, and was silent while Barnabas continued to wring the water from his neckerchief.

"Pray," she inquired suddenly, "do you often scratch yourself--until you bleed?--'t is surely a most distressing habit." Now glancing up suddenly, Barnabas saw her eyes were wonderfully bright for all her solemn mouth, and suspicion grew upon him.--"Did she know? Had she seen?" he wondered.

"Nevertheless, sir--my thanks are due to you--"

"For what?" he inquired quickly.

"Why--for--for--"

"For bringing you here?" he suggested, beginning to wring out his neckerchief again.

"Yes; believe me I am more than grateful for--for--"

"For what, madam?" he inquired again, looking at her now.

"For--your--kindness, sir."

"Pray, how have I been kind?--you refused my neckerchief."

Surely he was rather an unpleasant person after all, she thought, with his persistently direct eyes, and his absurdly blunt mode of questioning--and she detested answering questions.

"Sir," said she, with her dimpled chin a little higher than usual, "it is a great pity you troubled yourself about me, or spoilt your neckerchief with water."

"I thought you were hurt, you see--"

"Oh, sir, I grieve to disappoint you," said she, and rose, and indeed she gained her feet with admirable grace and dignity notwithstanding her recent fall, and the hampering folds of her habit; and now Barnabas saw that she was taller than he had thought.

"Disappoint me!" repeated Barnabas, rising also; "the words are unjust."

For a moment she stood, her head thrown back, her eyes averted disdainfully, and it was now that Barnabas first noticed the dimple in her chin, and he was yet observing it very exactly when he became aware that her haughtiness was gone again and that her eyes were looking up at him, half laughing, half shy, and of course wholly bewitching.

"Yes, I know it was," she admitted, "but oh! won't you please believe that a woman can't fall off her horse without being hurt, though it won't bleed much." Now as she spoke a distant clock began to strike and she to count the strokes, soft and mellow with distance.

"Nine!" she exclaimed with an air of tragedy--"then I shall be late for breakfast, and I'm ravenous--and gracious heavens!"

"What now, madam?"

"My hair! It's all come down--look at it!"

"I've been doing so ever since I--met you," Barnabas confessed.

"Oh, have you! Then why didn't you tell me of it--and I've lost nearly all my hairpins--and--oh dear! what will they think?"

"That it is the most beautiful hair in all the world, of course," said Barnabas. She was already busy twisting it into a shining rope, but here she paused to look up at him from under this bright nimbus, and with two hair-pins in her mouth.

"Oh!" said she again very thoughtfully, and then "Do you think so?" she inquired, speaking over and round the hairpins as it were.

"Yes," said Barnabas, steady-eyed; and immediately down came the curling lashes again, while with dexterous white fingers she began to transform the rope into a coronet.

"I'm afraid it won't hold up," she said, giving her head a tentative shake, "though, fortunately, I haven't far to go."

"How far?" asked Barnabas.

"To Annersley House, sir."

"Yes," said Barnabas, "that is very near--the glade yonder leads into the park."

"Do you know Annersley, then, sir?"

Barnabas hesitated and, having gone over the question in his mind, shook his head.

"I know of it," he answered.

"Do you know Sir George Annersley?"

Again Barnabas hesitated. As a matter of fact he knew as much of Sir George as he knew of the "great house," as it was called thereabouts, that is to say he had seen him once or twice--in the distance. But it would never do to admit as much to her, who now looked up at him with eyes of witchery as she waited for him to speak. Therefore Barnabas shook his head, and answered airily enough:

"We are not exactly acquainted, madam."

Yesterday he would have scorned the subterfuge; but to-day there was money in his purse; London awaited him with expectant arms, the very air was fraught with a magic whereby the impossible might become concrete fact, wherein dreams might become realities; was not she herself, as she stood before him lithe and vigorous in all the perfection of her warm young womanhood--was she not the very embodiment of those dreams that had haunted him sleeping and waking? Verily. Therefore with this magic in the air might he not meet Sir George Annersley at the next cross-roads or by-lane, and strike up an enduring friendship on the spot--truly, for anything was possible to-day. Meanwhile my lady had gathered up the folds of her riding-habit, and yet in the act of turning into the leafy path, spoke:

"Are you going far, sir?"

"To London."

"Have you many friends there?"

"None,--as yet, madam."

After this they walked on in silence, she with her eyes on the lookout for obstacles, he lost to all but the beauty of the young body before him--the proud carriage of the head, the sway of the hips, the firm poise of the small and slender foot--all this he saw and admired, yet (be it remarked) his face bore nothing of the look that had distorted the features of the gentleman in the bottle-green coat--though to be sure our Barnabas was but an amateur at best--even as Natty Bell had said. So at last she reached the fateful glade beyond which, though small with distance, was a noble house set upon a gentle hill that rose above the swaying green of trees. Here my lady paused; she looked up the glade and down the glade, and finally at him. And her eyes were the eyes of a maid, shy, mischievous, demure, challenging.

"Sir," said she, shyly, demurely--but with eyes still challenging-- "sir, I have to thank you. I do thank you--more than these poor lips can tell. If there is anything I could--do--to--to prove my gratitude, you--have but to--name it."

"Do," stammered Barnabas. "Do--indeed--I--no."

The challenging eyes were hidden now, but the lips curved wonderfully tempting and full of allurement. Barnabas clenched his fists hard.

"I see, sir, your cheek has stopped bleeding, 't is almost well. I think--there are others--whose hurts will not heal--quite so soon--and, between you and me, sir, I'm glad--glad! Good-by! and may you find as many friends in London as you deserve." So saying, she turned and went on down the glade.

And in a little Barnabas sighed, and turning also, strode on London-wards.

Now when she had gone but a very short way, my lady must needs glance back over her shoulder, then, screened to be sure by a convenient bramble-bush, she stood to watch him as he swung along, strong, graceful, but with never a look behind.

"Who was he?" she wondered. "What was he? From his clothes he might be anything between a gamekeeper and a farmer."

Alas! poor Barnabas! To be sure his voice was low and modulated, and his words well chosen--who was he, what was he? And he was going to London where he had no friends. And he had never told his name, nor, what was a great deal worse, asked for hers! Here my lady frowned, for such indifference was wholly new in her experience. But on went long-legged Barnabas, all unconscious, striding through sunlight and shadow, with step blithe and free--and still (Oh! Barnabas) with never a look behind. Therefore, my lady's frown grew more portentous, and she stamped her foot at his unconscious back; then all at once the frown vanished in a sudden smile, and she instinctively shrank closer into cover, for Barnabas had stopped.

"Oh, indeed, sir!" she mocked, secure behind her leafy screen, nodding her head at his unconscious back; "so you've actually thought better of it, have you?"

Here Barnabas turned.

"Really, sir, you will even trouble to come all the way back, will you, just to learn her name--or, perhaps to--indeed, what condescension. But, dear sir, you're too late; oh, yes, indeed you are! 'for he who will not when he may, when he will he shall have nay.' I grieve to say you are too late--quite too late! Good morning, Master Shill-I-shall-I." And with the word she turned, then hastily drew a certain lace handkerchief from her bosom, and set it very cleverly among the thorns of a bramble, and so sped away among the leaves.

CHAPTER VII

IN WHICH MAY BE FOUND DIVERS RULES AND MAXIMS FOR THE ART OF BOWING

"Now, by the Lord!" said Barnabas, stopping all at once, "forgetful fool that I am! I never bowed to her!" Therefore, being minded to repair so grave an omission, he turned sharp about, and came striding back again, and thus it befell that he presently espied the lace handkerchief fluttering from the bramble, and having extricated the delicate lace from the naturally reluctant thorns with a vast degree of care and trouble, he began to look about for the late owner. But search how he might, his efforts proved unavailing--Annersley Wood was empty save for himself. Having satisfied himself of the fact, Barnabas sighed again, thrust the handkerchief into his pocket, and once more set off upon his way.

But now, as he went, he must needs remember his awkward stiffness when she had thanked him; he grew hot all over at the mere recollection, and, moreover, he had forgotten even to bow! But there again, was he quite sure that he could bow as a gentleman should? There were doubtless certain rules and maxims for the bow as there were for mathematics--various motions to be observed in the making of it, of which Barnabas confessed to himself his utter ignorance. What then was a bow? Hereupon, bethinking him of the book in his pocket, he drew it out, and turning to a certain page, began to study the "stiff-legged-gentleman" with a new and enthralled interest. Now over against this gentleman, that is to say, on the opposite page, he read these words:--

"THE ART OF BOWING."

"To know how, and when, and to whom to bow, is in itself an art. The bow is, indeed, an all-important accomplishment,--it is the 'Open Sesame' of the 'Polite World.' To bow gracefully, therefore, may be regarded as the most important part of a gentlemanly deportment."

"Hum!" said Barnabas, beginning to frown at this; and yet, according to the title-page, these were the words of a "Person of Quality."

"To bow gracefully,"--the Person of Quality chattered on,--"the feet should be primarily disposed as in the first position of dancing."

Barnabas sighed, frowning still.

"The left hand should be lifted airily and laid upon the bosom, the fingers kept elegantly spread. The head is now stooped forward, the body following easily from the hips, the right hand, at the same moment, being waved gracefully in the air. It is, moreover, very necessary that the expression of the features should assume as engaging an air as possible. The depth of the bow is to be regulated to the rank of the person saluted."

And so forth and so on for two pages more.

Barnabas sighed and shook his head hopelessly.

"Ah!" said he, "under these circumstances it is perhaps just as well that I forgot to try. It would seem I should have bungled it quite shamefully. Who would have thought a thing so simple could become a thing so very complicated!" Saying which, he shut the book, and thrust it back into his pocket, and thus became aware of a certain very small handful of dainty lace and cambric, and took it out, and, looking at it, beheld again the diminutive stain, while there stole to his nostrils a perfume, faint and very sweet.

"I wonder," said he to himself. "I wonder who she was--I might have asked her name but, fool that I am, I even forgot that!"

Here Barnabas sighed, and, sighing, hid the handkerchief in his pocket.

"And yet," he pursued, "had she told me her name, I should have been compelled to announce mine, and--Barnabas Barty--hum! somehow there is no suggestion about it of broad acres, or knightly ancestors; no, Barty will never do." Here Barnabas became very thoughtful. "Mortimer sounds better," said he, after a while, "or Mandeville. Then there's Neville, and Desborough, and Ravenswood--all very good names, and yet none of them seems quite suitable. Still I must have a name that is beyond all question!" And Barnabas walked on more thoughtful than ever. All at once he stopped, and clapped hand to thigh.

"My mother's name, of course--Beverley; yes, it is an excellent name, and, since it was hers, I have more right to it than to any other. So Beverley it shall be--Barnabas Beverley--good!" Here Barnabas stopped and very gravely lifted his hat to his shadow.

"Mr. Beverley," said he, "I salute you, your very humble obedient servant, Mr. Beverley, sir, God keep you!" Hereupon he put on his hat again, and fell into his swinging stride.

"So," said he, "that point being settled it remains to master the intricacies of the bow." Saying which, he once more had recourse to the "priceless wollum," and walked on through the glory of the morning, with his eyes upon the valuable instructions of the "Person of Quality."

Now, as he went, chancing to look up suddenly, he beheld a gate-post. A very ancient gate-post it was--a decrepit gate-post, worn and heavy with years, for it leaned far out from the perpendicular. And with his gaze upon this, Barnabas halted suddenly, clapped the book to his bosom, and raising his hat with an elegant flourish, bowed to that gnarled and withered piece of timber as though it had been an Archduke at the very least, or the loveliest lady in the land.

"Ha! by Thor and Odin, what's all this?" cried a voice behind him. "I say what the devil's all this?"

Turning sharp about, Barnabas beheld a shortish, broad-shouldered individual in a befrogged surtout and cords, something the worse for wear, who stood with his booted legs wide apart and stared at him from a handsome bronzed face, with a pair of round blue eyes; he held a broad-brimmed hat in his hand--the other, Barnabas noticed, was gone from the elbow.

"Egad!" said he, staring at Barnabas with his blue eyes. "What's in the wind? I say, what the devil, sir--eh, sir?"

Forthwith Barnabas beamed upon him, and swept him another bow almost as low as that he had bestowed upon the gate-post.

"Sir," said he, hat gracefully flourished in the air, "your very humble obedient servant to command."

"A humble obedient fiddlestick, sir!" retorted the new comer. "Pooh, sir!--I say dammit!--are ye mad, sir, to go bowing and scraping to a gate-post, as though it were an Admiral of the Fleet or Nelson himself--are ye mad or only drunk, sir? I say, what d' ye mean?"

Here Barnabas put on his hat and opened the book.

"Plainly, sir," he answered, "being overcome with a sudden desire to bow to something or other, I bowed to that gate-post in want of a worthier object; but now, seeing you arrive so very opportunely, I' 11 take the liberty of trying another. Oblige me by observing if my expression is sufficiently engaging," and with the words Barnabas bowed as elaborately as before.

"Sink me!" exclaimed the one-armed individual, rounder of eye than ever, "the fellow's mad--stark, staring mad."

"No, indeed, sir," smiled Barnabas, reassuringly, "but the book here--which I am given to understand is wholly infallible--says that to bow is the most important item of a gentlemanly equipment, and in the World of Fashion--"

"In the World of Fashion, sir, there are no gentlemen left," his hearer broke in.

"How, sir--?"

"I say no, sir, no one. I say, damme, sir--"

"But, sir--"

"I say there are no gentlemen in the fashionable world--they are all blackguardly Bucks, cursed Corinthians, and mincing Macaronies nowadays, sir. Fashionable world--bah, sir!"

"But, sir, is not the Prince himself--"

"The Prince, sir!" Here the one-armed gentleman clapped on his hat and snorted, "The Prince is a--prince, sir; he's also an authority on sauce and shoe-buckles. Let us talk of something more interesting--yourself, for instance."

Barnabas bowed.

"Sir," said he, "my name is Barnabas--Barnabas Beverley."

"Hum!" said the other, thoughtfully, "I remember a Beverley--a lieutenant under Hardy in the 'Agamemnon'--though, to be sure, he spelt his name with an 'l-e-y.'"

"So do I, sir," said Barnabas.

"Hum!"

"Secondly, I am on my way to London."

"London! Egad! here's another of 'em! London, of course--well?"

"Where I hope to cut some figure in the--er--World of Fashion."

"Fashion--Gog and Magog!--why not try drowning. 'T would be simpler and better for you in the long run. London! Fashion! in that hat, that coat, those--"

"Sir," said Barnabas, flushing, "I have already--"

"Fashion, eh? Why, then, you must cramp that chest into an abortion, all collar, tail, and buttons, and much too tight to breathe in; you must struggle into breeches tight enough to burst, and cram your feet into bepolished torments--"

"But, sir," Barnabas ventured again, "surely the Prince himself is accountable for the prevailing fashion, and as you must know, he is said to be the First Gentleman in Europe and--"

"Fiddle-de-dee and the devil, sir!--who says he is? A set of crawling sycophants, sir--a gang of young reprobates and bullies. First Gentleman in--I say pish, sir! I say bah! Don't I tell you that gentlemen went out o' fashion when Bucks came in? I say there isn't a gentleman left in England except perhaps one or two. This is the age of your swaggering, prize-fighting Corinthians. London swarms with 'em, Brighton's rank with 'em, yet they pervade even these solitudes, damme! I saw one of 'em only half an hour ago, limping out of a wood yonder. Ah! a polished, smiling rascal--a dangerous rogue! One of your sleepy libertines--one of your lucky gamblers--one of your conscienceless young reprobates equally ready to win your money, ruin your sister, or shoot you dead as the case may be, and all in the approved way of gallantry, sir; and, being all this, and consequently high in royal favor, he is become a very lion in the World of Fashion. Would you succeed, young sir, you must model yourself upon him as nearly as may be."

"And he was limping, you say?" inquired Barnabas, thoughtfully.

"And serve him right, sir--egad! I say damme! he should limp in irons to Botany Bay and stay there if I had my way."

"Did you happen to notice the color of his coat?" inquired Barnabas again.

"Ay, 't was green, sir; but what of it--have you seen him?"

"I think I have, sir," said Barnabas, "if 't was a green coat he wore. Pray, sir, what might his name be?"

"His name, sir, is Carnaby--Sir Mortimer Carnaby."

"Sir Mortimer Carnaby!" said Barnabas, nodding his head.

"And, sir," pursued his informant, regarding Barnabas from beneath his frowning brows, "since it is your ambition to cut a figure in the World of Fashion, your best course is to cultivate him, frequent his society as much as possible, act upon his counsel, and in six months, or less, I don't doubt you'll be as polished a young blackguard as any of 'em. Good morning, sir."

Here the one-armed gentleman nodded and turned to enter the field.

"Sir," said Barnabas, "one moment! Since you have been so obliging as to describe a Buck, will you tell me who and what in your estimation is a gentleman?"

"A gentleman? Egad, sir! must I tell you that? No, I say I won't--the Bo'sun shall." Hereupon the speaker faced suddenly about and raised his voice: "Aft there!" he bellowed. "Pass the word for the Bo'sun--I say where's Bo'sun Jerry?"

Immediately upon these words there came another roar surprisingly hoarse, deep, and near at hand.

"Ay, ay, sir! here I be, Cap'n," the voice bellowed back. "Here I be, sir, my helm hard a-starboard, studden sails set, and all a-drawing alow and aloft, but making bad weather on it on account o' these here furrers and this here jury-mast o' mine, but I'll fetch up alongside in a couple o' tacks."

Now glancing in the direction of the voice, Barnabas perceived a head and face that bobbed up and down on the opposite side of the hedge. A red face it was, a jovial, good-humored face, lit up with quick, bright eyes that twinkled from under a prodigious pair of eyebrows; a square honest face whose broad good nature beamed out from a mighty bush of curling whisker and pigtail, and was surmounted by a shining, glazed hat.

Being come opposite to them, he paused to mop at his red face with a neckerchief of vivid hue, which done, he touched the brim of the glazed hat, and though separated from them by no more than the hedge and ditch, immediately let out another roar--for all the world as though he had been hailing the maintop of a Seventy-four in a gale of wind.

"Here I be, Cap'n!" he bellowed, "studden sails set an' drawing, tho' obleeged to haul my wind, d'ye see, on account o' this here spar o' mine a-running foul o' the furrers." Having said the which, he advanced again with a heave to port and a lurch to starboard very like a ship in a heavy sea; this peculiarity of gait was explained as he hove into full view, for then Barnabas saw that his left leg was gone from the knee and had been replaced by a wooden one.

"Bo'sun," said the Captain, indicating Barnabas, with a flap of his empty sleeve, "Bo'sun--favor me, I say oblige me by explaining to this young gentleman your opinion of a gentleman--I say tell him who you think is the First Gentleman in Europe!"

The Bo'sun stared from Barnabas to the Captain and back again.

"Begging your Honor's parding," said he, touching the brim of the glazed hat, "but surely nobody don't need to be told that 'ere?"

"It would seem so, Jerry."

"Why then, Cap'n--since you ax me, I should tell you--bold an' free like, as the First Gentleman in Europe--ah! or anywhere else--was Lord Nelson an' your Honor."

As he spoke the Bo'sun stood up very straight despite his wooden leg, and when he touched his hat again, his very pigtail seemed straighter and stiffer than ever.

"Young sir," said the Captain, regarding Barnabas from the corners of his eyes, "what d' ye say to that?"

"Why," returned Barnabas, "now I come to think of it, I believe the Bo'sun is right."

"Sir," nodded the Captain, "the Bo'sun generally is; my Bo'sun, sir, is as remarkable as that leg of his which he has contrived so that it will screw on or off--in sections sir--I mean the wooden one."

"But," said Barnabas, beginning to stroke his chin in the argumentative way that was all his father's, "but, sir, I was meaning gentlemen yet living, and Lord Nelson, unfortunately, is dead."

"Bo'sun," said the Captain, "what d' ye say to that?"

"Why, Cap'n, axing the young gentleman's pardon, I beg leave to remark, or as you might say, ob-serve, as men like 'im don't die, they jest gets promoted, so to speak."

"Very true, Jerry," nodded the Captain again, "they do, but go to a higher service, very true. And now, Bo'sun, the bread!"

"Ay, ay, sir!" said the Bo'sun, and, taking the neat parcel the Captain held out, dropped it forthwith into the crown of the glazed hat.

"Bo'sun, the meat! the young fool will be hungry by now, poor lad!"

"Ay, ay, Cap'n!" And, the meat having disappeared into the same receptacle, the Bo'sun resumed his hat. Now turning to Barnabas, the Captain held out his hand.

"Sir," said he, "I wish you good-by and a prosperous voyage, and may you find yourself too much a man ever to fall so low as 'fashion,'--I say dammit! The bread and meat, sir, are for a young fool who thinks, like yourself, that the World of Fashion is _the_ world. By heaven, sir, I say by Gog and Magog! if I had a son with fashionable aspirations, I'd have him triced up to the triangles and flogged with the 'cat'--I say with the cat-o'-ninetails, sir, that is--no I wouldn't, besides I--never had a son--she--died, sir--and good-by!"

"Stay," said Barnabas, "pray tell me to whom I am indebted for so much good instruction."

"My name, sir, is Chumly--plain Chumly--spelt with a U and an M, sir; none of your _olmondeleys_ for me, sir, and I beg you to know that I have no crest or monogram or coat of arms; there's neither or, azure, nor argent about me; I'm neither rampant, nor passant, nor even regardant. And I want none of your sables, ermines, bars, escallops, embattled fiddle-de-dees, or dencette tarradiddles, sir. I'm Chumly, Captain John Chumly, plain and without any fashionable varnish. Consequently, though I have commanded many good ships, sloops, frigates, and even one Seventy-four--"

"The 'Bully-Sawyer,' Trafalgar!" added the Bo'sun.

"Seeing I am only John Chumly, with a U and an M, I retire still a captain. Now, had I clapped in an _olmondeley_ and the rest of the fashionable gewgaws, I should now be doubtless a Rear Admiral at the very least, for the polite world--the World of Fashion is rampant, sir, not to mention passant and regardant. So, if you would achieve a reputation among Persons of Quality nowadays--bow, sir, bow everywhere day in and day out--keep a supple back, young sir, and spell your name with as many unnecessary letters as you can. And as regards my idea of a gentleman, he is, I take it, a man--who is gentle--I say good morning, young sir." As he ended, the Captain took off his hat, with his remaining arm put it on again, and then reached out, suddenly, and clapped Barnabas upon the shoulder. "Here's wishing you a straight course, lad," said he with a smile, every whit as young and winning as that which curved the lips of Barnabas, "a fair course and a good, clean wind to blow all these fashionable fooleries out of your head. Good-by!" So he nodded, turned sharp about and went upon his way.

Hereupon the Bo'sun shook his head, took off the glazed hat, stared into it, and putting it on again, turned and stumped along beside Barnabas.

CHAPTER VIII

CONCERNING THE CAPTAIN'S ARM, THE BOSUN'S LEG, AND THE "BELISARIUS," SEVENTY-FOUR

"The 'Bully-Sawyer,' Trafalgar!" murmured the Bo'sun, as they went on side by side; "you've 'eerd o' the 'Bully-Sawyer,' Seventy-four, o' course, young sir?"

"I'm afraid not," said Barnabas, rather apologetically.

"Not 'eerd o' the 'Bully-Sawyer,' Seventy-four, Lord, young sir! axing your pardon, but--not 'eerd o' the--why, she were in the van that day one o' the first to engage the enemy--but a cable's length to wind'ard o' the 'Victory'--one o' the first to come up wi' the Mounseers, she were. An' now you tell me as you ain't 'eerd o' the--Lord, sir!" and the Bo'sun sighed, and shook his head till it was a marvel how the glazed hat kept its position.

"Won't you tell me of her, Bo'sun?"

"Tell you about the old 'Bully-Sawyer,' Seventy-four, ay surely, sir, surely. Ah! 't were a grand day for us, a grand day for our Nelson, and a grand day for England--that twenty-first o' October--though 't were that day as they French and Spanishers done for the poor old 'Bully-Sawyer,' Seventy-four, and his honor's arm and my leg, d' ye see. The wind were light that day as we bore down on their line--in two columns, d' ye see, sir--we was in Nelson's column, the weather line 'bout a cable's length astarn o' the 'Victory.' On we went, creeping nearer and nearer--the 'Victory,' the old 'Bully-Sawyer,' and the 'Temeraire'--and every now and then the Mounseers trying a shot at us to find the range, d' ye see. Right ahead o' us lay the 'Santissima Trinidado'--a great four-decker, young sir--astarn o' her was the 'Beaucenture,' and astarn o' her again, the 'Redoutable,' wi' eight or nine others. On we went wi' the Admiral's favorite signal flying, 'Engage the enemy more closely.' Ah, young sir, there weren't no stand-offishness about our Nelson, God bless him! As we bore closer their shot began to come aboard o' us, but the old 'Bully-Sawyer' never took no notice, no, not so much as a gun. Lord! I can see her now as she bore down on their line; every sail drawing aloft, the white decks below--the gleam o' her guns wi' their crews stripped to the waist, every eye on the enemy, every man at his post--very different she looked an hour arterwards. Well, sir, all at once the great 'Santissima Trinidado' lets fly at us wi' her whole four tiers o' broadside, raking us fore and aft, and that begun it; down comes our foretopmast wi' a litter o' falling spars and top-hamper, and the decks was all at once splashed, here and there, wi' ugly blotches. But, Lord! the old 'Bully-Sawyer' never paid no heed, and still the men stood to the guns, and his Honor, the Captain, strolled up and down, chatting to his flag officer. Then the enemy's ships opened on us one arter another, the 'Beaucenture,' the 'San Nicholas,' and the 'Redoutable' swept and battered us wi' their murderous broadsides; the air seemed full o' smoke and flame, and the old 'Bully-Sawyer' in the thick o' it. But still we could see the 'Victory' through the drifting smoke ahead o' us wi' the signal flying, 'Engage the enemy more closely,' and still we waited and waited very patient, and crept down on the enemy nearer and nearer."

"And every minute their fire grew hotter, and their aim truer--down came our mizzen-topgallant-mast, and hung down over our quarter; away went our bowsprit--but we held on till we struck their line 'twixt the 'Santissima Trinidado' and the 'Beaucenture,' and, as we crossed the Spanisher's wake, so close that our yard-arms grazed her gilded starn, up flashed his Honor's sword, 'Now, lads!' cried he, hailing the guns--and then--why then, afore I'd took my whistle from my lips, the old 'Bully-Sawyer,' as had been so patient, so very patient, let fly wi' every starboard gun as it bore, slap into the great Spanisher's towering starn, and, a moment arter, her larboard guns roared and flamed as her broadside smashed into the 'Beaucenture,' and 'bout five minutes arterwards we fell aboard o' the 'Fougeux,' and there we lay, young sir, and fought it out yard-arm to yard-arm, and muzzle to muzzle, so close that the flame o' their guns blackened and scorched us, and we was obliged to heave buckets o' water, arter every discharge, to put out the fire. Lord! but the poor old 'Bully-Sawyer' were in a tight corner then, what wi' the 'Fougeux' to port, the 'Beaucenture' to starboard, and the great Spanisher hammering us astarn, d' ye see. But there was our lads--what was left o' 'em--reeking wi' sweat, black wi' powder, splashed wi' blood, fighting the guns; and there was his Honor the Cap'n, leaning against the quarter-rail wi' his sword in one hand, and his snuff-box in t' other--he had two hands then, d'ye see, young sir; and there was me, hauling on the tackle o' one o' the quarter-guns--it happened to be short-handed, d'ye see--when, all at once, I felt a kind o' shock, and there I was flat o' my back, and wi' the wreckage o' that there quarter-gun on this here left leg o' mine, pinning me to the deck. As I lay there I heerd our lads a cheering above the roar and din, and presently, the smoke lifting a bit, I see the Spanisher had struck, but I likewise see as the poor old 'Bully-Sawyer' were done for; she lay a wreck--black wi' smoke, blistered wi' fire, her decks foul wi' blood, her fore and mainmasts beat overboard, and only the mizzen standing. All this I see in a glance--ah! and something more--for the mizzen-topgallant had been shot clean through at the cap, and hung dangling. But now, what wi' the quiver o' the guns and the roll o' the vessel, down she come sliding, and sliding, nearer and nearer, till the splintered end brought up ag'in the wreck o' my gun. But presently I see it begin to slide ag'in nearer to me--very slow, d'ye see--inch by inch, and there's me pinned on the flat o' my back, watching it come. 'Another foot,' I sez, 'and there's an end o' Jerry Tucker--another ten inches, another eight, another six.' Lord, young sir, I heaved and I strained at that crushed leg o' mine; but there I was, fast as ever, while down came the t'gallant--inch by inch. Then, all at once, I kinder let go o' myself. I give a shout, sir, and then--why then--there's his Honor the Cap'n leaning over me. 'Is that you, Jerry?' sez he--for I were black wi' powder, d' ye see, sir. 'Is that you, Jerry?' sez he. 'Ay, ay, sir,' sez I, 'it be me surely, till this here spar slips down and does for me.' 'It shan't do that,' sez he, very square in the jaw. 'It must,' sez I. 'No,' sez he. 'Nothing to stop it, sir,' sez I. 'Yes, there is,' sez he. 'What's that,' sez I. 'This,' sez he, 'twixt his shut teeth, young sir. And then, under that there hellish, murdering piece of timber, the Cap'n sets his hand and arm--his naked hand and arm, sir!' In the name o' God!' I sez, 'let it come, sir!' 'And lose my Bo'sun?--not me!' sez he. Then, sir, I see his face go white--and whiter. I heerd the bones o' his hand and arm crack--like so many sticks--and down he falls atop o' me in a dead faint, sir."

"But the t'gallant were stopped, and the life were kept in this here carcase o' mine. So--that's how the poor old 'Bully-Sawyer,' Seventy-four, were done for--that's how his Honor lost his arm, and me my leg, sir. And theer be the stocks, and theer be our young gentleman inside o' 'em, as cool and smiling and comfortable as you please."

CHAPTER IX

WHICH CONCERNS ITSELF, AMONG OTHER MATTERS, WITH THE VIRTUES OF A PAIR OF STOCKS AND THE PERVERSITY OF FATHERS

Before them was a church, a small church, gray with age, and, like age, lonely. It stood well back from the road which wound away down the hill to the scattered cottages in the valley below.

About this church was a burial ground, upon whose green mounds and leaning headstones the great square tower cast a protecting shadow that was like a silent benediction. A rural graveyard this, very far removed from the strife and bustle of cities, and, therefore, a good place to sleep in.

A low stone wall was set about it, and in the wall was a gate with a weather-beaten porch, and beside the gate were the stocks, and in the stocks, with his hands in his pockets, and his back against the wall, sat a young gentleman.

A lonely figure, indeed, whose boots, bright and polished, were thrust helplessly enough through the leg-holes of the stocks, as though offering themselves to the notice of every passer-by. Tall he was, and _point-de-vice_ from those same helpless boots to the gleaming silver buckle in his hat band.

Now observing the elegance of his clothes, and the modish languor of his lounging figure, Barnabas at once recognized him as a gentleman par excellence, and immediately the memory of his own country-made habiliments and clumsy boots arose and smote him. The solitary prisoner seemed in no whit cast down by his awkward and most undignified situation, indeed, as they drew nearer, Barnabas could hear him whistling softly to himself. At the sound of their approach, however, he glanced up, and observed them from under the brim of the buckled hat with a pair of the merriest blue eyes in the world.

"Aha, Jerry!" he cried, "whom do you bring to triumph over me in my abasement? For shame, Jerry! Is this the act of a loving and affectionate Bo'sun, the Bo'sun of my innocent childhood? Oh, bruise and blister me!"

"Why, sir," answered the Bo'sun, beaming through his whiskers, "this be only a young genelman, like yourself, as be bound for Lonnon, Master Horatio."

The face, beneath the devil-may-care rake of the buckled hat, was pale and handsome, and, despite its studied air of gentlemanly weariness, the eyes were singularly quick and young, and wholly ingenuous.

Now, as they gazed at each other, eye to eye--the merry blue and the steadfast gray--suddenly, unaffectedly, as though drawn by instinct, their hands reached out and met in a warm and firm clasp, and, in that instant, the one forgot his modish languor, and the other his country clothes and blunt-toed boots, for the Spirit of Youth stood between them, and smile answered smile.

"And so you are bound for London, sir; pray, are you in a hurry to get there?"

"Not particularly," Barnabas rejoined.

"Then there you have the advantage of me, for I am, sir. But here I sit, a martyr for conscience sake. Now, sir, if you are in no great hurry, and have a mind to travel in company with a martyr, just as soon as I am free of these bilboes, we'll take the road together. What d' ye say?"

"With pleasure!" answered Barnabas.

"Why then, sir, pray sit down. I blush to offer you the stocks, but the grass is devilish dewy and damp, and there's deuce a chair to be had--which is only natural, of course; but pray sit somewhere until the Bo'sun, like the jolly old dog he is, produces the key, and lets me out."

"Bo'sun, you'll perceive the gentleman is waiting, and, for that matter, so am I. The key, Jerry, the key."

"Axing your pardons, gentlemen both," began the Bo'sun, taking himself by the starboard whisker, "but orders is orders, and I was to tell you, Master Horatio, sir, as there was firstly a round o' beef cold, for breakfus!"

"Beef!" exclaimed the prisoner, striking himself on the crown of the hat.

"Next a smoked tongue--" continued the Bo'sun.

"Tongue!" sighed the prisoner, turning to Barnabas. "You hear that, sir, my unnatural father and uncle batten upon rounds of beef, and smoked tongues, while I sit here, my legs at a most uncomfortable angle, and my inner man as empty as a drum; oh, confound and curse it!"

"A brace o' cold fowl," went on the Bo'sun inexorably; "a biled 'am--"

"Enough, Jerry, enough, lest I forget filial piety and affection and rail upon 'em for heartless gluttons."

"And," pursued the Bo'sun, still busy with his whisker and abstracted of eye--"and I were to say as you was now free to come out of they stocks--"

"Aha, Jerry! even the most Roman of fathers can relent, then. Out with the key, Jerry! Egad! I can positively taste that beef from here; unlock me, Jerry, that I may haste to pay my respects to Roman parent, uncle, and beef--last, but not least, Jerry--"

"Always supposing," added the Bo'sun, giving a final twist to his whisker, "that you've 'ad time to think better on it, d' ye see, and change your mind, Master Horatio, my Lord."

Barnabas pricked up his ears; a lord, and in the stocks! preposterous! and yet surely these were the boots, and clothes, and hat of a lord.

"Change my mind, Jerry!" exclaimed his Lordship, "impossible; you know I never change my mind. What! yield up my freedom for a mess of beef and tongue, or even a brace of cold fowl--"

"Not to mention a cold biled 'am, Master Horatio, sir."

"No, Jerry, not for all the Roman parents, rounds of beef, tyrannical uncles and cold hams in England. Tempt me no more, Jerry; Bo'sun, avaunt, and leave me to melancholy and emptiness."

"Why then," said the Bo'sun, removing the glazed hat and extracting therefrom the Captain's meat packages, "I were to give you this meat, Master Horatio, beef and bread, my Lord."

"From the Captain, I'll be sworn, eh, Jerry?"

"Ay, ay, my Lord, from his Honor the Cap'n."

"Now God bless him for a tender-hearted old martinet, eh, Bo'sun?"

"Which I begs to say, amen, Master Horatio, sir."

"To be sure there is nothing Roman about my uncle." Saying which, his Lordship, tearing open the packages, and using his fingers as forks, began to devour the edibles with huge appetite.

"There was a tongue, I think you mentioned, Jerry," he inquired suddenly.

"Ay, sir, likewise a cold biled 'am."

His Lordship sighed plaintively.

"And yet," said he, sandwiching a slice of beef between two pieces of bread with great care and nicety, "who would be so mean-spirited as to sell that freedom which is the glorious prerogative of man (and which I beg you to notice is a not unpleasing phrase, sir) who, I demand, would surrender this for a base smoked tongue?"

"Not forgetting a fine, cold biled 'am, Master Horatio, my Lord. And now, wi' your permission, I'll stand away for the village, leaving you to talk wi' this here young gentleman and take them vittles aboard, till I bring up alongside again, Cap'n's orders, Master Horatio." Saying which, the Bo'sun touched the glazed hat, went about, and, squaring his yards, bore away for the village.

"Sir," said his Lordship, glancing whimsically at Barnabas over his fast-disappearing hunch of bread and meat, "you have never been--called upon to--sit in the stocks, perhaps?"

"Never--as yet," answered Barnabas, smiling.

"Why, then, sir, let me inform you the stocks have their virtues. I'll not deny a chair is more comfortable, and certainly more dignified, but give me the stocks for thought, there's nothing like 'em for profound meditation. The Bible says, I believe, that one should seek the seclusion of one's closet, but, believe me, for deep reverie there's nothing like the stocks. You see, a poor devil has nothing else to do, therefore he meditates."

"And pray," inquired Barnabas, "may I ask what brings you sitting in this place of thought?"

"Three things, sir, namely, matrimony, a horse race, and a father. Three very serious matters, sir, and the last the gravest of all. For you must know I am, shall I say--blessed? yes, certainly, blessed in a father who is essentially Roman, being a man of his word, sir. Now a man of his word, more especially a father, may prove a very mixed blessing. Speaking of fathers, generally, sir, you may have noticed that they are the most unreasonable class of beings, and delight to arrogate to themselves an authority which is, to say the least, trying; my father especially so--for, as I believe I hinted before, he is so infernally Roman."

"Indeed," smiled Barnabas, "the best of fathers are, after all, only human."

"Aha!" cried his Lordship, "there speaks experience. And yet, sir, these human fathers, one and all, believe in what I may term the divine right of fathers to thwart, and bother, and annoy sons old enough to be--ha--"

"To know their own minds," said Barnabas.

"Precisely," nodded his Lordship. "Consequently, my Roman father and I fell out--my honored Roman and I frequently do fall out--but this morning, sir, unfortunately 't was before breakfast." Here his Lordship snatched a hasty bite of bread and meat with great appetite and gusto, while Barnabas sat, dreamy of eye, staring away across the valley.

"Pray," said he suddenly, yet with his gaze still far away, "do you chance to be acquainted with a Sir Mortimer Carnaby?"

"Acquainted," cried his Lordship, speaking with his mouth full. "Oh, Gad, sir, every one who _is_ any one is acquainted with Sir Mortimer Carnaby."

"Ah!" said Barnabas musingly, "then you probably know him."

"He honors me with his friendship."

"Hum!" said Barnabas.

Here his Lordship glanced up quickly and with a slight contraction of the brow.

"Sir," he retorted, with a very creditable attempt at dignity, despite the stocks and his hunch of bread and meat, "Sir, permit me to add that I am proud of his friendship."

"And pray," inquired Barnabas, turning his eyes suddenly to his companion's face, "do you like him?"

"Like him, sir!"

"Or trust him!" persisted Barnabas, steadfast-eyed.

"Trust him, sir," his Lordship repeated, his gaze beginning to wander, "trust him!" Here, chancing to espy what yet remained of the bread and meat, he immediately took another bite, and when he spoke it was in a somewhat muffled tone in consequence. "Trust him? Egad, sir, the boot's on t'other leg, for 'twixt you and me, I owe him a cool thousand, as it is!"

"He is a great figure in the fashionable world, I understand," said Barnabas.

"He is the most admired Buck in London, sir," nodded his Lordship, "the most dashing, the most sought after, a boon companion of Royalty itself, sir, the Corinthian of Corinthians."

"Do you mean," said Barnabas, with his eyes on the distance again, "that he is a personal friend of the Prince?"

"One of the favored few," nodded his Lordship, "and, talking of him, brings us back to my honored Roman."

"How so?" inquired Barnabas, his gaze on the distance once more.

"Because, sir, with that unreasonableness peculiar to fathers, he has taken a violent antipathy to my friend Carnaby, though, as far as I know, he has never met my friend Carnaby. This morning, sir, my father summoned me to the library. 'Horatio,' says he, in his most Roman manner,--he never calls me Horatio unless about to treat me to the divine right of fathers,--'Horatio,' says he, 'you're old enough to marry.' 'Indeed, I greatly fear so, sir,' says I. 'Then,' says he, solemn as an owl, 'why not settle down here and marry?' Here he named a certain lovely person whom, 'twixt you and me, sir, I have long ago determined to marry, but, in my own time, be it understood. 'Sir,' said I, 'believe me I would ride over and settle the matter with her this very morning, only that I am to race 'Moonraker' (a horse of mine, you'll understand, sir) against Sir Mortimer Carnaby's 'Clasher' and if I should happen to break my neck, it might disappoint the lady in question, or even break her heart.' 'Horatio,' says my Roman--more Roman than ever--'I strongly disapprove of your sporting propensities, and, more especially, the circle of acquaintances you have formed in London.' 'Blackguardedly Bucks and cursed Corinthians!' snarls my uncle, the Captain, flapping his empty sleeve at me. 'That, sirs, I deeply regret,' says I, preserving a polite serenity, 'but the match is made, and a man must needs form some circle of acquaintance when he lives in London.' 'Then,' says my honored Roman, with that lack of reasonableness peculiar to fathers, 'don't live in London, and as for the horse match give it up.' 'Quite impossible, sir,' says I, calmly determined, 'the match has been made and recorded duly at White's, and if you were as familiar with the fashionable sporting set as I, you would understand.' 'Pish, boy,' says my Roman--'t is a trick fathers have at such times of casting one's youth in one's teeth, you may probably have noticed this for yourself, sir--'Pish, boy,' says he, 'I know, I know, I've lived in London!' 'True, sir,' says I, 'but things have changed since your day, your customs went out with your tie-wigs, and are as antiquated as your wide-skirted coats and buckled shoes'--this was a sly dig at my worthy uncle, the Captain, sir. 'Ha!' cries he, flapping his empty sleeve at me again, 'and nice figure-heads you made of yourselves with your ridiculous stocks and skin-tight breeches,' and indeed," said his Lordship, stooping to catch a side-view of his imprisoned legs, "they are a most excellent fit, I think you'll agree."

"Marvellous!" sighed Barnabas, observing them with the eyes of envy.

"Well, sir," pursued his Lordship, "the long and short of it was--my honored Roman, having worked himself into a state of 'divine right' necessary to the occasion, vows that unless I give up the race and spend less time and money in London, he will clap me into the stocks. 'Then, sir,' says I, smiling and unruffled, 'pray clap me in as soon as you will'; and he being, as I told you, a man of his word,--well--here I am."

"Where I find you enduring your situation with a remarkable fortitude," said Barnabas.

"Egad, sir! how else should I endure it? I flatter myself I am something of a philosopher, and thus, enduring in the cause of freedom and free will, I scorn my bonds, and am consequently free. Though, I'll admit, 'twixt you and me, sir, the position cramps one's legs most damnably."

"Now in regard to Sir Mortimer Carnaby," persisted Barnabas, "your father, it would seem, neither likes nor trusts him."

"My father, sir, is--a father, consequently perverse. Sir Mortimer Carnaby is my friend, therefore, though my father has never met Sir Mortimer Carnaby, he takes a mortal antipathy to Sir Mortimer Carnaby, Q.E.D., and all the rest of it."

"On the other hand," pursued Barnabas the steadfast-eyed, "you--admire, respect, and honor your friend Sir Mortimer Carnaby!"

"Admire him, sir, who wouldn't? There isn't such another all-round sportsman in London--no, nor England. Only last week he drove cross-country in his tilbury over hedges and ditches, fences and all, and never turned a hair. Beat the 'Fighting Tanner' at Islington in four rounds, and won over ten thousand pounds in a single night's play from Egalit d'Orlans himself. Oh, egad, sir! Carnaby's the most wonderful fellow in the world!"

"Though a very indifferent boxer!" added Barnabas.

"Indiff--!" His Lordship let fall the last fragments of his bread and meat, and stared at Barnabas in wide-eyed amazement. "Did you say--indifferent?"

"I did," nodded Barnabas, "he is much too passionate ever to make a good boxer."

"Why, deuce take me! I tell you there isn't a pugilist in England cares to stand up to him with the muffles, or bare knuckles!"

"Probably because there are no pugilists left in England, worth the name," said Barnabas.

"Gad, sir! we are all pugilists nowadays--the Manly Art is all the fashion--and, I think, a very excellent fashion. And permit me to tell you I know what I'm talking of, I have myself boxed with nearly all the best 'milling coves' in London, and am esteemed no novice at the sport. Indeed love of the 'Fancy' was born in me, for my father, sir--though occasionally Roman--was a great patron of the game, and witnessed the great battle between 'Glorious John Barty' and Nathaniel Bell--"

"At Dartford!" added Barnabas.

"And when Bell was knocked down, at the end of the fight--"

"After the ninety-seventh round!" nodded Barnabas.

"My father, sir, was the first to jump into the ring and clasp the Champion's fist--and proud he is to tell of it!"

"Proud!" said Barnabas, staring.

"Proud, sir--yes, why not? so should I have been--so would any man have been. Why let me tell you, sir, at home, in the hall, between the ensign my uncle's ship bore through Trafalgar, and the small sword my grandfather carried at Blenheim, we have the belt John Barty wore that day."

"His belt!" exclaimed Barnabas, "my--John Barty's belt?"

"So you see I should know what I am talking about. Therefore, when you condemn such a justly celebrated man of his hands as my friend Carnaby, I naturally demand to know who you are to pronounce judgment?"

"I am one," answered Barnabas, "who has been taught the science by that very Nathaniel Bell and 'Glorious John' you mention."

"Hey--what?--what?" cried his Lordship.

"I have boxed with them regularly every day," Barnabas continued, "and I have learned that strength of arm, quickness of foot, and a true eye are all unavailing unless they be governed by a calm, unruffled temper, for passion clouds the judgment, and in fighting as in all else, it is judgment that tells in the long run."

"Now, by heaven!" exclaimed his Lordship, jerking his imprisoned legs pettishly, "if I didn't happen to be sitting trussed up here, and we had a couple of pair of muffles, why we might have had a friendly 'go' just to take each other's measures; as it is--"

But at this moment they heard a hoarse bellow, and, looking round, beheld the Bo'sun who, redder of face than ever and pitching and rolling in his course, bore rapidly down on them, and hauling his wind, took off the glazed hat.

"Ha, Jerry!" exclaimed his Lordship, "what now? If you happen to have anything else eatable in that hat of yours, out with it, for I am devilish sharp-set still."

"Why, I have got summat, Master Horatio, but it aren't bread nor yet beef, nor yet again biled 'am, my Lord--it can't be eat nor it can't be drank--and here it be!" and with the words the Bo'sun produced a ponderous iron key.

"Why, my dear old Jerry--my lovely Bo'sun--"

"Captured by his Honor, Master Horatio--carried off by the Cap'n under your own father's very own nose, sir--or as you might say, cut out under the enemy's guns, my Lord!" With which explanation the old sailor unfastened the padlock, raised the upper leg-board, and set the prisoner free.

"Ah!--but it's good to have the use of one's legs again!" exclaimed his Lordship, stretching the members in question, "and that," said he, turning to Barnabas with his whimsical smile, "that is another value of the stocks--one never knows how pleasant and useful a pair of legs can be until one has sat with 'em stretched out helplessly at right angles for an hour or two." Here, the Bo'sun having stowed back the key and resumed his hat, his Lordship reached out and gripped his hand. "So it was Uncle John, was it, Jerry--how very like Uncle John--eh, Jerry?"

"Never was nobody born into this here vale o' sorrer like the Cap'n--no, nor never will be--nohow!" said the Bo'sun with a solemn nod.

"God bless him, eh, Jerry?"

"Amen to that, my Lord."

"You'll let him know I said 'God bless him,' Jerry?"

"I will, my Lord, ay, ay, God bless him it is, Master Horatio!"

"Now as to my Roman--my father, Jerry, tell him--er--"

"Be you still set on squaring away for London, then, sir?"

"As a rock, Jerry, as a rock!"

"Then 't is 'good-by,' you're wishing me?"

"Yes, 'good-by,' Jerry, remember 'God bless Uncle John,' and--er--tell my father that--ah, what the deuce shall you tell him now?--it should be something a little affecting--wholly dutiful, and above all gently dignified--hum! Ah, yes--tell him that whether I win or lose the race, whether I break my unworthy neck or no, I shall never forget that I am the Earl of Bamborough's son. And as for you, Jerry, why, I shall always think of you as the jolly old sea dog who used to stoop down to let me get at his whiskers, they were a trifle blacker in those days. Gad! how I did pull 'em, Jerry, even then I admired your whiskers, didn't I? I swear there isn't such another pair in England. Good-by, Jerry!" Saying which his Lordship turned swiftly upon his heel and walked on a pace or two, while Barnabas paused to wring the old seaman's brown hand; then they went on down the hill together.

And the Bo'sun, sitting upon the empty stocks with his wooden pin sticking straight out before him, sighed as he watched them striding London-wards, the Lord's son, tall, slender, elegant, a gentleman to his finger tips, and the commoner's son, shaped like a young god, despite his homespun, and between them, as it were linking them together, fresh and bright and young as the morning, went the joyous Spirit of Youth.

Now whether the Bo'sun saw aught of this, who shall say, but old eyes see many things. And thus, perhaps, the sigh that escaped the battered old man-o'-war's man's lips was only because of his own vanished youth--his gray head and wooden leg, after all.

CHAPTER X

WHICH DESCRIBES A PERIPATETIC CONVERSATION

"Sir," said his Lordship, after they had gone some way in silence, "you are thoughtful, not to say, devilish grave!"

"And you," retorted Barnabas, "have sighed--three times."

"No, did I though?--why then, to be candid,--I detest saying 'Good-by!'--and I have been devoutly wishing for two pair of muffles, for, sir, I have taken a prodigious liking to you--but--"

"But?" inquired Barnabas.

"Some time since you mentioned the names of two men--champions both--ornaments of the 'Fancy'--great fighters of unblemished reputation."

"You mean my--er--that is, Natty Bell and John Barty."

"Precisely!--you claim to have--boxed with them, sir?"

"Every day!" nodded Barnabas.

"With both of them,--I understand?"

"With both of them."

"Hum!"

"Sir," said Barnabas, growing suddenly polite, "do you doubt my word?"

"Well," answered his Lordship, with his whimsical look, "I'll admit I could have taken it easier had you named only one, for surely, sir, you must be aware that these were Masters of the Fist--the greatest since the days of Jack Broughton and Mendoza."

"I know each had been champion--but it would almost seem that I have entertained angels unawares!--and I boxed with both because they happened to live together."

"Then, sir," said the Viscount, extending his hand in his frank, impetuous manner, "you are blest of the gods. I congratulate you and, incidentally, my desire for muffles grows apace,--you must positively put 'em on with me at the first opportunity."

"Right willingly, sir," said Barnabas.

"But deuce take me!" exclaimed the Viscount, "if we are to become friends, which I sincerely hope, we ought at least to know each other's name. Mine, sir, is Bellasis, Horatio Bellasis; I was named Horatio after Lord Nelson, consequently my friends generally call me Tom, Dick, or Harry, for with all due respect to his Lordship, Horatio is a very devil of a name, now isn't it? Pray what's yours?"

"Barnabas--Beverley. At your service."

"Barnabas--hum! Yours isn't much better. Egad! I think 't is about as bad. Barnabas!--No, I'll call you Bev, on condition that you make mine Dick; what d' ye say, my dear Bev?"

"Agreed, Dick," answered Barnabas, smiling, whereupon they stopped, and having very solemnly shaken hands, went on again, merrier than ever.

"Now what," inquired the Viscount, suddenly, "what do you think of marriage, my dear Bev?"

"Marriage?" repeated Barnabas, staring.

"Marriage!" nodded his Lordship, airily, "matrimony, Bev,--wedlock, my dear fellow?"

"I--indeed I have never had occasion to think of it."

"Fortunate fellow!" sighed his companion.

"Until--this morning!" added Barnabas, as his fingers encountered a small, soft, lacy bundle in his pocket.

"Un-fortunate fellow!" sighed the Viscount, shaking his head. "So you are haunted by the grim spectre, are you? Well, that should be an added bond between us. Not that I quarrel with matrimony, mark you, Bev; in the abstract it is a very excellent institution, though--mark me again!--when a man begins to think of marriage it is generally the beginning of the end. Ah, my dear fellow! many a bright and promising career has been blighted--sapped--snapped off--and--er--ruthlessly devoured by the ravenous maw of marriage. There was young Egerton with a natural gift for boxing, and one of the best whips I ever knew--we raced our coaches to Brighton and back for a thousand a side and he beat me by six yards--a splendid all round sportsman--ruined by matrimony! He's buried somewhere in the country and passing his days in the humdrum pursuit of being husband and father. Oh, bruise and blister me! it's all very pitiful, and yet"--here the Viscount sighed again--"I do not quarrel with the state, for marriage has often proved a--er--very present help in the time of trouble, Bev."

"Trouble?" repeated Barnabas.

"Money-troubles, my dear Bev, pecuniary unpleasantnesses, debts, and duns, and devilish things of that kind."

"But surely," said Barnabas, "no man--no honorable man would marry and burden a woman with debts of his own contracting?"

At this, the Viscount looked at Barnabas, somewhat askance, and fell to scratching his chin. "Of course," he continued, somewhat hurriedly, "I shall have all the money I need--more than I shall need some day."

"You mean," inquired Barnabas, "when your father dies?"

Here the Viscount's smooth brow clouded suddenly.

"Sir," said he, "we will not mention that contingency. My father is a great Roman, I'll admit, but, 'twixt you and me,--I--I'm devilish fond of him, and, strangely enough, I prefer to have him Romanly alive and my purse empty--than to possess his money and have him dea--Oh damn it! let's talk of something else,--Carnaby for instance."

"Yes," nodded Barnabas, "your friend, Carnaby."

"Well, then, in the first place, I think I hinted to you that I owe him five thousand pounds?"

"Five thousand! indeed, no, it was only one, when you mentioned it to me last."

"Was it so? but then, d'ye see, Bev, we were a good two miles nearer my honored Roman when I mentioned the matter before, and trees sometimes have ears, consequently I--er--kept it down a bit, my dear Bev, I kept it down a bit; but the fact remains that it's five, and I won't be sure but that there's an odd hundred or two hanging on to it somewhere, beside."

"You led your father to believe it was only one thousand, then?"

"I did, Bev; you see money seems to make him so infernally Roman, and I've been going the pace a bit these last six months. There's another thousand to Jerningham, but he can wait, then there's six hundred to my tailor, deuce take him!"

"Six hundred!" exclaimed Barnabas, aghast.

"Though I won't swear it isn't seven."

"To be sure he is a very excellent tailor," Barnabas added.

"Gad, yes! and the fellow knows it! Then, let's see, there's another three hundred and fifty to the coach builders, how much does that make, Bev?"

"Six thousand, nine hundred and fifty pounds!"

"So much--deuce take it! And that's not all, you know."

"Not?"

"No, Bev, I dare say I could make you up another three or four hundred or so if I were to rake about a bit, but six thousand is enough to go on with, thank you!"

"Six thousand pounds is a deal of money to owe!" said Barnabas.

"Yes," answered the Viscount, scratching his chin again, "though, mark me, Bev, it might be worse! Slingsby, a friend of mine, got plucked for fifteen thousand in a single night last year. Oh! it might be worse. As it is, Bev, the case lies thus: unless I win the race some three weeks from now--I've backed myself heavily, you'll understand--unless I win, I am between the deep sea of matrimony and the devil of old Jasper Gaunt."

"And who is Jasper Gaunt?"

"Oh, delicious innocence! Ah, Bev! it's evident you are new to London. Gaunt is an outcome of the City, as harsh and dingy as its bricks, as flinty and hard as its pavements. Gad! most of our set know Jasper Gaunt--to their cost! Who is Jasper Gaunt, you ask; well, my dear fellow, question Slingsby of the Guards, he's getting deeper every day, poor old Sling! Ask it, but in a whisper, at Almack's, or White's, or Brooke's, and my Lord this, that, or t'other shall tell you pat and to the point in no measured terms. Ask it of wretched debtors in the prisons, of haggard toilers in the streets, of pale-faced women and lonely widows, and they'll tell you, one and all, that Jasper Gaunt is the harshest, most merciless bloodsucker that ever battened and grew rich on the poverty and suffering of his fellow men, and--oh here we are!"

Saying which, his Lordship abruptly turned down an unexpected and very narrow side lane, where, screened behind three great trees, was a small inn, or hedge tavern with a horse-trough before the door and a sign whereon was the legend, "The Spotted Cow," with a representation of that quadruped below, surely the very spottiest of spotted cows that ever adorned an inn sign.

"Not much to look at, my dear Bev," said the Viscount, with a wave of his hand towards the inn, "but it's kept by an old sailor, a shipmate of the Bo'sun's. I can at least promise you a good breakfast, and the ale you will find excellent. But first I want to show you a very small demon of mine, a particularly diminutive fiend; follow me, my dear fellow."

So, by devious ways, the Viscount led Barnabas round to the back of the inn, and across a yard to where, beyond a gate, was a rick-yard, and beyond that again, a small field or paddock. Now, within this paddock, the admired of a group of gaping rustics, was the very smallest groom Barnabas had ever beheld, for, from the crown of his leather postilion's hat to the soles of his small top boots, he could not have measured more than four feet at the very most.

"There he is, Bev, behold him!" said the Viscount, with his whimsical smile, "the very smallest fiend, the most diminutive demon that ever wore top boots!"

The small groom was engaged in walking a fine blood horse up and down the paddock, or rather the horse was walking the groom, for the animal being very tall and powerful and much given to divers startings, snortings, and tossings of the head, it thus befell that to every step the diminutive groom marched on terra firma, he took one in mid-air, at which times, swinging pendulum-like, he poured forth a stream of invective that the most experienced ostler, guard, or coachman might well have envied, and all in a voice so gruff, so hoarse and guttural, despite his tender years, as filled the listening rustics with much apparent awe and wonder.

"And he can't be a day older than fourteen, my dear Bev," said the Viscount, with a complacent nod, as they halted in the perfumed shade of an adjacent rick; "that's his stable voice assumed for the occasion, and, between you and me, I can't think how he does it. Egad! he's the most remarkable boy that ever wore livery, the sharpest, the gamest. I picked him up in London, a ragged urchin--caught him picking my pocket, Been with me ever since, and I wouldn't part with him for his weight in gold."

"Picking your pocket!" said Barnabas, "hum!"

The Viscount looked a trifle uncomfortable. "Why you see, my dear fellow," he explained, "he was so--so deuced--small, Bev, a wretched little pale-faced, shivering atomy, peeping up at me over a ragged elbow waiting to be thrashed, and I liked him because he didn't snivel, and he was too insignificant for prison, so, when he told me how hungry he was, I forgot to cuff his shrinking, dirty little head, and suggested a plate of beef at one of the la mode shops. 'Beef?' says he. 'Yes, beef,' says I, 'could you eat any?' 'Beef?' says he again, 'couldn't I? why, I could eat a ox whole, I could!' So I naturally dubbed him Milo of Crotona on the spot."

"And has he ever tried to pick your pocket since?"

"No, Bev; you see, he's never hungry nowadays. Gad!" said the Viscount, taking Barnabas by the arm, "I've set the fashion in tigers, Bev. Half the fellows at White's and Brooke's are wild to get that very small demon of mine; but he isn't to be bought or bribed or stolen--for what there is of him is faithful, Bev,--and now come in to breakfast."

So saying, the Viscount led Barnabas across the yard to a certain wing or off-shoot of the inn, where beneath a deep, shadowy gable was a door. Yet here he must needs pause a moment to glance down at himself to settle a ruffle and adjust his hat ere, lifting the latch, he ushered Barnabas into a kitchen.

A kitchen indeed? Ay, but such a kitchen! Surely wood was never whiter, nor pewter more gleaming than in this kitchen; surely no flagstones ever glowed a warmer red; surely oak panelling never shone with a mellower lustre; surely no viands could look more delicious than the great joint upon the polished sideboard, flanked by the crisp loaf and the yellow cheese; surely no flowers could ever bloom fairer or smell sweeter than those that overflowed the huge punch bowl at the window and filled the Uncle Toby jugs upon the mantel; surely nowhere could there be at one and the same time such dainty orderliness and comfortable comfort as in this kitchen.

Indeed the historian is bold to say that within no kitchen in this world were all things in such a constant state of winking, twinkling, gleaming and glowing purity, from the very legs of the oaken table and chairs, to the hacked and battered old cutlass above the chimney, as in this self-same kitchen of "The Spotted Cow."

And yet--and yet! Sweeter, whiter, warmer, purer, and far more delicious than anything in this kitchen (or out of it) was she who had started up to her feet so suddenly, and now stood with blushing cheeks and hurried bosom, gazing shy-eyed upon the young Viscount; all dainty grace from the ribbons in her mob-cap to the slender, buckled shoe peeping out beneath her print gown; and Barnabas, standing between them, saw her flush reflected as it were for a moment in the Viscount's usually pale cheek.

"My Lord!" said she, and stopped.

"Why, Clemency, you--you are--handsomer than ever!" stammered the Viscount.

"Oh, my Lord!" she exclaimed; and as she turned away Barnabas thought there were tears in her eyes.

"Did we startle you, Clemency? Forgive me--but I--that is, we are--hungry, ravenous. Er--this is a friend of mine--Mr. Beverley--Mistress Clemency Dare; and oh, Clemency, I've had no breakfast!"

But seeing she yet stood with head averted, the Viscount with a freedom born of long acquaintance, yet with a courtly deference also, took the hand that hung so listless, and looked down into the flushed beauty of her face, and, as he looked, beheld a great tear that crept upon her cheek.

"Why, Clemency!" he exclaimed, his raillery gone, his voice suddenly tender, "Clemency--you're crying, my dear maid; what is it?"

Now, beholding her confusion, and because of it, Barnabas turned away and walked to the other end of the kitchen, and there it chanced that he spied two objects that lay beneath the table, and stooping, forthwith, he picked them up. They were small and insignificant enough in themselves--being a scrap of crumpled paper, and a handsome embossed coat button; yet as Barnabas gazed upon this last, he smiled grimly, and so smiling slipped the objects into his pocket.

"Come now, Clemency," persisted the Viscount, gently, "what is wrong?"

"Nothing; indeed, nothing, my Lord."

"Ay, but there is. See how red your eyes are; they quite spoil your beauty--"

"Beauty!" she cried. "Oh, my Lord; even you!"

"What? What have I said? You are beautiful you know, Clem, and--"

"Beauty!" she cried again, and turned upon him with clenched hands and dark eyes aflame. "I hate it--oh, I hate it!" and with the words she stamped her foot passionately, and turning, sped away, banging the door behind her.

"Now, upon my soul!" said the Viscount, taking off his hat and ruffling up his auburn locks, "of all the amazing, contradictory creatures in the world, Bev! I've known Clemency--hum--a goodish time, my dear fellow; but never saw her like this before, I wonder what the deuce--"

But at this juncture a door at the further end of the kitchen opened, and a man entered. He, like the Bo'sun, was merry of eye, breezy of manner, and hairy of visage; but there all similarity ended, for, whereas the Bo'sun was a square man, this man was round--round of head, round of face, and round of eye. At the sight of the Viscount, his round face expanded in a genial smile that widened until it was lost in whisker, and he set two fingers to his round forehead and made a leg.

"Lord love me, my Lord, and is it you?" he exclaimed, clasping the hand the Viscount had extended. "Now, from what that imp of a bye--axing his parding--your tiger, Mr. Milo, told me, I were to expect you at nine sharp--and here it be nigh on to ten--"

"True, Jack; but then both he and I reckoned without my father. My father had the bad taste to--er--disagree with me, hence I am late, Jack, and breakfastless, and my friend Mr. Beverley is as hungry as I am. Bev, my dear fellow, this is a very old friend of mine--Jack Truelove, who fought under my uncle at Trafalgar."

"Servant, sir!" says Jack, saluting Barnabas.

"The 'Belisarius,' Seventy-four!" smiled Barnabas.

"Ay, ay," says Jack, with a shake of his round head, "the poor old 'Bully-Sawyer'--But, Lord love me! if you be hungry--"

"Devilish!" said the Viscount, "but first, Jack--what's amiss with Clemency?"

"Clemency? Why, where be that niece o' mine?"

"She's run away, Jack. I found her in tears, and I had scarce said a dozen words to her when--hey presto! She's off and away."

"Tears is it, my Lord?--and 'er sighed, too, I reckon. Come now--'er sighed likewise. Eh, my Lord?"

"Why, yes, she may have sighed, but--"

"There," says Jack, rolling his round head knowingly, "it be nought but a touch o' love, my Lord."

"Love!" exclaimed the Viscount sharply.

"Ah, love! Nieces is difficult craft, and very apt to be took all aback by the wind o' love, as you might say--but Lord! it's only natural arter all. Ah! the rearing o' motherless nieces is a ticklish matter, gentlemen--as to nevvys, I can't say, never 'aving 'ad none _to_ rear--but nieces--Lord! I could write a book on 'em, that is, s'posing I could write, which I can't; for, as I've told you many a time, my Lord, and you then but a bye over here on a visit, wi' the Bo'sun, or his Honor the Cap'n, and you no older then than--er--Mr. Milo, though longer in the leg, as I 've told you many a time and oft--a very ob-servant man I be in most things, consequent' I aren't observed this here niece--this Clem o' mine fair weather and foul wi'out larning the kind o' craft nieces be. Consequent', when you tell me she weeps, and likewise sighs, then I make bold to tell you she's got a touch o' love, and you can lay to that, my Lord."

"Love," exclaimed the Viscount again, and frowning this time; "now, who the devil should she be in love with!"

"That, my Lord, I can't say, not having yet observed. But now, by your leave, I'll pass the word for breakfast."

Hereupon the landlord of "The Spotted Cow" opened the lattice, and sent a deep-lunged hail across the yard.

"Ahoy!" he roared, "Oliver, Penelope, Bess--breakfast ho!--breakfast for the Viscount--and friend. They be all watching of that theer imp--axing his pardon--that theer groom o' yours, what theer be of him, which though small ain't by no means to be despised, him being equally ready wi' his tongue as his fist."

Here entered two maids, both somewhat flushed with haste but both equally bright of eye, neat of person, and light of foot, who very soon had laid a snowy cloth and duly set out thereon the beef, the bread and cheese, and a mighty ham, before which the Viscount seated himself forthwith, while their sailor host, more jovial than ever, pointed out its many beauties with an eloquent thumb. And so, having seen his guests seated opposite each other, he pulled his forelock at them, made a leg to them, and left them to their breakfast.

CHAPTER XI

IN WHICH FISTS ARE CLENCHED; AND OF A SELFISH MAN, WHO WAS AN APOSTLE OF PEACE

Conversation, though in itself a blessed and delightful thing, yet may be sometimes out of place, and wholly impertinent. If wine is a loosener of tongues, surely food is the greatest, pleasantest, and most complete silencer; for what man when hunger gnaws and food is before him--what man, at such a time, will stay to discuss the wonders of the world, of science--or even himself?

Thus our two young travellers, with a very proper respect for the noble fare before them, paid their homage to it in silence--but a silence that was eloquent none the less. At length, however, each spoke, and each with a sigh.

_The Viscount_. "The ham, my dear fellow--!"

_Barnabas_. "The beef, my dear Dick--!"

_The Viscount and Barnabus_. "Is beyond words."

Having said which, they relapsed again into a silence, broken only by the occasional rattle of knife and fork.

_The Viscount_ (hacking at the loaf). "It's a grand thing to be hungry, my dear fellow."

_Barnabas_ (glancing over the rim of his tankard). "When you have the means of satisfying it--yes."

_The Viscount_ (becoming suddenly abstracted, and turning his piece of bread over and over in his fingers). "Now regarding--Mistress Clemency, my dear Bev; what do you think of her?"

_Barnabas_ (helping himself to more beef). "That she is a remarkably handsome girl!"

_The Viscount_ (frowning at his piece of bread). "Hum! d'you think so?"

_Barnabas_. "Any man would. I'll trouble you for the mustard, Dick."

_The Viscount_. "Yes; I suppose they would."

_Barnabas_. "Some probably do--especially men with an eye for fine women."

_The Viscount_ (frowning blacker than ever). "Pray, what mean you by that?"

_Barnabas_. "Your friend Carnaby undoubtedly does."

_The Viscount_ (starting). "Carnaby! Why what the devil put him into your head? Carnaby's never seen her."

_Barnabas_. "Indeed, I think it rather more than likely."

_The Viscount_ (crushing the bit of bread suddenly in his fist). "Carnaby! But I tell you he hasn't--he's never been near this place."

_Barnabas_. "There you are quite wrong."

_The Viscount_ (flinging himself back in his chair). "Beverley, what the devil are you driving at?"

_Barnabas_. "I mean that he was here this morning."

_The Viscount_. "Carnaby? Here? Impossible! What under heaven should make you think so?"

"This," said Barnabas, and held out a small, crumpled piece of paper. The Viscount took it, glanced at it, and his knife clattered to the floor.

"Sixty thousand pounds!" he exclaimed, and sat staring down at the crumpled paper, wide-eyed. "Sixty thousand!" he repeated. "Is it sixty or six, Bev? Read it out," and he thrust the torn paper across to Barnabas, who, taking it up, read as follows:--

--felicitate you upon your marriage with the lovely heiress, Lady M., failing which I beg most humbly to remind you, my dear Sir Mortimer Carnaby, that the sixty thousand pounds must be paid back on the day agreed upon, namely July 16,

Your humble, obedient Servant,

JASPER GAUNT.

"Jasper Gaunt!" exclaimed the Viscount. "Sixty thousand pounds! Poor Carnaby! Sixty thousand pounds payable on July sixteenth! Now the fifteenth, my dear Bev, is the day of the race, and if he should lose, it looks very much as though Carnaby would be ruined, Bev."

"Unless he marries 'the lovely heiress'!" added Barnabas.

"Hum!" said the Viscount, frowning. "I wish I'd never seen this cursed paper, Bev!" and as he spoke he crumpled it up and threw it into the great fireplace. "Where in the name of mischief did you get it?"

"It was in the corner yonder," answered Barnabas. "I also found this." And he laid a handsomely embossed coat button on the table. "It has been wrenched off you will notice."

"Yes," nodded the Viscount, "torn off! Do you think--"

"I think," said Barnabas, putting the button back into his pocket, "that Mistress Clemency's tears are accounted for--"

"By God, Beverley," said the Viscount, an ugly light in his eyes, "if I thought that--!" and the hand upon the table became a fist.

"I think that Mistress Clemency is a match for any man--or brute," said Barnabas, and drew his hand from his pocket.

Now the Viscount's fist was opening and shutting convulsively, the breath whistled between his teeth, he glanced towards the door, and made as though he would spring to his feet; but in that moment came a diversion, for Barnabas drew his hand from his pocket, and as he did so, something white fluttered to the floor, close beside the Viscount's chair. Both men saw it and both stooped to recover it, but the Viscount, being nearer, picked it up, glanced at it, looked at Barnabas with a knowing smile, glanced at it again, was arrested by certain initials embroidered in one corner, stooped his head suddenly, inhaling its subtle perfume, and so handed it back to Barnabas, who took it with a word of thanks and thrust it into an inner pocket, while the Viscount stared at him under his drawn brows. But Barnabas, all unconscious, proceeded to cut himself another slice of beef, offering to do the same for the Viscount.

"Thank you--no," said he.

"What--have you done, so soon?"

"Yes," said he, and thereafter sat watching Barnabas ply knife and fork, who, presently catching his eye, smiled.

"Pray," said the Viscount after a while, "pray are you acquainted with the Lady Cleone Meredith?"

"No," answered Barnabas. "I'll trouble you for the mustard, Dick."

"Have you ever met the Lady Cleone Meredith?"

"Never", answered Barnabas, innocent of eye.

Hereupon the Viscount rose up out of the chair and leaned across the table.

"Sir," said he, "you are a most consummate liar!"

Hereupon Barnabas helped himself to the mustard with grave deliberation, then, leaning back in his chair, he smiled up into the Viscount's glowing eyes as politely and with as engaging an air as might be.

"My Lord," said he gently, "give me leave to remark that he who says so, lies himself most foully." Having said which Barnabas set down the mustard, and bowed.

"Mr. Beverley," said the Viscount, regarding him calm-eyed across the table, "there is a place I know of near by, a very excellent place, being hidden by trees, a smooth, grassy place--shall we go?"

"Whenever you will, my Lord," said Barnabas, rising.

Forthwith having bowed to each other and put on their hats, they stepped out into the yard, and so walked on side by side, a trifle stiffer and more upright than usual maybe, until they came to a stile. Here they must needs pause to bow once more, each wishful to give way to the other, and, having duly crossed the stile, they presently came to a place, even as the Viscount had said, being shady with trees, and where a brook ran between steep banks. Here, too, was a small foot-bridge, with hand-rails supported at either end by posts. Now upon the right-hand post the Viscount set his hat and coat, and upon the left, Barnabas hung his. Then, having rolled up their shirt-sleeves, they bowed once more, and coming to where the grass was very smooth and level they faced each other with clenched fists.

"Mr. Beverley," said the Viscount, "you will remember I sighed for muffles, but, sir, I count this more fortunate, for to my mind there is nothing like bare fists, after all, to try a man's capabilities."

"My Lord," said Barnabas, "you will also remember that when I told you I had boxed daily both with 'Glorious John' and Nathaniel Bell, you doubted my word? I therefore intend to try and convince you as speedily as may be."

"Egad!" exclaimed the Viscount, his blue eyes a-dance, "this is positively more than I had ventured to hope, my dear fell--Ah! Mr. Beverley, at your service, sir?"

And, after a season, Barnabas spoke, albeit pantingly, and dabbing at his bloody mouth the while.

"Sir," said he, "I trust--you are not--incommoded at all?" whereupon the Viscount, coming slowly to his elbow and gazing round about him with an expression of some wonder, made answer, albeit also pantingly and short of breath:

"On the contrary, sir, am vastly--enjoying myself--shall give myself the pleasure--of continuing--just as soon as the ground subsides a little."

Therefore Barnabas, still dabbing at his mouth, stepped forward being minded to aid him to his feet, but ere he could do so, a voice arrested him.

"Stop!" said the voice.

Now glancing round, Barnabas beheld a man, a small man and slender, whose clothes, old and worn, seemed only to accentuate the dignity and high nobility of his face.

Bareheaded he advanced towards them and his hair glistened silver white in the sunshine, though his brows were dark, like the glowing eyes below. Upon his cheek was the dark stain of blood, and on his lips was a smile ineffably sweet and gentle as he came forward, looking from one to the other.

"And pray, sir," inquired the Viscount, sitting cross-legged upon the green, "pray, who might you be?"

"I am an apostle of peace, young sir," answered the stranger, "a teacher of forgiveness, though, doubtless, an unworthy one."

"Peace, sir!" cried the Viscount, "deuce take me!--but you are the most warlike Apostle of Peace that eyes ever beheld; by your looks you might have been fighting the Seven Champions of Christendom, one down, t' other come on--"

"You mean that I am bleeding, sir; indeed, I frequently do, and therein is my joy, for this is the blood of atonement."

"The blood of atonement?" said Barnabas.

"Last night," pursued the stranger in his gentle voice, "I sought to teach the Gospel of Mercy and Universal Forgiveness at a country fair not so very far from here, and they drove me away with sticks and stones; indeed, I fear our rustics are sometimes woefully ignorant, and Ignorance is always cruel. So, to-day, as soon as the stiffness is gone from me, I shall go back to them, sirs, for even Ignorance has ears."

Now whereupon, the Viscount got upon his legs, rather unsteadily, and bowed.

"Sir," said he, "I humbly ask your pardon; surely so brave an apostle should do great works."

"Then," said the stranger, drawing nearer, "if such is your thought, let me see you two clasp hands."

"But, sir," said the Viscount, somewhat taken aback, "indeed we have--scarcely begun--"

"So much the better," returned the teacher of forgiveness with his gentle smile, and laying a hand upon the arm of each.

"But, sir, I went so far as to give this gentleman the lie!" resumed the Viscount.

"Which I went so far as to--return," said Barnabas.

"But surely the matter can be explained?" inquired the stranger.

"Possibly!" nodded the Viscount, "though I generally leave explanations until afterwards."

"Then," said the stranger, glancing from one proud young face to the other, "in this instance, shake hands first. Hate and anger are human attributes, but to forgive is Godlike. Therefore now, forget yourselves and in this thing be gods. For, young sirs, as it seems to me, it was ordained that you two should be friends. And you are young and full of great possibilities and friendship is a mighty factor in this hard world, since by friendship comes self-forgctfulness, and no man can do great works unless he forgets Self. So, young sirs, shake hands!"

Now, as they looked upon each other, of a sudden, despite his split lip, Barnabas smiled and, in that same moment, the Viscount held out his hand.

"Beverley," said he, as their fingers gripped, "after your most convincing--shall we say, argument?--if you tell me you have boxed with all and every champion back to Mendoza, Jack Slack, and Broughton, egad! I'll believe you, for you have a devilish striking and forcible way with you at times!" Here the Viscount cherished his bruised ribs with touches of tender inquiry. "Yes," he nodded, "there is a highly commendable thoroughness in your methods, my dear Bev, and I'm free to confess I like you better and better--but--!"

"But?" inquired Barnabas.

"As regards the handkerchief now--?"

"I found it--on a bramble-bush--in a wood," said Barnabas.

"In a wood!"

"In Annersley Wood; I found a lady there also."

"A lady--oh, egad!"

"A very beautiful woman," said Barnabas thoughtfully, "with wonderful yellow hair!"

"The Lady Cleone Meredith!" exclaimed the Viscount, "but in a--wood!"

"She had fallen from her horse."

"How? When? Was she hurt?"

"How, I cannot tell you, but it happened about two hours ago, and her hurt was trifling."

"And you--found her?"

"I also saw her safely out of the wood."

"And you did not know her name?"

"I quite--forgot to ask it," Barnabas admitted, "and I never saw her until this morning."

"Why, then, my dear Bev," said the Viscount, his brow clearing, "let us go back to breakfast, all three of us."

But, now turning about, they perceived that the stranger was gone, yet, coming to the bridge, they presently espied him sitting beside the stream laving his hurts in the cool water.

"Sir," said Barnabas, "our thanks are due to you--"

"And you must come back to the inn with us," added the Viscount; "the ham surpasses description."

"And I would know what you meant by the 'blood of atonement,'" said Barnabas, the persistent.

"As to breakfast, young sirs," said the stranger, shaking his head, "I thank you, but I have already assuaged my hunger; as to my story, well, 'tis not over long, and indeed it is a story to think upon--a warning to heed, for it is a story of Self, and Self is the most insidious enemy that man possesses. So, if you would listen to the tale of a selfish man, sit down here beside me, and I'll tell you."

CHAPTER XII

OF THE STRANGER'S TALE, WHICH, BEING SHORT, MAY PERHAPS MEET WITH THE READER'S KIND APPROBATION.

"In ancient times, sirs," began the stranger, with his gaze upon the hurrying waters of the brook, "when a man had committed some great sin he hid himself from the world, and lashed himself with cruel stripes, he walked barefoot upon sharp flints and afflicted himself with grievous pains and penalties, glorying in the blood of his atonement, and wasting himself and his remaining years in woeful solitude, seeking, thereby, to reclaim his soul from the wrath to come. But, as for me, I walk the highways preaching always forgiveness and forgetfulness of self, and if men grow angry at my teaching and misuse me, the pain of wounds, the hardships, the fatigue, I endure them all with a glad and cheerful mind, seeking thereby to work out my redemption and atonement, for I was a very selfish man." Here the stranger paused, and his face seemed more lined and worn, and his white hair whiter, as he stared down into the running waters of the brook.

"Sirs," he continued, speaking with bent head, "I once had a daughter, and I loved her dearly, but my name was dearer yet. I was proud of her beauty, but prouder of my ancient name, for I was a selfish man."