The Launching of Roger Brook

DENNIS WHEATLEY

THE LAUNCHING OF ROGER BROOK

Original Frontispiece by MARK GERSON

Distributed by HERON BOOKS

CHAPTER I

THE HAPPIEST DAYS . . .

WHITE-FACED and tense, his blue eyes smouldering under their dark lashes, young Roger Brook glared at the older and much sturdier lad who stood grinning at him in the narrow corridor.

"Give me my cap, Gunston! Come on; give me my cap!" he demanded angrily.

George Gunston was a broad-shouldered youngster of sixteen with a crop of coarse red curls which grew low down on his forehead, and a round, freckled face. He showed the mortar-board that he had just snatched from Roger's head provocatively for a moment, then thrust it again behind his back as he began to chant:

"Bookworm Brook, bookworm Brook. He's a toady to the ushers, is bookworm Brook."

"That's a lie!" exclaimed Roger, "I don't toady."

"So you give me the lie, do you, you little swot. All right! Come outside and fight."

Roger strove to control the fear that suddenly made his heart beat faster, passed the tip of his tongue over his dry lips, and muttered: "I only said I don't toady—and I'm not a swot. I've simply found that it saves trouble in the long run to do my prep properly and keep my books neat. It's not my fault that you're always in hot water because you're too lazy to do either. Now stop behaving like a second-form kid, and give me back my cap."

"If you want it, come and get it."

For a moment Roger considered the challenge. On two previous occasions, baited beyond endurance by Gunston, who was the bully of his year, he had fought him, and each time received a thorough licking. To fight again was only to court disaster; yet he must have his mortar-board back, and quickly, as his House Master had just sent for him, and there would be trouble if he did not present himself before "Old Toby" decorously clad in cap and gown.

As they stood there eyeing one another, Roger with the hot, bitter resentment of one who knows himself to be superior in every way to his tormentor, except for physical strength, and George, taking an oaf-like delight in the power that physical strength gave him to humiliate his cleverer class-mate, a jumble of sounds came to them, muted by the thick walls of the one-time Benedictine monastery, that for countless generations had housed Sherborne School in Dorset.

Normally, at this evening hour, the school was hushed while its scholars unwillingly bent their minds to construe the passages of Caesar, Horace or Cicero that they had been set for their prep, but this was the last night of term and the boys were packing to leave next morning for their summer holidays.

Sherborne is a very early foundation, its charter having been granted by Edward VI in 1550; yet there is evidence to show that its roots go much farther back, and that it had its beginnings in the days of St. Aldhelm, who lived in the eighth century.

Already, therefore, on this 28th day of July, in the year 1783, the venerable buildings had known the joyous atmosphere that pervades a school on the last night of term for something like a thousand years.

Such term endings differ little with the passing of the centuries, except in the very gradual change in the clothes worn and the language used by masters, staff and pupils—and such minor points as that, where the boys had once washed down their supper with a draught of mead, they now took strong ale and in less virile times yet to come, would drink plain water. The boys themselves altered not at all, and now that discipline was relaxed they were shouting, playing pranks and throwing their hated lesson books at one another in the exuberance engendered by this eve of freedom. Snatches of song, squeals of mirth and running footsteps penetrated faintly to the secluded corridors in which Gunston had met Roger and seized this last chance to provoke him to a fight that would mean an easy victory.

"Well! What are you waiting for?" Gunston sneered.

Roger still hesitated, torn between the urgent necessity to get back his cap and his dread of physical pain. His hatred of Gunston was such that he would have risked a fight if only he could have been certain of landing one good hard blow on his tormentor's fat, stupid face, but he knew that the odds were all against his being able to £et in first. Moreover, he was loath to go home to his mother next day with a black eye or a badly cut lip.

It seemed that Gunston had almost read his thoughts, as he said suddenly: "So you're afraid you'll have a bitten tongue to-morrow night when you drink the health of that old Popish schemer 'over the water,' eh?"

The gibe, Roger knew, was directed at his mother, as she was of Scottish parentage, and so obviously suspect of Jacobite sympathies. It was still less than forty years since Bonnie Prince Charlie had had his father, the Old Pretender, proclaimed King in Edinburgh, and civil war had sown bitter discord through the length and breadth of Britain. Gunston's shot had been fired at random, but it was all the more telling because Roger's mother did still regard the now elderly Stuart Prince who lived in Rome as her legal sovereign, and, at times, toasted him in silent symbolism by passing her glass of wine over the water in her finger bowl.

Roger's own vivid imagination also inclined him secretly towards the romantic Stuart cause. The fact that his mother had often told him that he must not prejudice his career by championing the side that had lost in this quarrel of an older generation, but should follow the loyalty of his English father to the Hanoverian line, made no difference. Political hatreds and the persecution resulting from them died hard in those slow-moving times, and Roger knew that he dared not allow the imputation of Jacobitism to pass.

Tensing his slender body he clenched his fists and suddenly struck out at Gunston with a yell of: "You dastard! I'll teach you to speak ill of my family!"

After their two previous encounters Gunston had actually had small hope of inciting young "Bookworm Brook" to fighting pitch, so when the attack came it took him by surprise. He was, moreover, temporarily at a disadvantage in that his right hand was still behind him holding Roger's cap.

Dropping it he stepped back a pace, but not quickly enough to avoid a savage jab on the nose. Tears started to his eyes and the mocking grin was wiped from his pudgy face. But George Gunston was not the type of bully who is a coward, and promptly caves in when stood up to. Swiftly throwing himself into the attitude he had often admired in semi-professional pugs during knuckle fights at fairs and on village greens, he easily parried the unscientific rain of blows that Roger aimed at his head.

After a moment Roger stepped back to regain his breath. Instantly his red-headed antagonist took the initiative. Closing in he landed a heavy punch on Roger's chest that drove him back another pace towards the angle of the corridor. Following up Gunston swung a right hook to Roger's jaw, missed it by a fraction, but landed another left on his body.

Roger gasped, threw up his arms to protect his head and retreated another couple of steps. His one advantage lay in the fact that he was much the nimbler of the two and, had he had more space he might have dodged some of Gunston's blows, but here, in the narrow corridor, he was deprived of any chance to use his agility.

He knew, too, that without losing his balance, he could easily have thrown his adversary into confusion by giving him a swift kick on the shin, and he had never been able to understand why, if one was set upon by a bigger fellow, one should not resort to any such trick for one's own protection. But a strange unwritten law of England forbade such tactics, just as it also ordained that he must not turn and run. To have done either would have been thought worse than spitting on the floor of the Chapel during Holy Communion.

Yet he was seized now with a blind, despairing misery. He fought on automatically, but knew that he had no hope of escaping a thorough drubbing. In another moment Gunston would have him in the corner and lam into him with those freckled, brutal fists until he fell to his knees and cried for quarter.

As through a haze he saw that Gunston's nose was bleeding, but before he had any chance to feel elation at the sight he received a terrific wallop on the ear that knocked him sideways and made his head sing. For a moment he was deafened and as he ducked to avoid another blow he did not hear a quiet voice drawl:

"What's this? Fighting on end of term night? For shame now! Desist at once! Who have you in that corner, Gunston?"

As the expected blow did not fall, Roger lowered his arm, raised his head and realised the cause of his deliverance.

A tall, thin young man, with an elegant air, narrow shoulders and a pronounced stoop had appeared on the scene. He had a large fleshy nose and a pair of very pale blue eyes, which now surveyed the still breathless combatants with an expression of indolent disapproval. Although he was some two years older than either of them, he was so frail that Gunston could have laid him out with a single blow; yet the habitual bully almost cringed before him.

The interrupter of the fight was known as "Droopy Ned" and he held a highly privileged, if curious, position in the school. This was not alone because he was a member of one of those great families which, in that heyday of the aristocracy, collectively wielded a far more potent power in the governance of England than the occupant of the throne. In fact, the century was approaching in which any son of a peer was to be given an extra kick at his public school, just because he was the son of a peer; so, even in this era when patronage counted for so much, Droopy Ned's prestige had little connection with the fact that he was the younger son of the Most Noble the Marquess of Amesbury, and that his proper style was Lord Edward FitzDeverel.

His real, although quite unorthodox, authority—since for some reason best known to themselves the school authorities had repeatedly passed him over in their selection of prefects—was based upon his most unusual personality. He differed so abnormally from his school­fellows that they were quite incapable of understanding him but, recognising instinctively that he possessed the brain of a mature man, they accepted his idiosyncrasies and deferred to his judgments without question.

In some ways he shocked them unutterably. In an age when blood sports occupied nine-tenths of the thoughts and leisure of every English gentleman, Droopy Ned made no secret of the fact that he abhorred bull-baiting, fox-hunting and cock-fighting; he also displayed an aloof disregard for all schoolboy crazes, ball games and field sports. Instead, he concerned himself with strange expensive hobbies, such as the collecting of antique jewellery, the study of ancient religions and experimenting on himself with eastern drugs: the latter then being neither forbidden by law nor frowned on morally. Without appearing to concern himself with his studies he mastered them with ease and Would always give his help to more backward class-mates with the utmost readiness. He possessed great charm of manner and was extremely generous but, on occasions when provoked by the bumptious or offensive, his lazy good nature gave place to a bitter, devastating wit, of which both the masters and his school-fellows went in dread.

Droopy airily waved a fine cambric handkerchief under his big nose and both the boys caught a whiff of the French scent that was on it, as he inquired: "What were you two fighting about?"

Gunston would no more have challenged the speaker's right to put the question than he would have thrown an inkpot at the Head.

"I took the little fool's cap," he answered sheepishly.

"Why, may I ask?"

"Oh, it was just a rag."

Droopy's pale blue eyes hardened. "I vow you had a deeper reason. You did it to force a fight upon young Brook. The love of fighting for fighting's sake is forgivable in the little savages of Lower School, but you will be moving into Upper School next term, and it ill becomes a fellow of your age to act the bully and the bore. Retrieve Brook's cap now, and give it to him."

Gunston hesitated only a second, then he picked up Roger's cap and handed it over.

"Now shake hands," Droopy ordered.

As they obeyed, with ill-concealed reluctance, he looked at Roger and went on: "You are about to wait on Old Toby, are you not? I have just come from him and he was speaking of you. He was saying that you show great promise, particularly in languages and English composition. Such gifts may incline you to enter public life. As you may know, I am leaving this term to start on the Tour, but I shall be back in England in three or four years' time. If in the future I can be of any service to you, pray command me. You will always be able to obtain news of my whereabouts from Amesbury House, in Arlington Street."

Roger made him a little formal bow. "That is most kind of you, Lord Edward." His quick wit led him to use the title deliberately in recognition of the fact that Droopy Ned was virtually no longer a schoolfellow, but, on leaving, had become a man.

A smile of appreciation showed in the pale blue eyes. "I see you have the making of a man of parts, Mr. Brook, but I shall always remain 'Droopy' to my friends, and I hope that I may count you among them."

Gunston had been standing by with a surly look on his face, and he now shuffled his feet awkwardly. Droopy glanced at him and went on: "I must continue my farewells, so I will not detain either of you longer."

As Gunston turned away with a muttered "Good-bye" Roger said: "I envy you vastly going abroad. I would give anything to travel."

Droopy nodded. "No doubt you will, one day. In the meantime all good fortune to you. Pray remember to come and see me on my return."

"Indeed, I will. The best of fortune on your journey and my duty to you for rescuing me just now."

" 'Twas a pleasure." With another airy wave of his scented hand­kerchief Droopy Ned followed Gunston down the corridor.

The three were not destined to meet again for several years, but if Roger could have seen into the future it would have been revealed to him that both the others were to enter his life at many of the most important crises in it.

Again and again he was to come up against the pig-headed stupidity of Gunston, as Lieutenant, Captain, Major, Colonel, and, finally, as General Sir George on the field of Waterloo. While Droopy Ned was to prove a powerful friend and wise counsellor in the tortuous path that he, Roger Brook, was to tread, as Mr. Pitt's principal secret agent during the dark days of the French Revolution and the mighty struggle against Napoleon.

CHAPTER II

A KNOTTY PROBLEM

THE Reverend Mr. Tobias Chapwode, or "Old Toby" as he was called by the boys of his House, was by no means one of the most popular masters. His real interest lay in his own special subject, English History, upon which he had written several scholarly books. Had he had an income of his own he would have retired to devote himself exclusively to these studies, but he was dependent on his stipend and so compelled to remain at Sherborne although his duties there often conflicted with his private work.

In consequence, whenever he was immersed in a particularly tricky passage of his writings he became extremely lax and discipline suffered. Then, suddenly becoming aware of this, to restore the situation he would pounce and punish with considerable severity. As the boys were unaware of the cause of this inconsistency in his treatment of them, they were naturally apt to resent it, and some even regarded him as a malicious old man who delighted in deliberately playing a cat and mouse game for his own amusement.

The belief was fostered owing to the fact that few of his pupils ever got to know him. He regarded boys in the main as young animals, whom time alone could change from barbarous little savages into reasoning human beings. Moreover, he considered that his responsibility consisted only in keeping the worst of their natural vices in check and sending them out into the world stuffed with enough knowledge, acquired parrot fashion, to form a basis for further education should they later choose to develop any talents they might have.

Yet to the few of whom he took conscious notice he presented a very different personality. In the seclusion of his untidy, book-bestrewn study he was no longer the reserved and apparently dreamy individual, who nine times out of ten failed to take notice of minor misdemeanours but on the tenth occasion would deal out birchings and impositions with startling suddenness. Those whom he invited there, occasionally for purposes other than inflicting punishment, always found him both tolerant and kindly; moreover, he had a strange facility for setting them at their ease and talking to them, not as their House Master, but as a friend.

These favoured few were always boys who had attracted his notice by the promise they showed of becoming something worthwhile later in life. His historical studies had long since made him aware that these were by no means always the youngsters who did best at their lessons and he had an uncanny knack of singling out those showing incipient strength of character, regardless of their talents or lack of them. Among those with whom during the past year he had felt it worth while to bother was Roger Brook.

Roger, therefore, had been in no trepidation on being sent for and, even had he not just been reassured by Droopy Ned, would have felt no qualms as he knocked on Old Toby's door.

"Come in,' boomed a sonorous voice, and on entering the study, Roger saw that, as usual for such interviews, Old Toby had dispensed with all formality. He was a fat, elderly man, with a round face, sharp nose and rather fine green eyes. The desk behind which he sat was covered with a disorderly mass of parchments, his ill-curled grey wig reposed on a wig-stand beside his chair, the double lappets of his white clerical collar were undone and his rusty black gown was stained with spilt snuff.

"Ah, 'tis you, Brook," he said. "Come in and sit down. Take that armchair and make yourself comfortable."

As Roger obeyed, Old Toby scratched his shaven pate and went on with a smile: "Now, why did I send for you? For the life of me I can't remember, but 'twill come back in a minute; that is, if you don't grudge me the time from your packing for a little conversation."

"Of course not. Sir," Roger replied politely, marvelling, not for the first time, that his House Master could be so affable when in the seclusion of his own room. "I've naught left to do but cord my boxes to-morrow morning."

"Have you far to go?"

"Only some forty odd miles, Sir. I live at Lymington, on the Solent."

"Ah, yes. That is something of a cross-country journey, though, and the coaches would serve you ill. You've bespoken a post-chaise, no doubt?"

"No, Sir, I prefer to ride. Jim Button, our groom, will have arranged a change of horses for us on his way over to-day, and my baggage will go by carrier."

"That should be pleasant if the weather is clement, as it has been these few days past. You'll take the turnpike road to Poole and so on through Christchurch, I suppose?"

Roger shook his head. "We go by way of Blandford, and then through the New Forest. The tracks are quite passable at this time of year, and the forest glades are wondrous beautiful."

"You're not afraid of footpads then," Old Toby smiled. " 'Tis common knowledge that the forest is rarely free of such dangerous gentry."

"I've never met any, Sir. But if we do we'll hope to give a good account of ourselves. Jim always ports his blunderbuss and he'll bring me my brace of pistols."

"You would stand and fight, then?"

"Why not, Sir?" Roger's dark eyes gleamed with excitement at the thought. "I can shoot the pip out of an ace at fifteen paces, but I've had no opportunity to try my pistols on a human target, yet. I'd like the chance."

Old Toby chuckled. "You young spitfire! Our Master-at-Arms tells me, too, that you are becoming quite a dangerous antagonist with the foils. But this recalls to me the matter about which I wished to talk. Does the interest you display in weapons incline you to the profession of Arms?"

Roger hesitated only a second, then he decided that Old Toby would not resent it if he was absolutely frank. "To be honest, Sir, there is nothing that I would hate more than, going into the Navy or Army. You see, I know 'tis very wrong of me, but I just can't bear to be ordered about. I don't mean that I resent being told what to do by people I respect, like yourself. But some of the other Masters—well, they often make rules to suit their own convenience without a thought as to how they will affect us boys. That's the privilege of their position, of course, and one accepts it as philosophically as one can—as long as one remains at school. But I think anyone a fool who, on leaving, deliberately saddles himself with a new lot of masters for the rest of his life."

It was an exceptionally strong statement from a boy not yet sixteen, in an age when the word of all parents was a law against which there was no appeal and rigid discipline was regarded as the essential backbone of the whole structure of society. But Old Toby's face showed no sign of disapproval at this declaration of heresy. He was thinking, ‘I was right to take an interest in young Brook, he has moral .as well as physical courage, and may go far.'

Still uncertain of the effect his rash words might have had, and wishing to strengthen his argument, Roger hurried on: "Some of the older boys are worse than the masters, and they can't even claim to know best because they are grown up. They fag the younger fellows to do all sorts of stupid time-wasting things, often out of pure malice, and I see no reason why their natures should change when they become older. Take Gunston, Sir. I'm not complaining about him, but he is going into the Army. Just think of having a stupid oaf like that for one's senior officer, and being unable to question his decisions. Life would be positively unbearable."

Old Toby took a pinch of snuff. "Your views are unorthodox, Brook, and I would advise you to keep them to yourself. There is, I admit, something in what you say; yet discipline is a necessary ingredient in all our lives. Rectique Culius pectora roborant. To succeed in any career, you must school yourself to accept that fact. But tell me, why, if it is not your intention to adopt the profession of Arms, do you spend so many hours in the fencing school and shooting gallery each week?"

"To make myself proficient, Sir. Then when I am older no man will be able to gainsay me with impunity."

"I had not realised that you were of such a quarrelsome dis­position."

"I trust that I am not. I would not seek to force a quarrel on anyone. But a gentleman should know how to defend himself, and the ability to do so is the best means of assuring full independence of both spirit and action."

"You must be aware that edicts inflicting severe penalties for duelling have been in force for many years now."

Roger smiled and gave a slight shrug. "Yet duels occur with some frequency just the same. Sir, and they are not forbidden in many places on the Continent. I hope to travel in due course."

"Ah," Old Toby shuffled with some papers. "That brings us back to the reason for my asking you to wait upon me. You will be moving into Upper School next term, and I see that I have no note here as to the career which your parents desire you to follow. The time has come when I should be informed of it in order that I may allocate a certain portion of your time to the most appropriate studies."

"Nothing definite has been settled yet, Sir. My father wanted me to go into the Navy, but there was some hitch. My mother.."

Roger flushed and broke off.

Old Toby gave him a shrewd look. "Your mother was Lady Marie MacElfic before her marriage, was she not? And all her family are still irreconcilable Jacobites. Were you about to say that the King had refused entrance to the Navy to you on that account? It is common knowledge that the Government is still averse to appointing officers to either Service who have even remote connections with the Stuart cause."

"Well, yes, Sir. That is what happened. As a Captain in the King's Navy, himself, my father did not think that there would be any difficulty about my appointment, but there was. He was furious, but said there was plenty of time and that before I was old enough to go to sea he would make their Lordships at the Admiralty see reason. That was soon after the American war broke out. Then when the French intervened in seventy-eight, his ship was ordered to sea, and, thanks be to providence he has not been home since; so has been unable to do aught about it."

" Seventy-eight," murmured Old Toby, "Why, that is five years ago. And so, young man, you have been a stranger to parental discipline for all that time. If you have been allowed to have your head at home for so long 'tis little wonder that you have come to find the restraints of school irksome. Has your father made no mention of this matter in his letters?"

"Yes; from time to time. But he felt, I think, that little could be done by writing to their Lordships, and he has no personal influence at Court. He was counting on the patronage of Admiral Rodney when the Fleet got home, but the war dragged on for so long and his ship was one of those left on the West Indies Station after our great victory last year off the Isle of Saints."

"And meanwhile, you have been growing up. It is not too late yet for you to enter the Navy, but it very soon will be. As you have no inclination for the life I take it that you are congratulating yourself already on having escaped your father forcing you to it."

Roger grinned sheepishly. "Even if he were ordered home to-morrow he has to get here; then 'twould take him months of lobbying finally to overcome the old objections, and once I'm sixteen I shall be safe. For me the late war has proved a miraculous preservation. The Army would have been bad enough, but to be a midshipman, boxed up in a ship for months, living on weevilly biscuits and kicked around by every Tom, Dick and Harry! It makes me shudder to think of it."

"Qua fuit durum pati, meminisse dulce est, was Seneca's very wise remark on that, you will remember. But, have you made any plans of your own?"

"No, Sir, and I'd willingly be guided by you. In any event, as far as entering Upper School is concerned, I'm sure my mother would be agreeable to your putting me to any studies that you think most suitable."

"Outside the usual curriculum you are already taking French. Few boys show any interest in Modern Languages, and I remember thinking it strange this time last year when you asked to be allowed to do so. What was your reason, Brook?"

"Because I hope to travel."

"Both your Latin and Greek are exceptionally good for one of your years; and the former being the common tongue of all educated people I should have thought that would have filled your need anywhere on the Continent."

"No doubt it would, Sir; but with Latin, English and French, I shall stand a better chance of making myself fully understood by people of all classes, wherever I may go."

Old Toby regarded the slim figure and thin, eager face in front of him thoughtfully. The boy had great self-assurance for his age, was well proportioned and when fully grown should make a fine figure of a man. Those dark blue eyes, a gift no doubt from his Highland mother, coupled with the short, straight nose, strong white teeth and resolute chin, would play the very devil with the women. The fat, worldly-wise old man caught himself thinking that it would not be long before the lad seduced some ripe young chambermaid or dairy wench. In the days before he had taken orders to assure himself a sinecure he had done quite a bit of whoring himself; and to his way of thinking any young man of sixteen who had not started to roll the girls in the hay was neither healthy nor normal. People began both to fight and love young in those days.

As his glance fell on Roger's hands his thoughts shifted. They were fine hands, none too clean at the moment, but long and firm, sensitive yet strong. They had, however, one peculiarity: the little fingers on both were of exceptional length, their tips reaching almost to the nails of the third fingers.

Cheirognomy or the science of reading character from the shape of the hands, is as old as fortune-telling and at one time Old Toby had interested himself in it. He now recalled that unusually long little fingers acted as a balance to the impulsiveness given by strong thumbs, and indicated the power of their possessor to influence others. Not . without reason, too, the ancients had associated the qualities of the god Mercury with the little finger and averred that when abnormally developed it showed great ability of expression in both writing and speaking, and that the owner was one who could interest and command people by the manner in which he would apply facts and knowledge to the treatment of anything that strongly concerned him.

He wondered that he had not noticed young Brook's long little fingers before, but was pleased that he had done so now, as the boy's flair for languages and the ease with which he expressed his thoughts was one more proof of the correctness of the ancient, though now discarded, science.

"I think,' he said slowly, "that during this holiday you should consult your mother and ascertain if she has any views as to your future."

"I will, Sir; but I'd be mighty obliged if you could offer some suggestions that I might put to her."

"Have you, or are you likely to have, any money of your own?"

Roger shook his head. "Such money as there is in the family lies with my mother's people, and they cut her off when she married my father against their will. My father has only a few hundreds a year apart from his pay."

" ‘tis a pity, that; since-few careers are open to a gentleman lacking fortune; other than learning and the sword. Are you irrevocably set against entering one of the Services?"

"I fear so, Sir. I'll not submit myself to be dragooned all my life by people for many of whom, I am convinced, I should have no respect."

"Far est et dab hoste doceri," Old Toby quoted, and added: "While 'tis true that a certain number of the King's officers are men of little merit whose lack of education is deplorable, in the main they are honest, courageous fellows of good will, who do their duty as they see it. At times you might have the misfortune to find yourself under an ignorant martinet, but 'tis morbid to assume that you would always do so. In these days, too, promotion is rapid for young men who show ability; so I feel you should strive to overcome this arrogant prejudice of yours. Even if you are set against the Navy you could canvass such patronage as the gentry round Lymington would no doubt give to a neighbour's son, to overcome this lingering Jacobite taint, and secure you a commission in the Army. That, I am sure, in these war-like times, would afford you the best chance of making a name for yourself."

"But we are no longer at war, Sir," Roger protested. "What with the French, the Spaniards, the Dutch, and the Colonists we have enjoyed only some fifteen years of peace out of the last forty-four, and they must be as exhausted as we are. Surely, after the last seven years of strife, we should be able to count now on a long period of tranquillity."

Old Toby grimaced, and took snuff again. "I doubt it, Brook. 'Tis true that the signing of the Peace of Versailles last January secured the pacification of Europe and the final Independence of America, but it leaves many grounds for contention still outstanding. During the past two centuries we have humbled the might of Spain and ground down the power of the Dutch, so that both are now reduced to second-class nations. But France, our inveterate enemy, still remains immensely strong and a constant menace to our interests in every corner of the world."

"Permit me to observe, Sir, that we've had the upper hand in India for some twenty years past now," Roger remarked deferentially. "And that by the Quebec Act Lord North gave Canada a charter that has deprived King Louis of the allegiance of the Canadian French so it seems that we have little further trouble to face in either."

"That may be so, but these long-drawn-out contentions over distant continents are merely the skin of the apple, not its core. As for my Lord North's measure; by securing the monastic lands in Canada to the Roman Church and granting complete freedom of worship to all sects, he may have won over the Canadian Papists, but its repercussions both in New England and at home were disastrous. The storm it raised, culminating in the Gordon riots a few years back, bids fair to delay all hope of religious toleration in England, and even more so in Scotland, for another generation. It also played no small part in the fall of his own ministry fifteen months ago. "

"Surely, Sir, his loss of the Premiership after twelve years of office is another reason for anticipating a long period of peace? As the King's protégé my Lord North represented the war party, but now that he has been compelled to accept a minor place in the new Coalition his colleagues, and particularly Mr. Fox, will prevent him from allowing us to become involved again."

"I greatly doubt if the Coalition will live out the year. Lord Rockingham's death' and Lord Shelburn's resignation have already caused two reshuffles since Lord North's own fall. His Grace of Portland is no more than a figurehead and the present arrangement with Lord North and Mr. Fox as joint secretaries under him is too unnatural to last. The two men have been bitter enemies for years and have not a thought in common. But reverting to yourself, Brook. Do politics attract you?"

"They would. Sir; if I could see my way to enter them."

" Tis a great field for young men, these days. There are many members of the House who are still in their early twenties, and an outstanding example of unusual talent being recognised is afforded us by young Mr. Pitt. Only last year Lord Shelburn took him into his Ministry as Chancellor of the Exchequer at the age of twenty-three."

Roger smiled. "But he had the advantage of being the son of the Great Commoner, and his mother is a Grenville so he has the backing of the most powerful connections in the realm."

"Such influence counts for much, particularly in politics now that Parliament has virtually become a club, half the members of which are nominated by our oligarchic aristocracy that controls the pocket Boroughs. But no influence, however powerful, would have alone sufficed to induce Lord Shelburn to make young Billy Pitt his Chancellor. He owes that to his capacity for business and his gift for oratory."

Old Toby paused for a moment, then went on: You have too good an opinion of yourself already for me to further swell that young head of yours by suggesting that you might become another Mr. Pitt. And I fear your poor grasp of mathematics would soon bring ruin to us all if you were ever made responsible for the Exchequer. But you have application and a most ready tongue, so you might well aspire to some remunerative minor office, if you could find a means to enter Parliament."

"Alas, Sir, that's the rub." Roger shrugged despondently. "One needs both patronage and money to secure a pocket Borough, and, as I have told you, I have neither."

"Um! I had forgotten that you lack money of your own. Hiatus maxime deplendus. Patronage is by no means impossible to win, given a pleasing presence and fair speech, but a good private income is essential to any man having political aspirations. We are thrown back then to a choice of learning or the sword. When you leave Sherborne could your parents afford to send you to one of the Universities?"

"Yes, I'm sure they could do that, and in many ways I'd like it, Sir. But where would it lead in the event of my doing well?"

"To preferment and some well-paid sinecure in which you could follow your own inclinations—if you are prepared to take orders. To do so is still regarded as a pre-requisite to becoming a Fellow. You could then remain on as one if you wished or, in due course, accept a warm living or the headmastership of a school, since a great number of the best of these are within the gift of the Colleges."

"With due respect to your cloth. Sir, I feel no inclination to enter the Church. But I should welcome the chance of pursuing my studies in History, and I was under the impression that a B.A. could prove a valuable asset in securing profitable employment."

Old Toby grunted. "Then dismiss the thought, Brook. As I have said, we live in an age of war, and learning is at a discount A degree in itself could open no better prospect to you than tutor to some nobleman's son at forty pounds a year, or, at best, an appointment as usher in a school. As for such studies as you have in mind I fear you would be grievously disappointed. During the past century both the Universities have fallen into a sad decline and only a few of the more conscientious Fellows bring themselves to lecture now and then. Such is the sloth that has gripped our seats of learning for many decades that no Regius Professor of Modern History at Cambridge delivered a lecture between 1725 and 1773, and the last holder of that Chair died from a fall from his horse while riding home drunk to his Vicarage at Over. Conditions at Oxford are as bad, or worse, and the students at both are of two kinds only. Those who are prepared to take orders to the end of later obtaining a benefice, and young rake-hells with time to waste, who are sent up from family tradition by rich parents."

"That rules out Oxford or Cambridge for me, then," Roger sighed. "I've no particular wish to go to the Colonies, but it looks as if that is all that remains to me. In the new lands no stigma attaches to a gentle­man who engages in trade, and I might, perhaps, become a rich merchant."

Old Toby nodded. "That certainly is a possibility; although to engage in commerce successfully one requires capital. You might, however, obtain a post with the India Company or, if you prefer Canada, seek employment with that which controls the vast territories round Hudson's Bay. With either I doubt your sword being likely to rest for long in its scabbard. But neither will it if you remain at home for that matter. In the event of another war against the French every man will be needed, and you would hardly be able to avoid service with the Army, however much you may now dislike the idea."

"You seem very confident that there will be another war, Sir."

"I am, alas! After the French and ourselves have had a few years to lick our wounds I regard it as inevitable. For seven hundred years they have been our hereditary enemies, yet neither of us have succeeded in destroying the other. With the constant expansion of our interests a final decision becomes more imperative with every year that passes. The loss of our oldest colonies in the Americas has been more than compensated for in the last few decades by our gains in Canada and India and the great new lands that Captain Cook has opened up to us by his voyages in the southern seas. Britain has now become an Imperial Power unrivalled since the days of Rome; but our hold upon these great possessions is still fragile in the extreme. The French, too, need 'living room' and their population is twice as large as ours. The far-flung bases over which new fly the flag of the Union gives us a strangle­hold upon their commerce. They know that they must break that hold or lose the leadership of Europe and degenerate into a second-class Power, where poverty will take the place of affluence. Overseas the game has gone to us, but only a narrow strip of water divides us from King Louis's numerous and well-armed legions. Believe me, Brook, before ten years are gone the French will make another great effort to overwhelm us and obtain the Empire of the World. For them 'tis either that or stagnation, bankruptcy and death."

For a moment there was silence in the quiet room, then OldToby glanced at the clock on the mantel, and said:

"Good gracious me! I had no idea 'twas so late. I fear I have detained you overlong. Well, speak with your mother as to your future when a suitable opportunity arises, and let me know any fresh thoughts you may have upon it on your return next term. A happy holiday to you."

"Thank you, Sir; the same to you." Roger stood up and added with a smile: "And permit me to thank you for your interest in me." Then he made a formal bow and left the room.

As he walked back along the corridor, where earlier that evening he had had his affray with Gunston, he realised that the time had come when he ought to face up to this business of choosing a career for himself. For years the nightmare of being forced into the Navy against his will had haunted him, yet he had not dared to think of any other future. Then, as with the passing of time the shadow had lifted, he had gradually begun to savour the joy of escape without formulating any alternative. But now Old Toby had precipitated matters, and it seemed a much more knotty problem than he had imagined would be the case.

He Was an only child, but, even so, his inheritance would amount to no more than a moderate-sized house with a few acres of garden and meadows and something less than a thousand a year; and in the meantime he must find some way to support himself honourably in the quality of gentleman to which he was bred. The Church would give him leisure to read and the service of the Crown would ensure him travel; and he wanted both, but was most strongly averse to entering either; yet, without money of his own every other prospect seemed barred to him. It was indeed a poser.

On opening the door of the Junior Common room, a burst of riotous sound almost deafened him. Scores of his companions were ragging together as they cleared out their lockers. The thought that he would be at Sherborne for another two years, so there was realty ages of time before he would have to burn his boats, drifted through his mind; then he was struck sharply on the cheek with a pea blown from a pea-shooter. Forgetting all else, with a high-spirited yell he rushed upon his attacker.

Next morning he was up and dressed soon after four. For all but the haute monde of London and such fashionable spas as Bath, who could literally afford to burn money in the constant consumption of many candles, the sun governed most people's lives in those days, and "early to bed and early to rise" was still the general rule; but, anxious to be on their homeward way the boys had risen of their own accord an hour earlier than usual.

The great courtyard of the school and the road outside it was now the scene of immense bustle and activity. Scores of grooms with led horses, some in smart liveries, others in plain home-spuns, jostled one another for place while seeking their young masters. The road for half a mile was blocked by a double line of private coaches, hired post-chaises, gigs, cabriolets and phaetons. While the drivers swore at their neighbours and strove to quieten their restive horses the boys ran amongst them, each seeking the familiar equipage that had been sent the day before, or overnight, to fetch him; and an army of servants struggled through the crowd bent under the weight of heavy corded boxes.

Entering the turmoil Roger raised himself on tiptoe, looking eagerly to left and right in search of Jim Button. As he did so he caught a glimpse of Droopy Ned, standing beside a splendid gilded coach with postilions, outriders and a great coat of arms emblazoned on its door.

Not a cap or gown was now to be seen, and the boys were all dressed in holiday attire, like little replicas of their fathers. Most wore good suits of broadcloth, riding-breeches and unornamented three-cornered hats, but the richer among them swaggered in brightly coloured coats of silk or satin, with embroidered waistcoats and lace ruffles at throat and wrists; Droopy Ned outshone them all.

He was wearing a long-skirted coat of yellow watered silk, the huge cuffs and pockets of which were braided with gold. The curls of a great white wig tumbled down between his narrow shoulder-blades and perched on the top of it was a tricorne hat edged with more gold lace and a thin ruching of feathers. From one hand he dangled a large lace handkerchief and with the other, while he directed the liveried footman in the stowage of his baggage, he leaned negligently on a five-foot long malacca cane topped with a huge opal.

Roger was just thinking how fine it must feel to be the Lord Edward Fitz-Deverel, now a man, rich beyond the dreams of avarice and just about to set off on the Grand Tour, when he caught the sound of r familiar voice.

"Hey, Master Rogerl Here I be! I thought ye was never a-coming."

Turning, he pushed his way through the crush to an angle of the yard where Jim Button was waiting, holding the reins of a hired led horse for him.

With a laughing "Good morning, Jim; all well at home?" Roger caught the reins of the led horse, thrust a foot into the stirrup and swung himself into the saddle.

As he reached it Jim leant over with a grin. "Aye, all's well, Master Roger. And I've great news for 'e. The Captain's back. 'Twas only yester-e'en but y'r father's at last come home from the sea."

CHAPTER III

AN ENGLISHMAN'S HOME

THIS startling news put a damper on Roger's high spirits as effectively as a snuffer douses a candle. It was not that he disliked his father. Far from it; until the announcement that he was destined for the Navy had engendered in him a secret fear of his parent he had had a warm affection and high admiration for that hearty, vigorous man who could tell such fascinating stories of buccaneers and the hazards of the ocean. That early attachment would still have been strong enough to make him rejoice at the thought of the Captain's return had it not been marred by a sudden wave of renewed anxiety as to his own future.

He had counted on their having news that his father was about to sail for home before his ship actually left the Indies. The voyage took from six to eight weeks and, normally, even had he been ordered home that summer, which from his letters had seemed most improbable, Roger had reckoned that he could hardly reach England before September. That would have left him only a little over three months in which to pull such few strings as he had with the Admiralty; and, knowing the appalling delays to which officialdom customarily subjected such unimportant applications, Roger had felt confident that January the 8th, 1784, his sixteenth birthday, would still see him unfettered by a Midshipman's commission. But now that the Captain had six months to work in Roger had serious grounds for alarm.

Nevertheless, by the time they had changed horses at Blandford, the lovely morning sunshine and the feel of his own little mare between his knees again had done much to dispel his gloom; and when, an hour later, they left the King's highway to strike through leafy lanes towards the New Forest he thrust his misgivings into the back of his mind.

The road, if it could be called one, that ran through the forest, was merely a rutty track, confined at times by mossy banks feathered with ferns and bracken, but for the most part barely furrowing the flat surface of broad grassy glades that ran one into another. At the end of each the track curved a little to open up a new prospect of giant oaks, chestnuts and beeches, the lofty branches of which in some places met overhead and in others were separated by several hundred yards, so that their green crests could be seen towering to the sky.

Roger had always loved the forest for its silence and the mystery that seemed to lurk waiting for discovery, in the depths of each shadowed cavern of undergrowth. Leaving Jim to amble along he frequently cantered ahead or explored byways where the green sward beneath his mare's hooves was dappled with golden sunlight flickering through its branches. Here and there he startled a rabbit or squirrel into a headlong retreat and more than once set little groups of fallow deer loping away from him.

When they reached the ferry over the Avon they made a hearty second breakfast off the provender that Jim had brought with him, then, fording the stream, continued their way through the seemingly endless forest. They encountered no footpads but came upon an encampment of Egyptians, as the gipsies were then called. These strange dark folk, with their black locks, gold earrings and brightly coloured scarves seemed very alien to England, yet they had dwelt there in the forest in apparent contentment for centuries. It was said that they sometimes kidnapped children and they were certainly horse thieves, but they never molested travellers. Roger gave them a friendly wave and the white teeth of their women flashed as they smilingly waved in reply. The children ran beside him for a little way, shouting for largess in their strange Bohemian tongue. He threw them a few small coins and cantered on.

The sun was high overhead by the time they left the forest and crossed Setley Heath. Shortly after one o'clock they walked their horses into Lymington.

The town was opposite the western end of the Isle of Wight but lay about four miles from the sea. It consisted of some half-hundred houses grouped round the quays, where a widening of the river Lym formed a small natural harbour, and a single long street that ran up a steep hill to westward of the old town. Just above the crown of the hill the High Street divided into two narrow alleys passing either side of the Town Hall, with its stocks, blind house and butchers' shambles, then uniting again in a broad thoroughfare as far as the church. Beyond this lay a straggling ribbon of houses, known as St. Thomas's Street.

It was from this western end that Roger entered the little town and on reaching the church he turned seaward, down Church Lane, a few hundred yards along which lay his home. The house was situated on a gentle slope to the south of the High Street and separated from it by gardens, a strip of woodland and a large meadow.

From time immemorial there had been a dwelling there and part of the last remained; a low-roofed building faced with old red tiles which was now used as the kitchen quarters. Roger's grandfather had bought the property, demolished most of the earlier structure and built the main portion of the present house. It formed a solid square block with tall, white-painted windows most of which faced south and had a fine view of the Island. There were two storeys only but the rooms were spacious and on both floors twelve feet in height. It was not a mansion according to the times, but if for sale would have been advertised as a commodious residence, suitable to persons of quality.

A small orchard lay to west of it, an acre of walled kitchen garden to its north, stabling and outhouses to its east; along the south front of the house ran a long balustraded terrace, ornamented with carved stone vases and with two sets of steps leading down to a wide lawn beyond which a number of fine trees and shrubberies formed shady walks. The whole was enclosed by a high brick wall which, although the property was so close to the town, gave it as much seclusion as if it were a mile or more from its nearest neighbour.

Eager to greet his mother, Roger dismounted at the orchard gate, leaving Jim to take his mount round to the stables, and, running up the path burst into the house by its side entrance. As he had guessed would be the case, at such a time, she was in the kitchen superintending her maids in the preparation of a gala dinner for her returned hero.

Lady Marie Brook was then forty-six. The dark hair, partly hidden by her lace cap, was now turning grey, but in her deep blue eyes and fine profile, it was still easy to recapture the ravishing beauty that, eighteen years earlier, had caused the dashing Lieutenant Christopher Brook to declare that he must have her even if he died for it. And he very nearly had, since both her brothers had called him out and in the second duel he had been seriously wounded.

At the time of their meeting Jacobite plots had still been rife, and he had come upon her, white-faced and indignant, while he was leading a naval landing-party in the forced search of her home in Scotland for a concealed store of arms. She had been only seven when her father, the Earl of Kildonan, had joined Prince Charles Edward's ill-fated rising and after the battle of Culloden been butchered by the Duke of Cumberland's brutal Hanoverian horsemen; but had been old enough to remember the grief of her devastated clan at their losses in battle and the merciless hunting for fugitives that had succeeded it. The passing of twenty years had made no difference to the extreme hatred that she and her family bore to all who wore the uniform of the Hanoverian King; yet the very first sight of Christopher Brook had caused in her an overwhelming emotion. Her first love had been killed as a result of a shooting accident and she had felt the blow so deeply that she had rejected all other offers, but the dashing young Naval Lieutenant had dissipated her old loyalties as swiftly as mist is dispersed by strong sunshine and, in spite of all arguments, entreaties and threats, she had broken with her family to run away with him.

Lady Marie was not only a beautiful, but also a very practical, woman; and her housekeeping was a model of industry and efficiency, even for those times. Not a fruit, herb or vegetable in her garden was ever allowed to go to waste and the shelves of her storeroom groaned under their loads of conserves, pickles, spices and syrups.

In the old kitchen where she now stood, making pastry herself while she kept a watchful eye on her ample-bosomed cook and her two maids, Polly and Nell, the time-blackened beams overhead were festooned with hams, tongues, and flitches of bacon, while the tables could hardly be seen for joints, game, pudding-basins and vegetables.

As Roger ran in she swiftly dusted the flour from her hands and, laughingly submitting to his wild embrace, kissed him on both cheeks; then she held him from her and exclaimed:

"My darling boy, you're looking wondrous well, and I can see that you're much excited by the great news. Your father is out on the terrace with some other gentlemen. He's just mad to see you, so run to him now and leave me to my cooking."

After kissing her again Roger did as he was bid, and slipping from the old to the new part of the house, he came out through the pillared portico that gave on to the terrace.

His father was there, a big, brown-faced, jovial-looking man of fifty-two, surrounded by a group of neighbours who had called to welcome him home. Roger knew most of them; old Sir Harry Burrard, the richest man in the district, who lived, across the river at Walhampton; General Cleveland of Vicar's Hill; John Bond of Buckland Manor; Mr. Eddie of Priestlands and Mr. Robbins of Pylewell. Captain Burrard was there, too, talking to Harry Darby, the Mayor of Lymington whom he hoped to succeed, in that ancient and honourable office which had been held by no less a person than the Duke of Bolton only ten years earlier; and Sam Oviatt, the local wine-merchant, present by virtue of his calling, which was considered of such importance at that date that wine-merchants were freely admitted to country society, which rigorously excluded all other tradesmen.

As Roger's father caught sight of him, he cried: "Why, Roger, boy, thou hast become a man! Stand not on ceremony but come hither, lad."

Roger had been about to make a bow but instead he ran down the steps and his father kissed him heartily.

"What a surprise you gave us," he laughed up at the bronzed, heavy jowled face just above his own. "Where is the Bellerophon? Did you dock at Plymouth or is she in Portsmouth Roads?"

"Nay, I left her in the Indies, and came home as a passenger in the frigate Amazon. I carried dispatches, and having a fair wind behind us we made all sail up channel to anchor at the Nore. 'Twas half a day saved, though it meant my jolting all the way from London in a plaguey post-chaise yesterday. But you know the company, Roger?"

Recalling himself, Roger made a deep sweeping bow which, beginning with Sir Harry Burrard, included all those present.

"Your servant, gentlemen."

As they returned his bow, he noticed for the first time that there was a stranger among them. He was a paunchy little man with a fat face, double chin, small pursed-up mouth and snub nose, but he had large, luminous eyes. Many of the older men were wearing wigs, but evidently he preferred the newer fashion, as his own brown hair was curled in two rolls above his ears and tied with a black bow at the back of his neck.

At that moment he stepped forward and spoke in a sonorous, rather pompous voice.

"Captain, pray do me the honour to present me to your son."

"On the contrary, Sir, I am flattered that you should take notice of him. Roger, make your service to Mr. Edward Gibbon, who has recently become our Member of Parliament on the retirement of Sir Harry, here. But keep your schoolboy Latin tags for other company, since that is his second tongue, and his learning upon ancient times puts us all to the blush."

Roger's eyes opened wide as he bowed again. "Indeed, I'm honoured, Sir. My House-master at Sherborne lent me the first volume of your Decline and Fall but I had not thought to have the happiness of meeting its distinguished author."

Gibbon's fat face broke into a smile. "Nor I, young Sir, that my cherished labours should already have reached so youthful a public.'

"Strap me, Roger!" beamed his father, "you have the laugh of us, for I'll vow that few others of us here have as yet had the courage to tackle so weighty a work, much as we may admire Mr. Gibbon's industry. For that you deserve a glass of wine. What shall it be— Madeira, Malaga or Sack? But I forget, you're old enough now to drink as and when you please."

"Thank you, Sir," Roger turned away to a table that old Ben, the house-man, now elevated by the wearing of his best black to the rank of butler, had carried out on to the terrace. On it were three decanters and a tray of tall, slender, trumpet-shaped glasses. Choosing the Madeira, as the sweetest wine, he was pouring himself a glass when Mr. Bond cried:

"I take you up on that, Chris! I've read all three volumes that Mr. Gibbon has so far published, and am a-thirst for more."

"Ah, John, your nose was ever in some book while the foxes at Buckland made a Roman holiday in your hen roosts," responded the captain, and his sally raised a hearty laugh among the fox-hunting squires of which the company mainly consisted.

"I, too, am happy to say that I have read Mr. Gibbon," declared Sam Oviatt.

"I'll not gainsay you," said his host, with a broad wink at the others. "With no lands to look to and the scandalous profits you make on your smuggled liquor, you must be the richest man among us and the one with most leisure."

Another gust of laughter followed, then Mr. Gibbon held up a plump hand. "Come, come, gentlemen! No more disputing over the rival claims of my poor work and other pursuits, I beg. Three readers among ten of you is so handsome a proportion that could I boast the same of the population of England I should be so well endowed that I could afford to found a free library for the enlightenment of poor sailors returned from the wars."

The laugh this time was against Captain Brook but it was interrupted by the arrival of two newcomers, the Vicar and Mr. Sutherland, who lived at Grosvenor House in the High Street, the meadow behind which ran down to abut on the Captain's orchard. After greetings had been exchanged and they had been furnished with drinks, the gay, inconsequent talk went on.

Soon after three o'clock old Sir Harry Burrard asked that his coach might be summoned, so that he could drive home to dinner;

but Captain Brook would not hear of it, insisting that the whole company should remain to dine with him, and that his wife had prepared against them doing so. Heads were counted and Roger sent to tell his mother that, besides themselves, there would be eleven guests; and as she had already bidden her nearest and dearest neighbour, Mrs. Sutherland, to join them, to keep her in countenance with so many gentlemen, covers were prepared for fifteen.

Roger helped old Ben put the extra leaves in the dining-room table, but they had no need to use them all, as it was a good modern one made only a dozen years before in Mr. Chippendale's London workshop and could, as Roger knew from their Boxing Night parties, seat twenty, when fully extended.

By four o'clock its highly polished mahogany mirrored a brave array of china, glass, gleaming silver, white napery, crystal bowls of fruit and filigree baskets holding bonbons, comfits and candied peel, while the side tables were filled to capacity with steaming dishes and rows of bottles.

Polly and Nell, now smart in their frilled aprons and mob caps, took their places on either side of the table; old Ben announced that his master was served, and the company went in to dine.

Lady Marie had Mr. Gibbon on her right and Sir Harry on her left; the Captain had Mrs. Sutherland on one side and old General Cleveland on the other; Roger sat between Sam Oviatt and Captain Burrard.

For a first course Lady Marie gave them a dish of perch and trout, another of lobster patties, three fowls broiled, a fore-quarter of lamb, and a fillet of veal roasted with Morella cherries and truffles. And for a second course, sweetbreads, a green goose roasted and peas, a pigeon pie, apricot tart, cheesecakes, and a trifle.

Few ate of all these things, but many of most; everyone choosing what they preferred and often having their plates piled high with helpings from several different dishes at the same time. The meal was good, but by no means pretentious as nine dishes to each course were often served in larger houses and even when alone few of those present ever sat down in their own homes to a dinner of less than a single course of five. All of them took unabashed enjoyment in their food and washed it down with copious draughts of Rhenish, Claret and Anjou. Such heavy eating and drinking brought internal troubles to most people in middle life and was largely responsible for the early death rate but they lived too fully and violently to give a thought to that.

With the interval between courses this cheerful guzzling continued for the best part of three hours, then the port was put on the table and the ladies withdrew.

Behind a tall, brocaded screen in one corner of the room was a commode with two chamber pots, in order that the gentlemen might be spared the inconvenience of interrupting their conversation by leaving the room. Most of them now made use of these and, as they settled down again, the Captain told Roger to take his mother's place at the foot of the table; the decanters were passed round and the jovial talk went on.

"You have told us little yet, Sir, of the state in which you left the Indies," remarked Mr. Gibbon to his host, "and no small part of our prosperity hangs upon the Sugar Islands."

"Things are well enough there now, Sir," promptly replied his host. "The enemy caused some destruction in the towns where our people put up a resistance to him; but in such islands as fell to his assault he burnt few of the plantations, thinking to profit from them himself in years to come."

Captain Burrard laughed. "After the French recapture of St. Eustatius, and with only Jamaica, Barbados and Antigua left to us. he had some reason to count his chickens. Things there were in a parlous state until my Lord Rodney's victory off the Saints restored the situation."

"Were you present at the fight, Chris?" asked Mr. Sutherland.

"Aye, Jack," nodded Captain Brook, "and a bloody business it was; the enemy's ships being crammed to bursting with soldiers for his projected invasion of Jamaica. As you may have heard tell, my Lord Rodney made naval history by deliberately disrupting his own line of battle to break clean through the enemy centre. This new manoeuvre enabled us to get to windward of the French and encircle five of their biggest ships, including the Ville de Paris, in which Admiral de Grasse was flying his flag. After a monstrous gruelling he hauled down the flag of France with his own hands and surrendered himself to Hood on the Barfleur. Rodney then called off the fight, and although we took four prizes, in Hood's view had we kept at them we might have taken many more. So, although a fine victory, 'twas not so conclusive as Quiberon Bay, where I served as gunnery Lieutenant of the middle deck in Augusta. I count Lord Hawke's action there in 'fifty-nine as our greatest naval victory since the Armada; it gave us undisputed command of the seas for a decade."

"Those were the days!" muttered old Sir Harry reminiscently. " 'Twas in the same year that General Wolfe's victory at Quebec secured Canada to us, and but two years earlier that Lord Give had bested the French at Plassey. By 'sixty-one both the Mogul Empire and the Americas were ours, and we had naught to fear from any man."

"The cause of our late disaster, Sir, is not far to seek," put in Mr. Gibbon. "Had not the King's rebellious subjects in what they are now pleased to term the United States forced a war upon us and engaged our forces overseas, the French and their allies would not have dared once more to challenge our supremacy for another decade at least."

"Oh, come, Sir," cried Mr. Robbins, "The American war was a thing apart, and the Colonists had right on their side in their contention that they should not be subject to taxation without representation in our Parliament."

"That contention, Sir, was both illegal and impractical," boomed back Mr. Gibbon. "The time and distance separating the two continents would have made representation in our legislature of little value. Moreover, it is ancient practice that the distant Provinces of an Empire should in part bear the financial burden of their own defence. We had but recently preserved the New Englanders from falling under the tyranny of the French who, at that time, were dominant in Canada and a constant menace to them, so I count their refusal to accept that just liability as base ingratitude; an opinion which is shared by no less erudite and thoughtful men than Dr. Samuel Johnson and Mr. John Wesley."

"Yet, Lord Chatham, Mr. Burke, Mr. Fox and Mr. Walpole were all against you, Sir," said Sam Oviatt, "and the City of London so opposed to this taking up of arms against our kin that they refused to vote funds for the war."

"As for Mr. Wesley, Sir," said the Vicar truculently, "you can scarce expect those of us who are loyal to the Church Established to attach much weight to the opinions of such a firebrand."

"On the contrary, Sir," hit back Mr. Gibbon acidly, "You and your brethren would do well to adapt yourselves to many of the precepts of that great preacher's teaching unless you wish to lose what little credit is still left to you. In the past forty years his Methodism has gained such a legion of converts that unless you bestir yourselves the movement bids fair to deprive you all of your congregations."

Seeing that tempers were rising Captain Brook intervened. "There is much to be said on both sides. The real tragedy lay in our Government's failure to compose the quarrel in its early stages, as could so easily have been done."

"Aye," agreed Harry Darby, "and the blame for that lies with the King, whose wish to rule us as an autocratic monarch caused him to ignore all sager counsels and entrust the Government to a weakling like my Lord North, solely because he knew that he could make a catspaw of him."

"True enough!" chimed in Captain Burrard, "The King's crazy pig-headedness has been the root of all our troubles."

Mr. Gibbon frowned. "Crazy pig-headedness. Sir, is a strange term to apply to one who has the courage of his convictions, when those convictions have the support of law, the undeniable rights of sovereignty and also form the opinion of the great majority of a people. The Colonists' defiance of Parliament shocked the nation and by the election of 'seventy-four it clearly confirmed the King in his policy."

"The King has a long purse and there are always a plenitude of pocket Boroughs for sale," laughed Captain Burrard.

"Say what you will, Sir," retorted Mr. Gibbon, "Unlike the first two Georges, the King is by birth, education and inclination, an Englishman. Affairs of state are no longer subject to the corrupt and venal influence exercised by German harlots and from the inception of his reign King George III has ever placed what he considers to be the true interests of England before all else."

"Aye, the King's well enough," nodded Captain Brook, "and 'twas Lord North's mismanagement that so embittered the Colonists. They would have been content with their early successes and glad enough to patch up the quarrel had he not offered the negro slaves their freedom if they enlisted with us, and despatched Hessian troops to fight against our own flesh and blood."

Sir Harry Burrard banged the table with his fist. "You've hit upon it, Chris! That was the crowning blunder of them all, and well do I remember the Great Commoner's attack upon the Government at the time, when he thundered 'You have ransacked every corner of Lower Saxony, but forty thousand German boors never can conquer ten times that number of British freemen.' And he was right."

"Yet, 'twas Lord Chatham himself who two years later opposed the Duke of Richmond's motion to withdraw all forces by sea and land from the revolted provinces," countered Mr. Gibbon.

"I grant you that, Sir, and I well remember that occasion, too, since 'twas my Lord Chatham's dying speech and he collapsed but a half hour later. I was again in the Lords gallery at the time, and although it is all of five years ago I recall his words as well as if he'd spoke them yesterday. 'Shall we,' he asked, 'tarnish the lustre of this nation by an ignominious surrender of its rights and fairest possessions? Shall a people that fifteen years ago was the terror of the world now stoop so low as to tell its ancient, inveterate enemy—take all we have, only give us peace.' But remember, Sir, he spoke them in a very different case. The French were about to intervene on behalf of General Washington and the thought of a European conflict being added to our woes had caused something near to panic. Lord Chatham would have supported my Lord North in making any terms with the Americans, short of giving them their independence, since to do so at that juncture would only have laid us open to other so-called, 'positively last demands' by the French. How could he, to whose leader­ship we owed our splendid victories over them in the Seven Years' War, refrain from rising, even from a bed of death, to protest against such ignominious folly?"

"Yet his Grace of Richmond had wisdom on his side," argued Mr. Eddie. "The extension of the war in 'seventy-eight compelled us to evacuate Philadelphia in order to protect New York and defend the Indies from the French; and our case became even worse when the Spaniards too, came in against us in 'seventy-nine."

" Twas worse still in 'eighty," added General Cleveland, "when our blockade had maddened the Russians, Swedes, Prussians, Danes and Austrians into a common policy of armed neutrality against us, and the Dutch added themselves to our active enemies."

"Nay, General," Captain Brook took him up quickly, "I pray you say nothing against the blockade. 'Tis England's greatest weapon. With it we've many times brought the Continent to reason and under Providence will do so many times again."

The old General grunted. "Let us pray then that should such a case arise we'll have no major conflict raging overseas. Since, saving your presence, Captain, 'twas bad naval strategy and naught else that lost us our fairest possessions in America."

"That I contest, Sir, and, saving yours, I count the Army more to blame. On no less than four occasions our Generals bungled badly. At the very outset of the war General Gage locked himself up in Boston for eleven months instead of engaging the Colonists before they could become organised. Then in 'seventy-six, had they been active, Generals Howe and Cornwallis could have crushed Washington between them; but they frittered away their opportunity. In both 'seventy-seven and 'eighty-one, had two large British forces not dallied but made them junction on the Hudson, as was intended, they could have cut off the North from the South and so still preserved the Southern Colonies to the Crown. Yet, as we know, their dilatoriness resulted, in the first case, in General Burgoyne being trapped and compelled to surrender at Saratoga and, in the second, in General Cornwallis laying down his arms at Yorktown, and with them our last hope of victory. Had we had a Commander of General Washington's quality on our side I am convinced that the conflict would have ended very differently."

"I admit that there was some misdirection in the early stages," the General agreed, "but Cornwallis out-generalled and defeated Washington on numerous occasions; and you have ill-served your case by referring to the surrender that was forced upon him. He deployed his Army in the Yorktown peninsular for the sound purpose of being able readily to reinforce New York. Had the British Fleet not dallied in the Indies, no French battle squadron could have occupied Chesapeake Bay, and enabled Washington's Army to achieve a junction with General Lafayette by landing on the neck of the peninsular."

"The Fleet cannot be everywhere at once, Sir," protested the Captain.

"No, Sir," the General rapped back, "but it should be at the right place at the right time; and its first duty in war is to protect the lines of communication of the Army."

"Would you have had us then let the French have the Indies for the taking and leave the shores of Britain unprotected? We had to contend with the fleets of no less than four enemy powers, remember, and in that year we both hammered the Dutch off the Dogger Bank and relieved General Elliot at Gibraltar."

"God forbid that I should impugn the Navy's gallantry, Captain. I contend only that its strategy was ill-designed. Our Admirals followed a policy of dealing with local attacks as and when they occurred instead of seeking out the enemy fleets to destroy them, and the dispersion of our sea forces proved our undoing."

"I am with General Cleveland in that," declared Mr. Gibbon. "Our Army made no great showing, yet it would not have been reduced to asking for terms had not the Navy failed it at a critical time. Never­theless our host's excuse is valid, in that our preoccupation in Europe and particularly with Gibraltar, were given first place by the Government. It has been very truly said that 'to save a rock we lost a continent,' but no blame for that can be laid to either service."

Mr. Gibbon's diplomatic summary saved the faces of both pro­tagonists. The tension eased and the Captain laughed. "I am well content to leave it at that; and at least we can all agree that Lord Rodney's victory at Saints, by restoring our supremacy at sea, enabled us to make none too bad a peace."

"Indeed, without it, we would have been hard put to it to obtain terms at all," said Sam Oviatt. "As it is we have come off monstrous well. The loss of the Colonies is a thing apart, but giving up St. Lucia,

Tobago and Goree to France, and Minorca and Florida to Spain, is little enough to pay for the consolidation of our position in Canada and India and all our other gains."

"For that a good share of thanks are due to Lord Shelburne's fine diplomacy," remarked Sir Harry.

Captain Brook turned quickly to him. "Yet he was forced from office after only a few months, and when I was in London I heard it said that the Coalition is far from secure."

"Its fall at any time would not surprise me," Sir Harry answered. "The King is still determined to rule the roost. After twelve years of virtual dictatorship, through Lord North, he can hardly be resigned to allowing power to slip from his grasp; and since the country demanded North's dismissal the fleeting Ministries of the past seventeen months have been little more than experiments. The Marquess of Rockingham's death last summer alone made way for Shelburne, whom the King neither liked or trusted, and he likes the Coalition even less. He shares the national disgust at his old minister having entered into this unnatural partnership with the man who has been his bitterest critic for so many years and will, I am convinced, have them both out of office as soon as a suitable pretext presents itself. His real problem is to find a man malleable to his own interest who will yet prove of sufficient stature to dominate the House. 'Tis reported that with this in mind he even offered young Billy Pitt the Treasury before reconciling himself to accepting Mr. Fox. That Pitt refused the offer is to his credit. At least he had the sense to see that the House would give short shift to anyone so lacking in experience."

"I consider it more likely that it was not lack of self-confidence but astuteness that caused Pitt to reject office for a time," remarked Mr. Gibbon. "From all I have seen of him he shows exceptional promise. His grasp of business is at times uncanny for one of his years, his repartee is scathing and his oratory is superb."

Sir Harry nodded. "He speaks monstrous well, I grant you, and in that he is my Lord Chatham's son without a doubt. I recall his maiden speech when he first took his seat in the House at the age of twenty-one. One of our oldest members said of it 'There was not a word or a gesture that one would have sought to correct' and Mr. Burke, seated nearby me, remarked, 'He is not a chip of the old block, but the old block itself.'"

"Then, should we be forced to take up arms against the French, may he play as glorious a part as did his great father," said Captain Brook. "But come, gentlemen, 'tis time we joined the ladies."

They had been sitting over their wine for the best part of an hour and a half, so it was now close on half-past eight and dusk was falling. Squire Robbins and Harry Darby, who were a little unsteady on their pins, excused themselves, but the others trooped into Lady Marie's cool green and white drawing-room, where the conversation took a lighter tone and local gossip was mingled with talk of charities and entertainments.

Soon after nine, Mrs. Sutherland declared for home, and her leaving was the signal for the breaking up of the party. The Sutherland walked back across the meadow to their house up in the High Street, and the Vicar went with them, while old Ben, now flushed from his exertions as host these past two hours to a dozen visiting servants in the kitchen, summoned the carriages and horses of their masters. Invitations were poured upon the Brooks from all sides, then with a cheerful shouting of good-byes, their guests drove or rode away.

By a quarter to ten, father, mother and son were at last alone and reassembled in Lady Marie's drawing-room.

"It's been a great homecoming, Chris," she smiled, "and you can see now how your friends have missed you."

The Captain swayed slightly on his feet. He was not drunk but his long years at sea had left him out of training for such heavy drinking, and he had had a little more than he could carry comfortably. He was smiling broadly, and declared with a laugh:

"The best is yet to come, m'dear. I've two fine surprises for you."

"Oh, tell us, do," she leaned eagerly forward in her chair, and Roger added his urging.

"You'd never guess," the Captain grinned. " 'Tis far more than I hoped for, as I thought myself forgot after my long absence from home, and I said nothing of it to the company as it may be a month or more before it appears in the Gazette. But I'm to fly my flag. Their Lordships have made me a Rear-Admiral."

"Chris! Is it really true? Oh, how prodigious fine!" Lady Marie jumped up and kissed him on his flushed cheek.

"Hurrah!" cried Roger, "Three cheers for Admiral Brook! Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah!"

Not wishing to make a fool of himself he had gone as carefully as he could with the wine, but having been granted the status of a man, he had also not liked to appear less than one by passing the port untouched too frequently. So he too, had had as much as he could carry, as was evident from his flushed face and unnaturally bright eyes.

"But you said you had two surprises for us," Lady Marie went on. "I can scarce bear the suspense to hear the other. Is it that they've given you a ship of ninety-eight guns to fly your flag in?"

"Nay," replied the Captain. 'Tis something that I value more. With me I brought despatches from the Indies and the First Lord did me the honour to instruct me to lay them personally before His Majesty."

"What! You actually talked with the King?" exclaimed Roger.

His father put an arm affectionately round the boy's shoulders. "Aye, lad, and he was mighty civil to me; so I took the bull by the horns and went in to the attack. I asked him for a commission for you, and, praise God, he was graciously pleased to grant it to me there and then."

The blood drained from Roger's face. In the excitement of the last few hours he had temporarily forgotten his own anxiety, and the bomb now exploded beneath his feet with startling suddenness.

Lady Marie too, paled a little, but for a different reason. She knew that Roger was averse to the sea as a career, but thought his attitude no more than the unreasoning prejudice of a boy, that could soon be overcome; and her husband's wishes were to her the law. Yet Roger was her only child and she was most loath to part with him at such an early age and see him in future only at long intervals.

"So Roger will not be returning to Sherborne next term?" she said slowly.

The Captain gave him a hearty slap on the back. "Nay. His school days are over, and he'll be posted as a midshipman on the recommissioning of one of our ships now in dock within the next month or two. Well, Roger, hast thou naught to say?"

"Indeed, I'm very grateful, Sir—both to you and to His Majesty," Roger managed to stammer.

Captain Brook's perceptions were too blunted by the wine he had consumed to note the lack of enthusiasm in Roger's tone, and he hurried on: "Next week we'll go into Portsmouth and see to the ordering of your kit. You'll cut a brave figure in a uniform and all the gels will be casting sheep's eyes at you." He converted a mild belch into a yawn. "But enough for now. 'Tis time we sought our beds. Strap me! but it's good to be home again and see to the locking-up of one's own home for the night.

"I'd best come with you, Sir," Roger volunteered. "A new door has been made to the still-room, since you went away, and 'tis concealed behind a curtain."

Lady Marie led the way out into the spacious hall and, turning, kissed Roger good-night at the foot of the white-painted, semi-circular staircase, then father and son made the round of the ground floor, fastening the shutters, putting up chains and shooting bolts.

As Roger followed his father from room to room, his mind was in a turmoil. The wine and the shock he had sustained had now combined to bemuse his brain and make him feel that he wanted to be sick. On the news of the Captain's return that morning he had thought that at worst he would have several months in which to wage a campaign of resistance against any renewal of the project to send him to sea. His father was both good-natured and affectionate; so by waiting for such times as he was in his most calm and responsive moods it might have been possible to argue him out of it. But the time for seizing such opportunities had now been cut from beneath Roger's feet.

He saw himself within the next few weeks being shipped off like a victim of the press-gangs to a life of slavery in the hideous discomfort inseparable from serving in a man-o'-war. Midshipmen were then treated little better than the sailors before the mast and worked to the limit of their endurance. They took watch for watch and were sent aloft with the hands to help furl the sails, under the blistering tropic sun or in the icy, blinding rain of the worst tempests. The common seamen at least had leisure to yarn, carve models, or laze about in their off-duty hours, but not so the midshipman, who, in the intervals of scrubbing decks, cleaning brass fitments and hauling on great tarry ropes were herded into the ship's schoolroom to receive instruction in navigation, gunnery, trigonometry and ship's management. Their fare was a rarely varied diet of salt pork and hard biscuits washed down with unsweetened lime juice to prevent scurvy; their quarters a single low cabin in which there were constant comings and goings, their sleep limited to three and three-quarter hours at any one time before they were roughly woken to roll out of their dirty blankets and scamper up the ladders for the muster of a new duty-watch on deck. They were kept on the run from morning to night and for half the night semi-frozen while acting as look-outs in the crow's nest high above the ship. Their title of "Mister" was a mockery; the officers were as far above them as the gods and it was considered that the harder the tasks they were given the better officers they would make later on. Bugle calls and the ship's bell ruled their every hour; they had no privacy or recreations and were bullied unmercifully.

Knowing all this Roger was engulfed in a black wave of despair, yet felt that he would rather die than submit to such a fate. Blindly he followed his father's unsteady footsteps from room to room, seeking a way out but finding none. His alcohol-laden brain refused to work although it was seething with revolt. At length they reached the conservatory on the west side of the house. A dim light filtering through from the hall was enough to show the glass double-doors leading out to the orchard, but it was now pitch dark outside. Admiral Brook had walked forward to lock the door, when Roger suddenly exclaimed in a choking voice:

"Sir, may I speak with you for a moment?"

"Yes. What is it, Roger?" the Admiral flung cheerfully over his shoulder.

"This Commission, Sir, I've no wish for it."

"What's that!" The Admiral swung round and peered at him in the uncertain light. "What didst thou say? Surely I can't have heard aright?"

Only his half-drunken state had given Roger the courage to take the plunge but, having taken it, he hurried on. "I'm sorry to dis­appoint you, Sir, seeing you're so set on it, but I don't want to take up this Commission."

"In God's name, why?" gasped the Admiral in blank astonishment.

"I—I've a dozen reasons. Sir," Roger stammered now. "I don't want to go to sea. I—I..."

"You're drunk, boy," exclaimed his father, sharply. "You don't know what you're saying. Get to bed this minute."

"I'm not drunk, Sir," Roger protested. "At least, not so drunk as all that. I made up my mind years ago. I'd hate the life, I swear I would. I pray you don't force me to it."

"So this is what an expensive schooling has done for you!" His father was angry now. "Or is it lack of discipline because I've been so long from home? How dare you question my decisions. I know what's best for you. Get to bed now and let's hear no more of this."

"Please!" Roger begged, "Please! You must remember your own days as a midshipman. You've often told me how they worked you until you ,were often almost asleep on your feet. And of the cold and the storms and the bullying."

"Bah! That's nothing. You'll soon get used to it and come to love it."

"I shan't, Sir. I've dreaded this for years and I'll loathe every moment of it."

"Hell's bells, what schoolgirl vapourings!" the Admiral cried in a fury. "Am I but come home to find that I have a coward for a son?"

"I'm not a coward, Sir. I'll take on any fellow of my own weight, but I don't want to go to sea."

"D'you dare to stand there and defy me?"

Roger was white to the gills and feeling desperately sick again, but the gross injustice of disposing of him against his will had driven him, too, into a fury.

"Yes, since I must," he cried. "It's my life and I'll not be con­demned to a slavery worse than the plantations. I won't go to sea, and you shan't make me."

"God!" roared the Admiral, "Such insolence as this is something I never dreamed to meet, and for it I'll leather the hide off you." Suiting the action to the word he snatched up a cane from a potted plant and thrust out a hand to grab Roger by the collar.

Roger dodged the blow by stepping sideways and, in the semi-darkness, the Admiral tripped over some large flower-pots that were standing on the tiled floor. He fell among them with a clatter but was up again in a moment and made another grab at Roger with a hearty curse.

" Tis discipline you need, you presumptuous young fool and I'm the man to give it to you. I'll soon show you who is master in this ship."

Next moment he had Roger by the scruff of the neck and forcing him over brought the cane down with a resounding wallop on his buttocks.

Roger let out a yell and tensed himself for another blow, but it did not come. While the stick was still raised in mid-air, the Admiral's action was arrested by three sharp, clear knocks that came out on the night on one of the panes of the conservatory door.

CHAPTER IV

THE MAKING OF A MAN

FOR a moment they remained as inanimate as though posed in tableau vivant, then with a muttered curse the Admiral released his hold on Roger and, turning, strode to the door. It was still unlocked and pulling it open he stared out into the warm darkness of the summer night.

A tall, bearded figure stood there and the Admiral's eyes, already accustomed to the gloom of the conservatory, swiftly took in the knitted stocking cap, woollen jersey, leather breeches and heavy seaboots of his belated visitor.

"E'en" Cap'n," said the man in a gruff voice, "Hearin' ye was back from the wars I thought ye could do with a keg of the best."

"Why, Dan!" exclaimed the Admiral, "I scarce knew you for the moment, but 'twas good of you to think of me. What have you brought us, brandy or schnapps?"

The smuggler tapped with his boot the little two-gallon cask that he had set down beside him. " 'Tis French cognac, and none better ever came out of the Charente."

The smuggling of wines, spirits, lace and perfume from France had been rife for the past eighty years—ever since Lord Methuen had imposed such heavy discriminating duties against the French that the British people, resenting them as an unjust imposition, had resorted to openly flouting the law and become ready buyers of illegal cargoes. For sheep stealing, a man could still be hanged and the sentences inflicted on poachers were often of a barbarous ferocity, but, despite the utmost pressure of the Government, no bench of magistrates would convict a smuggler, however strong the evidence against him.

The Admiral had now got back his breath and his good humour. "How fares it with you, these days?" he asked. "Is the old game as beset with pitfalls as ever, or are the Excise men grown slack?

Dan Izzard shook his massive head and the gold earrings in his ears glinted in the half-light. " 'Twas easier while the war were on, Cap'n. Most o' the revenue cutters were impressed for the Navy then, but now they're freed ag'in they're doing their darnedest to put us down."

"So the war was good for business, then?"

"Aye! Wars make no difference to the likes o' us on either side o' the Channel. An' all open trading being cut off put prices up. 'Tis fine pickings we've had these past few years, but a man has to take his life in his hands to run a cargo now the fighting's over."

Roger knew Dan well, but although he was now standing close behind his father he scarcely took in what they were saying. He felt ghastly and the conservatory seemed to be rolling round him as distressingly as if it were Dan's lugger in a heavy sea.

The Admiral stooped and tilting the little cask rolled it in through the open doorway, as he said: "Well, thanks, Dan. Look in and see me any time you're passing, and I'll settle up with you."

"Aye, aye, Cap'n, I'll do that. But 'twon't be for a day or two, as 'tis overlong since I made a trip. Good-night to 'e."

As the door closed Roger drew back, fearing a renewed assault from his father; and he had good cause to do so, as the Admiral suddenly said with cold wrath: "And now, Sir, I'll deal with you!"

At that instant Roger lurched forward, grasped uncertainly at the wooden staging on which stood several rows of pots, and was violently sick.

Baffled, the Admiral stared at him. He could hardly give the boy a leathering while in such a state. After a moment he turned away to bolt the door, and muttered angrily: "Oh, get to bed. I'll teach you manners in the morning."

Stuffing his handkerchief in his mouth, Roger slunk away and stumbled up to his room.

Having been up at four and it now being two hours past his usual bedtime, neither the tempestuous scene nor his unhappy physical state kept him long awake. After rinsing out his mouth, and sponging his face with cold water he pulled off his clothes and flopped into bed. Ten minutes later he was sound asleep.

From habit he woke soon after dawn and, but for a slight heaviness in his head, felt little the worse for his violent emotions of the previous night. When he had washed, dressed and done his brown hair as was his custom, by combing it off his forehead and tying the ends with a bow at the back of his neck, he left his room and went up by a short flight of steps to the roof.

That of the newer portion of the house had two triangular eaves filling the bulk of a square, but a leaded walk ran right round them and a breast-high parapet concealed the eaves from anyone looking up from the gardens below. It was a good place to laze if one favoured solitude on a sunny day and the views from it provided a never-failing interest.

To the north, farther up the slope, lay the gardens and backs of the largest houses of the old town, in which some activity was always to be seen; to the west lay open, Wooded country and to the east, beyond the double row of limes that formed the drive up to the house, lay the little harbour. But the most engaging prospect was to the south. There, through low-lying meadows and mud-flats, where in spring innumerable gulls' eggs were to be had for the collecting, the river Lym wound its way to the Solent. Across the three-mile-wide stretch of open water rose the island, sometimes so sharply visible that one felt one had only to reach out to touch it with the hand and the jetties of Yarmouth were easily discernible to the naked eye, at others with its heights shrouded in mist, so that only its tree-clad foreshore was visible and it took on the appearance of some mysterious jungle coast in a tropical sea.

This morning there was a faint haze which gave promise of another glorious day. Roger could see Hurst Castle on the low-lying spit that jutted out from the mainland, but he could only just discern Worsley's Tower, opposite it on the island. There, the Solent was at its narrowest and for over a thousand years it had been the ill-omened road to the invasion of England. Vespasian had made the crossing in his galleys before capturing Lymington and launching his Roman legions on their conquest of Britain. Right up to Queen Elizabeth's time the French had frequently held the vulnerable island for months at a stretch, and from it despatched forays that had pillaged and burnt the coast towns as far west as Devon.

It was for that reason that Baldwin de Redvers, second Earl of Devon and feudal lord of Lymington, finding this little outpost of his vast domains too expensive to defend, had granted the town its freedom in the year 1150, thus making it one of the first free Boroughs in all England. But for the past two centuries, despite frequent periods of acute alarm, the Burgesses had remained safe behind the shield of the Royal Navy; and day in day out all through the year the vista was now a never-failing reminder that the power of Britain was based upon the sea. Brigs and brigantines, frigates, sloops and great three-deckers were ever to be seen as they tacked and veered on their way to protect our commerce in distant seas, or bringing the wealth that was the envy of the world to England's shores.

But to-day, Roger had no eyes for the barque that was beating to seaward against the gentle sou'-westerly wind. Plunged in misery, his lively imagination was already conjuring up the dreaded interview with his father that was to come. That he was in for a licking, and a hard one, he had no doubt at all. It would be worse too than the spontaneous beating with a bamboo that he has escaped the previous night, since, now that he was on the way to being fully grown, his father would take a whip to him and not spare his blows. That was a foregone and nerve-shaking conclusion, but what was to befall after the licking had been administered? Should he humbly retract or risk further punishment by sticking to his guns?

He felt terribly alone and wished desperately that he had someone with whom he could talk over his wretched plight. It was useless to go to his mother for, much as she loved and would be sorry for him, she adored his father to distraction and considered that his every decision was for the best. Jack Bond of Buckland, Roger's best friend, had not yet returned from Eton, and Dick Eddie of Priestlands was, so he had learned the day before, down with the smallpox. He knew a number of other boys in the neighbourhood but did not feel that any of them were intimate enough friends to fill his present need.

It was then that Georgina Thursby crossed his mind. It would never have occurred to him to go to any ordinary girl for sympathy and support in such a crisis, but Georgina was very far from being an ordinary girl. The Thursbys played no part in local society, for a very good reason, and Roger was the only neighbour who ever visited then-house. He had first met Georgina out riding alone in the forest, some two years previously; in itself a most unusual thing for a young girl to be allowed to do, but the Thursbys were a law unto themselves. Roger had struck up an acquaintance with her which had soon ripened into a warm friendship. She was, he knew, a bare-faced coquette, vain, self-willed and tempestuous, but Colonel Thursby had no other children and the solitary existence that she led, uncontrolled by any women, had made her boyish in her outlook, forthright in her opinions and courageous in her acts.

The more Roger thought of Georgina the more certain he felt that she would understand and with her quick mind even, perhaps, find some way out for him. His father had named no hour for the dreaded interview and was still abed. There was nothing to prevent his leaving the house and he was not even called on to let the servants know where he had gone. To ride over to the Thursbys now would at least be a respite from the ordeal of meeting his parents at a silent and sultry breakfast table. Turning, he made his way cautiously downstairs and out to the stables, saddled his mare himself and trotting up the lane to the town took the road to Highcliffe.

A seven-mile ride brought him to his destination. The name applied not to a village but the district in which lay the castle where Lord Bute, the King's ex-tutor and minister, was spending his declining years, and a number of scattered houses. Highcliffe Manor, in which the Thursbys lived, was a comfortable cream-brick mansion with large double mullioned windows looking out on to a well-kept lawn and gardens. The house itself did not stand on high ground but its location could be fixed for many miles in any direction, owing to what was locally regarded as an eccentric foible of the Colonel's. He was much interested in all new inventions and to test the strength of iron bars, as opposed to wooden beams, as a framework for building had, a few years earlier, erected in that medium a tower a hundred and fifty feet in height, at no great distance from his house. There, tall, thin and square, it reared up from a naked field but it now provided a fine landmark for ships out at sea and the whole surrounding countryside.

As Roger entered the hall Colonel Thursby was just coming down­stairs to breakfast, and he at once invited the visitor to join them. The Colonel was a thin-faced, studious-looking man in the middle fifties. He did not look in the least like a soldier and, in fact, had only been one in his youth because a wealthy father had bought him a Lt.-Colonelcy. On his father's death he had promptly sold it and spent several years in travelling, visiting even such distant places as Turkey and Russia. On his return he had fallen violently in love with a beautiful girl who was then the toast of the county and, to the delight of all their acquaintances, married her. But their happiness had been short­lived. One night an overturned candle had set the curtains of the poor girl's bed alight and she had been burned to death before anyone could come to her assistance.

For some months the Colonel had shut himself up, refusing all consolation. Then scandalous rumours had begun to circulate. It was said that he had a gipsy girl living in the house. With the easy morality of the times none of his neighbours would have condemned him for endeavouring to console himself with a pretty mistress, though it was thought in ill taste to keep the woman in the home to which he had only eighteen months before brought his young bride; but when a few months later he openly announced that he had married the gipsy, the depths of their disapproval were beyond plumbing.

Henceforth the Colonel was ostracised by all who had known him, and to complete his apparent discomfiture, his gipsy wife had died in bringing a daughter into the world. Actually he was little affected by the county's condemnation, since he was richer than most of his neighbours, spent much of his time in London and—as he had never been a sporting man—when at his country home was perfectly content to amuse himself pottering in his well-stocked garden or browsing among his fine collection of books.

If anyone had suffered it was his daughter, since, even when she reached her teens, he had made no attempt to reopen social relations with his neighbours on her account and, although many of them were sorry for the motherless girl, they felt that it was not for them to take the first step.

Yet Georgina would not have had matters otherwise. She was shrewd enough to know that had local society been open to her she would have had to accept the authority of a governess, and been expected to conform to the simpering manners and unexciting lady­like pursuits of her contemporaries. Her father was wealthy, generous and a man of taste. He ordered her clothes in London, so that her wardrobe put those of the local belles to shame, and had provided her with an education far above that of the average girl of her age by the simple process of long intimate talks and encouraging her to read widely, no book in his library being barred to her.

The Colonel had scarcely given orders for Roger's mare to be taken round to the stables when there came a cry of delight from behind them. Turning, he saw Georgina, as fresh and pretty as a red rose with the morning dew still on it, come running down the staircase and with his three-cornered hat still in his hand he made her a most gallant leg.

She was now seventeen, over a year older than Roger, and well developed for her age. It is doubtful if, when they first met, she would have bothered with him but for her instinctive urge to captivate every male she set her black eyes upon, and the fact that he filled the need she unconsciously felt for a companion who could share her youthful enthusiasms. She had inherited the dark, lush beauty, big dewy eyes and full ripe mouth of her gipsy mother; had a splendid figure and a graceful freedom of carriage born of unrestrained activity in the open air. She rode like a female centaur, swam like a dryad and could climb trees with the agility of a monkey.

Roger was not in love with her but the feelings she aroused in him were as near love as he had so far got. He admired her dark beauty and at times was conscious of an uneasy feeling when he touched her; but she was too abrupt in her changes of mood and too dominating a personality to fit into his vague imaginings, which centred round a dreamy, fair-haired blue-eyed, creature reclining indolently on a settee. His attachment to her was much more in the nature of an honest comradeship, yet flavoured with a romantic desire to be her champion against the slight that he felt her neighbours had put upon her.

Georgina fully reciprocated the comradeship and accepted his awkward attempts at chivalry with secret mirth. She was, however, fully conscious that he was an embryo man and, for lack of more mature material to practise on, took delight in trying out his reactions to her latest toilettes and, on rare occasions, seeking to see how near she could get to rousing his apparently dormant passions.

Those passions were actually by no means so dormant as she supposed. Roger had little left to learn theoretically about the tender passion and had so far refrained from its practice only on account of a certain fastidiousness. In those days of easy morals no one thought the worse of a youngster for giving free rein to his budding desires, providing he did not attempt his friends' sisters, and there were few country girls who did not consider it an honour to be seduced by a son of the quality. Roger knew half a dozen boys of his own age at Sherborne who had found willing initiators into the mysteries in then-mother's maids, and one much-admired young coxcomb who had even successfully invaded the bed of his married cousin.

But Roger, having toyed with the idea of both Polly and Nell during his last holidays, had decided to wait until he came across a young girl of less buxom charms and one who would prove more mentally exciting. As far as Georgina was concerned he knew that to think of her in that way was to play with fire, and, since he placed her automatically in the same category as he would have one of his friend's sisters, he rarely allowed himself to do so.

Yet now, as they all went into the dining-room, he could not help remarking how much more beautiful she seemed to have become since he had last seen her, and the laughter in her wicked dark eyes gave him a sudden half-guilty thrill.

The dining-room was furnished with the new tulip-wood which was just then coming into fashion and the two sideboards were laden, one with half a dozen hot dishes, the other with a cold ham, pig's face and crystal bowls of peaches, nectarines, apricots arid grapes from Colonel Thursby's glass-houses.

The Colonel and Roger helped themselves lavishly, but after surveying the tempting array uncertainly for a moment, Georgina declared with a pout: "The very sight of food so early in the day gives me the vapours. 'Twill be as much as I can do to face a bowl of bread and milk."

Roger looked at her in astonishment, but the Colonel gave him a sly wink. "See, Roger, what a London season has done for your old playfellow. Had we had notice of your coming, I vow she would have had her hair dressed a foot high and used a sack of flour upon it; 'tis only overnight that she has lost that fine appetite of hers.

Then he turned to his daughter and gave her a friendly slap on the behind. "Don't be a fool, girl, or you'll be famished by mid-morning. Pretend to live on air when you're in London, if you will, but spare us these conceits here in the country."

Georgina suddenly burst out laughing. "Oh, well, give me some salmon pasty then, and an egg; but no bacon; the fat makes me queasy, and that's the truth."

Roger had been so occupied with his own concerns that he had temporarily forgotten that Georgina must have only just returned from her first London season, and so now should be definitely regarded as grown up. With a smile he asked her how she had enjoyed herself.

" Twas a riot," she declared, enthusiastically. "Balls, routs and conversaziones tumbled a-top of each other with a swiftness you'd scarce credit possible. For all of ten weeks I was never up before midday or abed before two in the morning."

"I wonder you didn't die of your exertions, but I must say you look none the worse for it," remarked her father. " 'Tis your poor aunt that I was sorry for, though. I wouldn't have had the chaperoning of you for a mint of money."

Georgina shrugged. "Since you paid her five hundred guineas to take me out, and footed the bill for her to present that milk-sop daughter of hers into the bargain, she has no cause to complain."

"Was Queen Charlotte's drawing-room as splendid as accounts of it lead one to believe?" asked Roger.

" 'Twas a truly marvellous spectacle. All the gentlemen in their fine uniforms and the ladies with tiaras and great ostrich feathers in their hair. And you should have heard the buzz when I made my curtsy. I near died of gratification."

Her father glanced at her with unconcealed pride. "Yes, you certainly took the town by storm; 'tis not many girls who become one of the reigning toasts in their first season."

"You did not lack for beaux, then?" Roger said, feeling a distinct twinge of jealousy.

"Lud, no!" she laughed. "I had a score of proposals, and am half committed to three young bucks; but I doubt if I'll take any of them."

"What did you enjoy most—apart from all these flirtations?" inquired Roger, with a faintly malicious grin.

Her black eyes sparkled. " 'Tis hard to say. The ball father gave for me at our own house in Bedford Square was a roaring success. Then there was our grand day at the Derby, where I won twenty guineas. I loved His Grace of Queensberry's water party down at Richmond, and the night we all went masked to Vauxhall Gardens. But I think my most prodigious thrill, apart from my presentation, was to see Mrs. Siddons play Lady Macbeth at His Majesty's theatre in Drury Lane."

For half an hour she rattled on, dazzling Roger with descriptions of the great world as yet beyond his ken, then her father left them to go out and see his gardeners.

"Well! How shall we spend the day?" she asked, after a pause to regain her breath. "Shall we ride in the forest, go down the cliff and provide a fresh scandal for the neighbours by bathing from the beach, or take luncheon up to our old haunt in the tower?"

Roger had intended only to spend an hour with her and then return to face his irate parent, but the more he thought of doing so the more unnerving the prospect became. The gravity of the issue was such that his father's anger could scarcely be increased whatever he did now; so he decided that he might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb and spend the day with Georgina, as she obviously expected him to do.

From his ride through the forest on the previous day he knew that the flies were now hatching out in such numbers as to prove irksome during a picnic. The promised heat of the day made a swim sound attractive, and he cared little for the fact that for a young man to bathe with a fully grown girl was frowned upon, but the tower offered the best prospect of a long talk entirely free of any possibility of interruptions, so, after a moment, he voted for it.

Although they had only just finished breakfast Georgina went off to the kitchen to procure supplies; since it entailed no small effort to climb the three hundred odd stairs to the little room at the top of the tower and, once there, to descend and re-ascend for any purpose would have been a foolish waste of time and energy.

A quarter of an hour later she rejoined him in the garden and as she came towards him across the lawn, a well-laden basket over her arm, he thought how seductive she was looking. As always, except when about to go out riding, she was wearing more diaphanous clothes than were usual in the country. A full skirt of sprigged India muslin billowed about her legs and, as the gentle breeze pressed it against her, gave a hint of the shapely limbs beneath it. The sleeves were cut very wide, showing her well-made brown arms to the elbows and a double fichu of white goffered organdie crossed on her breast accentuated the outline of her rounded bosom.

Roger took the basket from her and a few minutes' walk brought them to the base of the tower. Square and unornamented it rose starkly to the sky, the small round cupola which crowned it no longer visible from where they stood. Georgina led the way in through its narrow door, and they began the ascent.

The stairs were narrow and the atmosphere abominably stuffy, being relieved only by air holes consisting of narrow slits at every twenty feet, through which no more than a glimpse could be obtained of the surrounding country. Three times on the way up they paused, hot and panting, to regain their breath, but at last they came out into the turret chamber.

It was a small square apartment, large enough only to contain a brocaded settee, two chairs and a table, but its windows provided an outlook that was probably unrivalled in southern England. Inland. Meadows and cornfields were spread below them, merging into forest and heath, as far as the eye could reach, finally to blend with the sky in purple distances; while to seaward the white coast-line from Durlston Head, beyond Poole, to St. Catherine's Point, at the southern extremity of the Isle of Wight, lay unrolled to their gaze like some gargantuan map; and the white sails of ships could be seen far out at sea.

They knew that the tower was quite safe, although it always seemed to sway slightly as the wind moaned round its top in winter and summer alike. Yet this, and being so far above the earth, had never failed to give them a rather queer feeling ever since they had come to favour it as a retreat on account of its absolute privacy. Since Colonel Thursby received no visitors, no one except themselves ever came there and, even had strangers done so, the echo of their footsteps on the stone stairs would have given warning of then-approach at least several minutes before they could have reached the turret chamber. It was, therefore, an ideal place for two young conspirators to make plans and exchange confidences.

Having gazed their fill at the view, they settled themselves side by side on the settee.

"Well, little boy," said Georgina with an air of superiority. "Tell me about yourself? Hast thou done well at thy lessons this term or been the recipient of many birchings?"

"I'm not a' little boy," Roger protested hotly, "And don't you try to play the fine lady with me, just because you've been to Court and done a season."

She laughed. "Oh, Roger! Should I live to be a hundred I'll never forgo teasing you, and I vow you'll still rise to it. All the same, you may like it or not, but having been presented makes a woman of me."

"It takes more than that to make a girl into a woman," he scoffed.

"That's as maybe, m'dear, but at all events you can lay no claim

yet to being a man."

"Another few weeks will see me one—unless...."

As he broke off her big eyes opened wide. "Unless what? Whatever

do you mean?"

"Oh, God!" he burst out. "How much rather I'd remain a boy and be going back to Sherborne!" Then he suddenly buried his face in his hands.

"Why, Roger, dear!" She threw a warm arm round his shoulders and pulled his head down into her lap. "What is it? Do tell me. We've never had any secrets from each other, and never shall."

For a moment, conscious of her soft thigh against his forehead, he allowed that pleasant but disturbing sensation to distract his thoughts, then he muttered: "Of course I'll tell you. It's all right. I'm not blubbering. I'm too scared and angry to do that."

She released him, but seeing his distress, took one of his hands between her own, seeking by their firm pressure to give him strength, as she commanded: "Out with it, now!"

Roger gulped back the tears he had denied, and that neither Gunston nor his father had been able to draw from him. Then, bit by bit, half incoherently at first but graduating to a fierce, steady monologue of pent-up resentment, he poured out to her the story of the day before and the hideous fate that he now felt menaced him.

Her dark eyes fixed intently on him she let him ease himself of his burden without interruption, until he at last fell silent; then she said:

"But Roger, this is monstrous. Can you not appeal to your mother to make your father see reason?"

He shrugged. "My mother thinks more of him than she does of God. She loves me, but she'd never intervene; and 'twould be useless if she tried."

"Your other relatives, then?"

"I have none, except my mother's people whom I've never seen. My father, like myself, was an only son." "But you cannot submit to this?" "What other course is open to me?"

"God knows, m'dear; but the injustice of it makes my blood boil."

For the best part of another hour they talked round and round the subject without corning any nearer to a solution. The sun was now well up in the heavens and striking down on the stone cupola of the tower made the turret room close and hot. Roger got up to open one of the windows and stripping off his long-skirted coat flung it over the back of a chair.

They had fallen silent again. The wind had dropped and up there in their eerie no sound reached them from the earth far below. Roger felt, as he had often felt before in the turret, as if he was in a different world that had no connection with the life he knew. There was some­thing God-like in being at that high altitude from which the men working in the fields looked to be no more than pigmies. Time seemed to be standing still, and even the interview that he so dreaded coming no nearer despite the steady mounting of the sun which, with the passing of a few more hours, must inevitably set.

Suddenly Georgina spoke: "Roger! There's but one thing for it. You must run away."

"What's that!" he swung round to stare at her. "Run away! How can I? Where to?"

"Romantic young fools are always mining away to sea," she declared. "Why shouldn't you run away from it?"

"But there is nowhere I could go?" he faltered.

She tossed her black ringlets impatiently. "The world is wide and you are strong and healthy. These summer months you might do worse than go to live with the Egyptians in the forest, or you could make your way to London and find some employment there."

"No," he shook his head glumly, " 'tis too drastic a measure that you propose, and the remedy would prove a greater affliction than the illness. By it I'd cease to be all that I am and lose such small advantages as my birth and education give me. I'm determined to make something worth while of my life, and 'twould be the height of folly to throw away the best years of my youth scraping a living as a tinker."

"I don't mean run away for good, stupid, but just for a month or two; until this threat to your happiness has blown over, or your father has been given another ship and ordered back to sea."

For the first time he considered her suggestion seriously and, crossing the narrow room, sat down again beside her.

"I might do that," he murmured. " 'Tis certainly a possibility. But the forest is no good. The Egyptians might have you but they wouldn't have me. They'd think that I'd been sent to spy on them."

"Go to London, then. 'Tis less than a hundred miles and you could walk there in a week."

"Maybe, but I have not a single friend there, or even an acquaint­ance."

"Had it been last month I could have given you a score of intro­ductions; but, alas! town will now be as empty as a drum and all my friends of the season gone back to their places in the country. Still, you're a likeable fellow, Roger, and would soon find plenty of people to help you."

"I fear your wish is father to the thought, m'dear," he said despondently. "Among persons of quality the making of friendships is always easy, but in such a case I'd have put all that behind me. The poor live hard and for the most part are driven by their needs to batten upon one another. I know no trade and could be of little use to anyone except as a scrivener. I'd find myself starving within a week."

"Nonsense!" she flashed at him. "Where there's a will there's a way! You've a pair of hands and they could be put to a dozen different uses."

Roger's fatal imagination was again working overtime. He had never been to London, but he knew enough about it to realise that the gilded world in which she had disported herself so gaily for a few weeks was very far from being the metropolis that a patronless and penniless young man would find should he go there. Old Ben, the Brooks' houseman, was a Londoner by birth, and he had often told Roger horrifying tales of the debtors' prison at Newgate, the Fleet, and the madhouse at Bedlam, where the lunatics, bearing their heads against the walls and eating the filthy straw on which they lay, were exhibited in chains to anyone who cared to tip the warder a shilling. From Old Ben's stories, too, he conjured up the noisome alleys haunted by disease-ridden Molls, the filth, the stench and the cut-purses who haunted the thieves-kitchens on the lookout for some greenhorn from the country whom they might despoil.

"No," he said, after a moment, "I wouldn't dare to go to London."

"Then tramp the country," she replied tartly. " 'Tis high summer, and 'twon't harm you to sleep under a hedgerow now and then."

"Not now and then, perhaps; but I'd have to live, and I couldn't beg my bread all the time. I've no trade, I tell you! and I'm not strong enough yet to do the full days' labour of a man. I'd face it if I had sufficient money to ensure me food for the time we have in mind, but I haven't—that's the rub."

"I can set your mind at rest on that score," swiftly volunteered Georgina. "My Derby winnings have gone, alas, on furbelows, likewise my quarter's allowance from papa. But I've pretty trinkets that should fetch a tidy sum, and you shall have them. You could dispose of them with ease in Winchester or Southampton."

"I couldn't take them from you," Roger demurred.

"Be not a fool! I'll not give you the best or most valuable. Those I shall keep for my own adornment; but in my grandmother's box which has come to me there is a plenitude of old gewgaws that I'd ne'er be seen dead in. Yet they are of gold and should fetch a good price in a county town."

"No, no! I'll not rob you. 'Tis part of your inheritance and you may need them some day to raise money for some project of your own."

"Stuff and nonsense! As my father's heir I don't lack for fortune; and even if I did, my face and figure would soon make it for me. These oddments are but a bagatelle, and you must take them, Roger. 'Tis the only way to save yourself from the nightmare of this life at sea."

Her words recalled Roger to his impending fate; yet he still hesitated. Even provided with a little store of gold, to abandon every­one he knew and the only way of life he understood, for a lonely and perhaps perilous existence, was no light undertaking. Certain aspects of the unknown had always had greater terrors for him than the known, and to be cast out of the world of security and comfort that had been his ever since his birth, into one of uncertainty and hardship, filled him with misgiving.

"No," he said. "No, Georgina, I can't do it. You forget that I've led an even more sheltered life than you and am not yet sixteen. That is too young to face the world alone, even for the few months that you suggest."

"Ah!" she sneered, "There you've hit upon it. You're not a man, as you would like to think. Only a timorous little boy." "I'm nothing of the kind!" he declared angrily.

"Well, you behave like one," she retorted. "And you are certainly not a man yet; any girl could tell that with half a look at you." "What the devil do you mean?"

"What I say! And disabuse yourself of the idea that a midshipman's uniform could turn you into one. It couldn't; any more than being presented at Court turns a girl into a woman."

Roger flushed to his temples. "Oh, you mean that!" he said softly.

For a moment they sat there staring at one another. The tower was now swaying slightly again and they both had that strange feeling of being utterly alone, entirely divorced from the everyday existence that was going on far below them. As the blood mounted to Roger's face he could feel his heart beating wildly. Georgina's dark eyes were unnaturally bright. Her red lips were a little parted and she was smiling at him; a queer, enigmatic, mocking little smile.

Suddenly he pulled her towards him and their mouths met in a violent kiss. Her lips seemed to melt under the pressure of his and the feel of the soft contours of her body against his own set his brain on fire. The kiss ended only when they were forced to draw breath, and a second later he exclaimed:

"By heaven! I'll show you if I'm a man, or not!" Then, as their mouths hungrily closed on each other's again, he thrust her back against the cushions and crushed her to him in a fierce embrace.

For several minutes they lay there, now lost to all sense of time, place, age, or convention; their youthful passions rising to fever pitch from a series of avid caresses during which his trembling hands became ever more audacious.

Suddenly she pushed him roughly away from her with a breathless cry of: "Fie, Roger! Stop it now! I'll let no man handle me so unless he loves me."

"But I do! I do!" he blurted out, now wrought up to an un­governable pitch of excitement. "Georgina, I've always loved you! I've loved you since the very first moment I set eyes on you!"

"It isn't true! I'll not believe it!" she whispered, her face now as flushed as his. But she did not attempt to repel his renewed caresses, only whispered again: "Roger! You mustn't! Desist now, I beg. You're not a man, only a boy, and 'tis folly to pretend otherwise."

"I'll show you that I'm a man," he muttered, and as their lips met again he pressed her down beneath him. For a moment their two hearts palpitated wildly against one another and he stared down into her face with eager yet fearful eyes; then he gasped: "Do you want me to prove it?"

Her only reply was a half-hysterical laugh and a tightening of her soft arms round his neck.

CHAPTER V

THE ROAD TO FORTUNE

ROGER sat staring out of the turret window that overlooked the vast sweep of the bay, but his eyes no more took in the ancient Abbey of Christchurch or the waves creaming against the jagged rocks of the Needles, than they had the details of the view from the roof of his own home first thing that morning.

His face was red, his hair tumbled and he had great difficulty in keeping his hands from trembling. Never before had his young soul plumbed such depths of abject misery. Only a short time before he had been fired with a mad elation and almost swooned with rapture in the intoxication of a hitherto unexperienced pleasure. It had been all too short, yet, while it lasted, far beyond his wildest imaginings. But now, the awful consciousness of all that his act implied was fully borne in upon him. It seemed that for the past twenty-four hours his evil angel had held undisputed sway over his affairs. A midshipman's commission had been sprung upon him without warning; he had got drunk and defied his father; and now he had seduced Georgina.

He did not dare to look at her, as he was desperately afraid that she would either burst into floods of tears or wither him to the very soul with one outraged glance from her black eyes.

Then she whispered: "Roger, what ails thee, m'dear? Doest thou not like me any more?"

Her whisper brought him some relief. She was not angry, only frightened. "Indeed I do," he gulped, still not daring to turn his face to hers. "I—I think you're adorable. And have no fear. I'll make an honest woman of you. We'll have to wait until I'm old enough to marry, but I'm willing to wait as long as need be, if you are."

"Roger," she said, in a much firmer voice. "Come here. Come back and sit beside me."

He turned then, and was staggered to see that she had already tidied her hair, smoothed out her skirts, and was sitting there, a picture of demure amusement, quietly laughing at him.

"Don't you—don't you mind?" he faltered.

"Of course not, you silly fellow. "For me, it wasn't the first time."

"D'you mean you've done that sort of thing before?" he said incredulously, his relief struggling with a sudden new-born jealousy.

"Why not?" she shrugged. "It has just as much attraction for a woman as a man, and it's absurdly unfair that men should love where they list while girls are supposed to go through life like marble images."

"Who was it with?" he demanded truculently.

" Tis none of your business. Yet I don't mind telling you. In London I favoured one of my beaux far above the rest. Old Aunt Sophie was so exhausted from sitting up for me to all hours on rout seats and stiff-backed gilded chairs that she slept most afternoons. My little fool of a cousin, Dorothea, took some evading but two or three times a week I managed to give her the slip and go out shopping with my maid. Jenny was a sensible gel and easily bribeable, so I used to send her to do my shopping and spend the time pleasuring my lover in his rooms in Jermyn Street."

Quite illogically, in view of his recent act, Roger was frankly horrified. "D'you really mean that you actually went to a man's rooms of your own free will and let him seduce you?"

"Well, what if I did," she shrugged. "I see no reason why you should look so shocked about it. But as a matter of fact, he didn't seduce me. I'd lost all I had to lose last spring, before I went to London."

Roger's new feeling of jealousy returned with redoubled force at the thought that someone in the neighbourhood had been the first to enjoy Georgina's charms, and the not unnatural assumption that on that first occasion she must have been forced to it against her will, made him positively seethe with anger.

"Tell me his name," he cried. "Tell me his name, and, by heaven, I'll kill him."

"You won't; and you couldn't if you tried, my littlest gallant. 'Twas Captain Coignham.''

Roger's eyes almost popped from his head. "What!" he gasped, "Not the highwayman?"

"Yes, indeed. I know of no other."

He groaned. "Oh, Georgina; and I've warned you so often that 'tis dangerous for you to ride alone in the forest."

His fervid imagination swiftly conjured up a wild scene of the screaming Georgina being dragged from her horse, pulled in among the bushes, brutally raped and left dishevelled and swooning. Yet his morbid curiosity got the better of him and he could not resist adding: "It must have been simply terrible for you; but how did it happen?"

" 'Twas not so terrible," she smiled reminiscently. "We came face to face no great distance from the Queen's Elm. I've always felt that jewellery was made to be worn, not kept locked up in a box. I had that day a fine sapphire ring on my finger and a diamond aigrette in my hat. He greeted me most polite, but bade me hand them over. I parleyed with him a little and begged him to let me at least keep the ring, since it had been my mother's. He declared that I could keep both the ornaments if I was willing to ransom them with a kiss a-piece. He was a personable fellow, well groomed and of good address, so I considered the saving of my jewels cheap at the price. We both dismounted and he gave me the first kiss. 'Twas a long one and the fellow knew his business. Then he picked me up in his strong arms and carried me through the trees to a mossy bank, as he said, to give me the other in surroundings more suited to my beauty. Call me a brazen hussy if you will, but I've not a shadow of regret over that sunny day last spring when I came upon Captain Coignham in the forest. 'Twas a fine romantic way to lose one's maidenhead."

Roger remained silent for a few moments. He had often heard of the notorious highwayman but never seen him. Georgina's story of the encounter was so unlike anything he had expected that he found the grounds for anger cut from beneath his feet. The fellow was reputed handsome and, despite his monstrous impertinence, appeared to have behaved with the utmost civility; while Georgina had clearly proved his willing victim. Roger was wondering now if, in view of her previous adventures, he was still called on to pledge himself to her. Convention demanded that any girl a gentleman took to wife should go to her bridal chamber as spotless as an angel; no matter what pranks she might get up to later if the couple decided to go their separate ways, providing only that she cloaked her amours with a reasonable decency in order to protect his name.

Yet, he reflected, she had not been called upon to tell him anything, and he had made his avowal before she had spoken. Even if she was not the languorous, golden-haired creature of his dreams she was still one of the loveliest people he had ever set eyes on, and her soft embrace so recently enjoyed had given her a new enchantment for him. More, where would he ever find a girl whose interests tallied so closely with his own; in all their many hours together he had never known a dull moment in her company. The episode with the highway­man was a misfortune that might have happened to any imprudent girl and, once seduced, the affair with the London buck could be excused by the unconventional way in which she had been brought up, coupled with her zest for any form of daring and adventure. With sudden resolution he decided that convention could be damned, and that in any case a gentleman must stick by his word, so, from every point of view he should go through with it.

"A penny for your thoughts, Roger," she said softly.

"I was just wondering," he replied with a smile, "how soon we can get married. I fear we won't be allowed to until I'm seventeen, but that isn't very long to wait. The devil of it is, though, that I've got no money."

"Oh, Roger, you darling," she sighed. "You haven't really been thinking of marrying me, have you?"

"Of course. That is unless you've promised yourself to the fellow in London?"

She shrugged her shoulders airily. "What, Harry! Lud, no! He's married already; and even if he weren't I wouldn't have him. He's devilish handsome, but a hopeless wastrel."

"You'll promise to forget him, then. And we'll consider it a settled thing. God alone knows what the future holds for me, but as soon as I'm in any situation to do so I'll speak to your father."

Taking his hand she drew him down beside her, and said seriously: "Roger, m'dear, I'm deeply sensible of the honour that you do me. More especially since I've been unmaidenly enough to declare myself a piece of shop-soiled goods. But I've no intention of pledging myself to any man as yet."

"But you can't go on like this," he protested. "After taking three lovers while barely seventeen, 'tis over-time already that you became respectable."

'Tour," she corrected, with a little laugh. "I met the wickedest, handsomest young spark that ever I did see at the Lansdowne House Ball, and we met again while attending old Q's water-party at Richmond. He tumbled me in a punt and I simply could not bring myself to resist him.''

"Georgina!" he suddenly wrung his hands, "how could you! It needs but such looseness through another season for your name to become a byword. Then none will marry you."

She shook her dark curls. "Dear Roger! You don't understand. What if I have had four lovers? I hope to have forty more, should I find forty men that please me. Nay, I'll take a hundred before I die, and the finest and handsomest men in the realm among them. As for marriage, set thy fears for me at rest. Do'st thou not realise that I am an heiress?"

"Your father is reputed a warm man, I know," he nodded.

"He is far richer than you think. This place and the house in Bedford Square represent but a small fraction of his fortune."

"How so? I have heard it said that old Mr. Thursby died in good circumstances, but never that he left your father great riches."

"True, but papa has brains, and has made a mint of money for himself. 'Tis his interest in engineering and machinery—the very things people count him crazy foi—that have brought him his wealth."

"You have never told me of this before."

"I did not know it myself until he presented me during the season to the Duke of Bridgewater, who, it seems, is one of his partners in a company. 'Twas His Grace who made the first canal, to supersede the system by which coal was carried on pack horses from his mines at Worsley to Manchester. But 'twas Mr. Josiah Wedgwood who first interested papa in such schemes."

"What, the Mr. Wedgwood who makes such lovely plaques and urns of pottery?"

"The same. 'Twas Mr. Wedgwood who discovered the engineering genius of young James Brindley, then a workman in his employ. Together they constructed the Grand Trunk canal that links the Trent and the Mersey, so that Mr. Wedgwood's pottery could be carried from his works at Etruria to the ports at a saving of no less than seventy per cent. Then papa also has an interest in Mr. Samuel Compton's spinning mule, which, 'tis said, will prove vastly superior to the spinning jenny. Tis from such undertakings that of late years papa has piled up a great fortune."

Roger looked at her in astonishment. "It seems then that you are indeed an heiress, and a fine prize for any man, quite apart from your beauty."

"Yes," she said seriously. "With me, when I marry, will go a hundred thousand pounds. Papa told me so in order that I might not pledge myself lightly to some good-looking nobody. And who in their-senses would not be prepared to overlook a few peccadilloes on my part when the securing of such a fortune is in question. With it I can buy myself an Earl any time I wish. But I'll not be content with some old dotard. I require one who will both be complaisant and do me credit. I've a mind, just as you have, Roger, to cut a fine figure in this world of ours. Money alone is not enough. I want influence and power and, Royalty apart, to be the first lady in the kingdom. If the husband I choose has it in him to carry me that high, maybe I'll be faithful to him. If not I'll use my beauty with the same skill as a great general handles his battalions. I'll slip into bed with one man or twenty, providing they can lift me a rung up the ladder towards the things I crave. Perhaps I'll become the mistress of a King, and make and unmake statesmen at my will; but whate'er befall I vow I'll be a Duchess before my hair turns grey."

As she spoke, her great eyes lifted unseeing towards the blue horizon; her gipsy blood was calling up a prophetic vision of the tempestuous and amazing career that was indeed to be hers.

The violence of her declaration left Roger temporarily without words; then, recovering himself he said: "Oh, come, Georgina, I doubt not that your money will buy you a coronet, if you've set your heart on one, but Kings don't make Duchesses of their mistresses in these days."

Bringing herself back with a jerk, she laughed up at him. "They have before; there's no reason that they shouldn't again. Charles II made Castlemaine into Cleveland and French Louise into Portsmouth with other Duchies for all their sons; while George I created that greedy German whore that he brought over Duchess of Kendal."

Roger's relief that he had not, after all, been called on to commit himself was now almost outweighed by pique at having, seemingly, won only to lose this flamboyant creature who, at the same time, both shocked and attracted him so strongly.

"Oh, well," he muttered sulkily, "Since you've no use for me, and prefer this mad plan to go whoring after a Duchy for yourself, good luck to you."

She regarded him with a rather sad little smile. "Be not angry, Roger, nor foolish in thy speech. 'Twould be a madder thing by far, for both of us, were I to accept you here and now as my spouse-to-be. As for whoring after a Duchy, I'll be no ordinary whore, and it takes much more than that to achieve the strawberry leaves of a ducal coronet. I'll have a use for you too, never fear. I'll have a fondness for you beyond all my lovers, and, if you will, ever count you my earliest and most faithful friend."

He brightened at once. "Do you really mean that, Georgina?"

"Indeed I do." She took his hand again and her smile deepened to one of mischievous amusement. "What will you have as your share of the plunder? Will you be Northern or Southern Secretary? But no! I'll make you Paymaster to the Forces, since 'tis the most lucrative post of them all."

Lifting the hand that held his own he kissed it, with a laugh. "Your Grace's most obliged, obedient and humble servant, Ma'm."

Quite suddenly she became serious again and, releasing his fingers, looked him squarely in the face. "Roger, I've seen enough of the young London bucks to know that you are no ordinary lad. Together we may go far. Don't think that I have told you of my most intimate affairs idly or from a perverted pride in having had several lovers while still so young. Twill remain my jealously guarded secret from every other soul. But I'll need someone in the days to come who knows me better than I know myself; someone to whom I can give my whole confidence and who will advise me rightly in the crises with which I am bound to be faced. It may seem to you now a far cry from this room to London and the power that moves armies from behind a throne; but I have no shadow of doubt that you and I will get there, and I will make your every interest my own. For the moment I have done all I can for you. The next step must be yours. But I have given you something that no other woman will ever be able to give you, for this day I have made of you a man."

It suddenly flashed upon him that although he was not committed to her in one way he had committed himself in another. The inference was plain. He had pleaded his youth to excuse his fear of facing unknown perils and hardships, but she had given him manhood and now expected him to act upon it. Panic seized him and, in a fresh effort to escape, he muttered uneasily:

"Yes, you've made a man of me. But, somehow, I don't feel the least bit different. Perhaps that's because I didn't prove a very good one."

"Oh, yes, you did, m'dear," she reassured him sweetly. "For a first attempt you did your part nobly. And now you must begin to play a man's part in the world."

He saw that his honour was at stake. To draw back would be to shame himself before her in a way that was unthinkable. Yet the more he thought about it the less regret he felt at having fallen into the silken snare that he now realised she had deliberately laid for him. The awful decision as to if he should succumb to his father's will or continue his defiance had been taken for him. As the fact sank in it was as though a great burden had been lifted from his shoulders. His course was now clear, and he was vaguely surprised that he had not jumped at it in the first instance as the only sensible way out of his difficulties.

"So be it then!" he exclaimed. "I'll start this very night." "Well done!" she cried, clapping her hands. "Whither wilt thou make for?"

"London, I think, but with luck some chance to secure work may befall on the road." His glance fell on the basket of provisions, and he added: " 'Tis still early yet, but all the same I feel plaguey hungry."

"And so do I," laughed Georgina, jumping up to unpack the basket. " 'Tis but natural after our exertions. I would we had a bottle of sparkling Sillery here on which to celebrate; but there is cider and lots of things to eat."

They settled down to demolish the good things she had selected from the larder and after half an hour their two hearty young appetites had left not a crumb.

It was not yet eleven o'clock; but the heat of the tower room and their meal had made them drowsy, and Georgina said: "If you mean to take the road to-night 'twould be a good preparation to sleep a while. What say you to a nap?"

He nodded. "Yes, I had a plaguey long day yesterday, and already feel as if I had been up a week."

She arranged a pile of old cushions at one end of the settee, and, stretching herself on it luxuriously, drew him down beside her so that his face was pillowed on her breast, and her soft chin rested against his forehead. For a while they exchanged gentle caresses, then they both fell asleep.

When they awoke it was after two o'clock. Still drowsy, and warm from their long embrace, they kissed again, then sat up and put their rumpled clothes to rights.

"We'd best go down, I think," said Georgina, "and see what we can find in my jewel box for you to take with you."

"Nay, I beg- " he began. But she waved his protests aside.

"Be not a fool, Roger. Money in thy pocket will mean the difference between happiness and misery. Few people will give worth­while employment to a pauper who begs his bread, but a full purse begets confidence and the man who has one can make his own terms. You must not waste your time sawing wood for a living but make your way to London and seek a secretaryship with some great noble­man who may be useful to us, later on."

"But I plan to be away no more than two or three months," he objected.

"That will depend on events; and you will be ill-advised to set out with that idea, as 'twould lead to your frittering away your time and getting nowhere. If your father relents and fortune has served you ill, clearly you should return. But if you secure some post of promise, as I pray you may, 'twould make you independent of your family and it might well pay you best to stick to it."

There was no gainsaying such sound common sense and as Georgina gathered her billowing skirts about her Roger picked up the basket to follow her down the seemingly endless flight of spiral stairs.

Leaving Roger in the orchard, Georgina went into the house, with the intention of smuggling her jewel box out under cover of some rugs and going through it with him under the trees. But on going indoors she learned that her father had driven into Christchurch on some business, so she went back to collect Roger and took him up to her room.

In the drowsy heat of the afternoon the house was very quiet, as the servants were taking their ease after their morning labours. Unlocking a cabinet, Georgina took from it a large box covered in crocodile skin and two smaller caskets. Opening all three she emptied their contents on the gay patchwork quilt of her bed.

Roger had always known that she loved trinkets, as she bedecked herself with them on every occasion, but he was amazed at the size and variety of her collection. Much of it was trashy stuff that she had bought herself with her pin-money in the neighbouring towns, but three-quarters of her treasure consisted of items of considerable value.

With deft fingers she began to sort the heap into two piles and as Roger saw that intended for himself rapidly increase in size he began to protest again. But she refused to listen to him and with prodigal generosity continued to throw gold chains, cameo brooches and paste shoe-buckles upon it, as she said:

"Believe me, I have no further use for these old-fashioned gewgaws, and as I never wear such things, papa will not suspect that I have parted with them. Besides, 'tis my wish that you should have much more than will merely keep you from hunger. When you reach London you should put up at some good inn. The 'Swan and Two Necks' in Lad Lane, or the 'Turk's Head' in the Strand are reputed good. Either would serve, but if you put up at the latter you'll be near Hoare's Bank, and 'tis there I'd advise you to place the money that you'll get by the sale of these jewels. Then you should get yourself made some London clothes, so as to cut a good figure, and frequent the coffee houses in Whitehall and St. James's. You will be taken for a young man of wealth and soon fall in with somebody who will introduce you to persons of good standing. Make yourself agreeable to their women, Roger, m'dear, and in no time at all some good opening will be offered to you."

As she rattled on all Roger's unhappy forebodings of hard manual labour and sleeping under haystacks gave place to rosy visions of ease, comfort and success. It all seemed so simple now, and this going out into the world a joyous adventure instead of a thing to dread.

When the division of the treasure had been completed, Georgina found a piece of strong satin to wrap Roger's share up in and stuffed it into one of his capacious pockets.

"I'll never be able to thank you enough," he murmured, kissing her again.

"Stuff and nonsense!" she declared, pushing him away from her. "Your sword is mine, remember, and that good brain of yours, too. Maybe I'll call upon them sooner than you think. Once you are settled let me have your address and I'll seek some excuse to accompany papa on his next visit to London."

As they were about to leave her room he halted suddenly, and said: "Georgina! The strangest thought has just occurred to me. D'you recall last Christmas-tide when you told my future in a glass of water. You said then that high summer would bring a great change into my life, and that I'd be burdened with new cares and responsibilities. I thought then it must be my move to Upper School at Sherborne that you predicted. I little guessed that you were foretelling my leaving school for good!"

"Yes, I remember now," she nodded. "Would you like me to look into the glass for you again? 'Tis a risk, though. For I can tell only what I see, and it may not be good."

"I'll take that risk," he declared boldly. "Come—do it for me."

"As you will, then." While he cleared an array of fans and perfumed gloves from a small Buhl table, and moved it from the muslin-draped bow window farther into the room, she filled a toothglass with water from the jug on her washstand. Setting it down in the centre of the table, she drew up a chair and he took another opposite to her.

"Take my hands," she ordered.

On his obeying, she dropped her eyes to the glass and concentrated their gaze upon it. After a minute or two she began to speak in a lower voice than usual.

"There is water, Roger. You will cross water many times and always be in danger from it. I see you as several years older, near drowning, and with a parchment you value clenched between your teeth. But the scene changes. I see you now with your sword in your hand, and this will be soon. Oh, m'dear, be careful. Wait though, I see no blood. No blood is spilled and you are laughing with a tall man. I cannot see his face but it seems that there is something amiss with his left eye. He gives me an uneasy feeling. There is now another with him; an old man with white hair. He is a cunning rogue but he is looking at you with affection. You will go into some sort of partnership together and profit from it greatly; yet 'tis a dangerous game and will not lead you to fortune."

She paused for a moment, then went on: "I see you in the dusk upon a lonely heath with trees nearby. You are older now, much older. A halted coach stands in the road and you are conversing angrily with its occupants. They have a foreign look, but these are persons of quality, richly dressed and with jewel-hilted swords. Alack! They have got out and you are fighting with them now. The older of the two attacks you ferociously. To deal death lies in both your hearts. The wraith of a woman rises between your flashing swords. She is fair-haired, slim of figure, and has a haughty, aristocratic face. 'Tis over her that you are fighting. There is blood now, a mist of blood obscures all. Alas! Alas! I can see no more. I cannot tell if you live or die." With a little wail she snatched her hands from Roger's, and burying her face in them, let her head fall forward on the table.

He had gone a trifle pale, but he quickly recovered himself and began to stroke her hair, munnuring softly as he did so.

"There, there, Georgina, darling. Don t cry. Please don't cry. I'll be all right. I vow I will. You were speaking of some years hence, and by the time I'm fully grown I'll be a match with the rapier for any man."

She raised her head, her eyes still swimming. "Oh, Roger, dear, do take care. You seemed furiously angry. But you must keep calm. You must keep calm; your life will hang on that. And you'll need all your skill. Your antagonist will be one of the finest swordsmen in France."

"In France?" he echoed.

"Yes," she shook herself. "Why did I say that? I know not. Yet I am certain 'twas in France that I saw you, as a man of maybe twenty, fighting this frightful duel."

Georgina had discovered when still quite young that she had inherited the gift of second sight from her gipsy mother, and she had often told Roger's fortune on previous occasions, but generally half playfully, and never with such an outpouring of emotion.

"You've never told me half as much, or described people that I'm going to meet when you've looked in the glass for me before," he remarked, thoughtfully.

She shrugged. "Perhaps I'm getting better at it now I'm older.

But I don't think it's that. There is little to foresee in a schoolboy's dull existence, whereas from now on all sorts of things may happen to you."

"Are you not jealous of the fair-haired girl," he laughed, trying to make light of the matter.

"Why should I be?" she answered seriously. "I've had you first and I'll have you last, if I've a mind to it. That is—if you live to come back to me."

He nodded. "Yes, I'll never forget you, Georgina, wherever I may go. I may fall in love with other women for a season, but you will ever hold a special place in my heart."

"And you in mine, dear Roger. Our comradeship these two years past has meant more to me than you can ever know. But the day marches. 'Tis near four o'clock, and you'll need to buy a few things in Lymington before you set out; so you should be on your way if you mean to take the road to London to-night."

"So be it then. Let us go down, and we can say farewell while my horse is being brought round from the stables."

"Nay," she shook her head. "I'll not come down. Kiss me good-bye here. Then I can have a good cry about you on my bed as you ride away. 'Tis monstrous foolish of me, but I almost think I love you at this moment."

"Then pledge yourself to me," he cried impulsively. "You're wondrous beautiful, and if I feel not love for you I know not what it is. Your kisses fire me as naught else has ever done, and I would give my life to protect your happiness.

"Nay, sweet Roger. 'Tis you who are being foolish now, and we are pledged to something far more lasting than a summer's passion. Kiss me now and go. May God protect you."

Once more her soft arms were round his neck and their mouths crushed together. Then she broke from him and, stifling a sob, turned away.

A moment later he was clattering down the stairs on his way out into the world to seek fame and fortune.

CHAPTER VI

VENDETTA

ROGER had now adopted Georgina's plan, that he should go to London, cut a fine figure on the proceeds of her jewels and trust to his natural gifts to secure him a promising opening, without reservation; and, had he there and then turned his mount towards Lyndhurst and the London road, his future would have been entirely different.

Fate decreed, however, that unreasoning instinct should impel him to ride back to Lymington as his natural starting-point on this great adventure. For one thing, although the little mare he was riding was always regarded as his in the holidays, it never even occurred to him to deprive his parents of her in order to facilitate his journey; for another, Georgina had put it into his mind that, before setting out, he should buy a few things that he was bound to need, in the town; and for a third, he felt that he could not leave his mother the prey to most appalling anxiety by simply disappearing without a word.

Entering Lymington from the west he rode past the church, up the High Street and through the low arch that gave on to the stable yard of the Angel Inn. As he handed his mare over to the ostler for a rub down and a feed he knew that she would be quite safe there and, when he failed to claim her, be duly returned to her own stable the following morning. Realising that it was the last he would see of the skittish little chestnut, he gave her an extra pat, and turned, rather sorrowfully, into the tap-room.

At this hour of the afternnon, as it was not a market day, the low-raftered tap-room was deserted. He rapped his riding-crop sharply on one of the stout oak tables until a fresh-cheeked girl appeared, then he asked her for a glass of Ratifia and writing things. She brought him the cordial, an inkhorn, quill pen, sand-shoe and paper. Sitting down he composed a letter to his mother, which ran:

My dear Mother,

Please do not think too hardly of me, but I have, formed an unshakeable determination not to go to sea. The only course that is open to me is to leave home for a while. Yet do not think of me, I beg, as penniless or hungry. A good friend has furnished me with ample funds and now that I am a man in all but stature I am quite capable of taking good care of myself. Do not be uneasy should I not write to you for some little time but I will do so as soon as I am settled in some profitable employment and, if by then my father has relented, I will gladly return home to discuss any other project for my future.

Your very loving, if undutiful, son,

Roger.

Having sanded his missive he sealed it with a wafer and put it in his pocket, knowing that he could give it to anyone in the town just before his departure and be quite certain of its safe delivery.

He next considered how best to set about his journey. To walk all the way to London seemed a stupid and time-wasting proceeding now that he could well afford to go by coach; yet there was a snag to that, since his new-found wealth was not in coin and on counting over his money he found that he had only five and eightpence on him.

To endeavour to turn some of Georgina's trinkets into cash at the local silversmiths seemed a risky venture. The man was a sour creature and would be certain to wonder how a lad had come into possession of a woman's jewellery. He would probably think that Roger, having got into difficulties, had purloined them from his mother's jewel-box, say that he must have a little time to assess their value and take them along for Lady Marie's inspection that very evening.

The thought of his money-box at home began to tantalise Roger.

In it there was gold as well as silver, and more than enough to pay his coach fare to London—if only he could manage to collect it. On more than one occasion he had been out on a ramble at night with his friend Jack Bond, when his mother thought him safely tucked up in his bed asleep, and had got back into the house, in the small hours, by way of his bedroom window. He wondered if he dared risk a clandestine visit to his room that night for the purpose of burgling his own money-box, and decided that it would be worth it, as he could at the same time collect a dozen other things that would be useful to him and that he had not the ready cash to buy at the moment. It would mean waiting until the household was fast asleep, but a few hours' delay in the time of his setting out would make little difference.

Once he had secured the money he would walk into Southampton. It was thirteen miles; a longish trudge but no great matter for an active and healthy youngster. He could get there easily, before dawn, secure a seat in the morning coach, and be in London by the following evening.

At the thought of London, his optimism suffered a sharp decline. All Old Ben's stories of cut-purses and thieves' kitchens came back to him. He had very little idea what Georgina's jewellery should fetch, but, at a guess, he put its worth at anything from two to five hundred guineas. To enter London with such a treasure seemed to be tempting providence; yet how could he dispose of it otherwise?

There were goldsmiths in Southampton, or at Winchester if he chose to break his journey there, who would give an honest price for what he had to sell; but the question was, would any of them do a deal with him? Would they not wonder where a youngster of his age had obtained this small fortune in gold chains, brooches, buckles and bangles? He could think of no plausible explanation as to how he had come into possession of such property. If he Were detained and an inquiry made, it could only result in his being ignominously returned to his father.

The more he thought of the difficulty of dispersing of his spoil, the more worried he became about it. If only there had been someone to whom he could go immediately on reaching London—someone he knew and could trust—the transaction might have been arranged with safety and despatch, but he had not a single acquaintance there; and it now seemed to him that even endeavouring to sell single pieces in provincial towns would be fraught with a certain danger. Each attempted sale would expose him to the risk of questioning and detention.

The elegant figure of Droopy Ned drifted across his mind, bringing him fresh hope for a moment. He felt that he would be perfectly safe in confiding his whole story to Droopy and that the eccentric young nobleman, having a passion for jewels, would probably buy the whole collection from him; or at least, arrange a sale and see that he was not cheated. But the question was, would Droopy be in London?

All the odds were that he would not. At this season it was as good as certain that the Marquess of Amesbury would be at his seat, Normanrood, in Wiltshire, and that Droopy would spend at least a fortnight there taking leave of his family before setting out on the Grand Tour. It was probable that he would spend some days in London before actually leaving for the Continent but when that would be it was impossible to guess and it was even probable that he might elect to cross to France by the more direct route from Southampton.

In any case, it seemed to Roger, it would be a poor gamble to count on Droopy being at Lord Amesbury's London house before mid-August and, in the meantime, a country boy with little ready money but a hoard of jewels stood a terrible risk of becoming the prey of the sharks that infested the poorer quarters of the capital.

While he was still pondering the thorny problem of converting his treasure into cash the outer door was thrust open and Dan Izzard came in. With a cheerful "Good day, young Squire" to Roger, the smuggler advanced to the narrow counter and banged upon it with an empty pewter pot. The serving maid came out of the back room and greeted him with a smile.

"Is Master Trattle in?" asked Dan; and on the girl nodding, he added: "Then go fetch he, wench, and I'll thank thee for it."

A moment or two later the burly, red-faced landlord appeared and asked Dan's business.

The smuggler cast a casual glance over his shoulder at Roger, then leaned over the counter and, lowering his gruff voice, began to talk to the landlord.

Roger was still absorbed in his own affairs and, at first, did not pay much attention to the conversation. It was evident that Dan, knowing him to be "safe" was indifferent as to if he listened or not, and he had jumped to it at once that the smuggler was arranging the shipment of a new supply of illicit spirits for the inn. But as his gaze rested idly on Dan's broad back a sudden idea came to him.

For some minutes the two men continued their low-voiced talk; then, with a muttered: "That suits me, well enough; us'il make it four nights from now," Dan turned away.

"Dan!" Roger called. "Wilt join me in a glass?"

The smuggler paused, halfway across the room. "Aye, Master Roger; I never say nay to a dram o' good liquor. I'll drink 'e's good health in a noggin' o' rum."

Mr. Trattle poured the drink and disappeared to resume his after­noon nap. Dan picked it up and, with a smile, came and sat down at the table.

Lifting his glass he said: "Well, here's long life to 'e, young Master. 'E've grown quite a bit since I last clapped eyes on 'e, and soon it'll be Mister Brook that us'll all be touchin' our caps to."

"That's it, Dan," Roger smiled back, as he sipped his own cordial. The spontaneous lead that he had been given lent itself to the idea he was developing, and an easy distortion of facts came quite readily to his tongue. "My father is by way of getting me a midshipman's commission, and I hope to be at sea in a month or two."

"Well, jus’ think o' that now! 'Tis a fine life though; 'tis a fine life, Master Roger."

"I've never doubted that," Roger lied, adding after a second: "But it will take a lot of getting used to, and it's that which worries me. I'll just die of shame, Dan, if I'm sick the first time my ship leaves port on a voyage."

"Why should 'e be, Master Roger?" Dan asked him in surprise. " Ts seen 'e often in they little yachts sailin' round the island when it were blowin' quite a bit, an' 'e seemed merry as a grig."

"But that's different," Roger objected, "I may be sick as a dog in a big ship once she's out in the open sea."

"Nay, 'tis not as different as all that. In a tempest, now, many a strong man's belly turns over on 'im 'fore it's blowed itself out; but 'e've naught to fear given normal weather."

Roger sighed and looked down into his glass. "I would that I felt as certain as you do that I'll not make a fool of myself. You see, I've never sailed farther than along the coast to Poole, or up to Southampton, and I haven't an idea what it's like in mid-channel."

" 'Tis no different, I tell 'e," Dan assured him; but he was now regarding the boy with thoughtful sympathy, assuming that some old salt must have scared him with tales of waves as high as mountains; and, to his simple mind, there was nothing strange in a land-lubber believing that it was always rough out in unprotected water.

Having planted this seed in the smuggler s mind, Roger pretended to shrug away his own worries and asked: "How are things with you, Dan?"

"Oh, well enough, Master Roger. There's only one real worry I got. That bastard Ollie Nixon 'as swore to get me, an' 'e's darn nigh done it a brace o' times since Whitsuntide."

Roger knew that the man referred to was the Chief Excise Officer of the district, whose main business it was to put down smuggling, but a special bitterness in Dan's tone impelled him to ask:

"Why has Mr. Nixon got his knife into you, particularly, Dan?"

" 'Tis on account of an affair last winter, over Poole way. Ollie Nixon's young brother were the leader of a squad o' Preventive Men. They catched some chaps comin' up a chine wi' pack-horses, havin' jus' landed a cargo, an' there were a real set-to."

"I remember hearing of it," Roger put in. "One of the gang hit young Mr. Nixon over the head with a cudgel and he died of it. The Justices have never been down on smuggling, but they won't stand for murder, and 'twas murder, right enough. There was a big reward offered."

"Aye; fifty guineas, no less, for any of 'em who'd turn King's evidence, an' a free pardon into the bargain; but they ne'er laid hands on the wicked devil that done it."

"Does Ollie Nixon think that you were mixed up in that affair, then?"

"That's the rig of it, Master Roger. Though as God is my witness, my order to my lads has ever been to jettison the cargo an' take to their heels at first sight o' the Preventives. Better by far lose a cargo than be forced into a fight where a killing may happen."

"You're right there, Dan, and 'tis hard that Nixon should be endeavouring to pin it on you, since you're innocent."

"He'll not pin it on me. There be no way he can do that. But 'tis fixed in his mind that 'twas my lugger lying off shore that night, an' that one o' my lads dealt the blow. So he's swore he'll get me, be it by fair means or foul."

You're off again soon, aren't you? I was just behind my father in the conservatory when you came to the house last night, and you said something to him of another trip."

"Aye, aye; an' to-night it is. I'll be droppin' down the river wi' the turn o' the tide soon arter midnight."

Roger sprang his mine. "Take me with you, Dan."

The smuggler's eyes opened wide at the request, and he quickly shook his head. "Nay, Master Roger. 'Tis a crazy thing you ask. Should the Cap'n learn of it he'd ne'er forgive me."

"He won't learn of it," Roger said firmly, and added with swift invention: "He believes I'm lying away from home to-night at Colonel Thursby's house; and as they are not on speaking terms he'll never find out that I didn't."

Again Dan shook his head. "Nay, that will not serve 'e. Us'll be gone three days, and unable to land 'e again till four nights from now."

"Oh, but it will," Roger parried, "I'd planned to stay with the Thursbys for a week. I can easily ride over to Highcliffe this evening, make my excuses, and say that I'll not be coming to them till Saturday."

"My lads would be again' it. They know the quality be our good friends, but they'd be strong against the likes of 'e bein' let into the secrets o' the game."

"Please, Dan," Roger begged. "The making of such a trip would be a vast boon to me. 'Twould give me just the chance I need to prove myself before entering the Navy."

"Nay, Master Roger, 'tis too great a risk to take. Were anything to happen to 'e I'd have half the gentry o' the county down on me."

"Why should anything happen—unless we're all caught. And in such a case having me with you would prove to your advantage. The Justices would never convict if it involved sentencing Captain Brook's son to transportation."

"Aye, there's something in that. Still, I'm agin' it."

"Look!" said Roger suddenly, "I'll make it worth your while, Dan. I'll pay you a five-pound bounty to take me on the trip."

The smuggler's dark eyes showed a gleam of cupidity. In spite of the good profits he made after each successful run he was by no means a rich man. Periodically he was compelled to jettison a cargo from fear of capture, and each time that happened it robbed him of the earnings of many months' hard and dangerous work. Owing to Mr. Nixon's vendetta against him it was much longer than usual since he had made a trip and he was only driven to it now by the grumbling of his penniless crew. He had to pay cash for his goods on the other side and being in low funds himself was not taking over as much money as he could have wished; so an additional five pounds would come in very handy. Yet he still hesitated.

Seeing his hesitation Roger leapt into the breach. "Please, Dan! I beg you to. If 'tis as you say and the sea no rougher in mid-channel than off the island, a voyage to France and back is the very thing I need to give me confidence. 'Twould make a world of difference to me when I join my first ship this autumn."

Dan Izzard was a good-hearted man and deeply touched by the appeal. It overcame the last scruples of his better judgment, and he said: "So be it then. I'll take 'e. But no skylarkin', mind. 'E'11 not be young Master aboard the Sally Ann, but do as 'e's bid."

"I will, Dan; I will. I promise," agreed Roger enthusiastically.

"Then be down by Nothover's quay sharp on midnight," Dan added. " 'Tis from there we sail, an' time an' tide wait for no man."

The matter now being agreed the smuggler finished his drink, pulled the tassel of his woollen cap a little further over his left ear, and, with a gruff word of good-bye to Roger, left the inn.

Roger's eyes were still shining from his success in having persuaded the smuggler to take him, as he was confident the trip would prove the solution to the problem that had been worrying him so much. The French authorities, he knew, were entirely indifferent as to if cargoes of spirits shipped from France were for legal or illegal tender when they reached England. Therefore it was certain that Dan would pick up his shipment quite openly in one of the French ports—probably the great city of Le Havre. They would be there for a full day at least, and Roger felt that there should be no difficulty in his going ashore and disposing his treasure to a French goldsmith in the town.

Every Englishman of good appearance and address was, he had often heard, regarded as a fabulously rich Milord in France, so his possession of a pocketful of jewels would not excite the same suspicion there as it was likely to do in England. Moreover, even if the gold­smith to whom he offered them did suspect that they were stolen goods, he would see at once that they were of English origin and, having nothing to fear from the English law, have no hesitation in buying them, provided that he could make a profitable bargain.

Already Roger saw himself safely back in England on the coming Saturday night with several rouleaux of gold coin that he could place with a banker in London for safe keeping on the following Monday. Congratulating himself on this excellent stroke he summoned the maid, paid her eightpence for the drinks and left the "Angel."

He had been considering what he should do with himself for the next few hours when Dan had come in. As he could hardly remain in the tap-room till nightfall and had no wish to spend the time loitering about the town, in case he should run into someone from home who would tell him that his father was seeking him, he decided to go into hiding. The woods outside the town offered a score of good places where he could lie up but he did not wish to go too far afield and unnecessarily fatigue himself with a longish walk back after dark, so it had occurred to him that the churchyard would be a good place to conceal himself during the long summer evening.

Having walked back along the High Street, he turned into it and found, as he had supposed would be the case, that it was completely deserted. Making his way to its extreme end he selected a grassy dip between a large box-like stone tomb and the hedge, and settled himself down there. For a little he thought about Georgina, then, tired out with the excitement of the day, he fell asleep.

He awoke with a start to find it quite dark. As the rendezvous he had made with Dan flashed back to him he stumbled to his feet in panic, fearing that it might now be so late that he had missed it. A moment later the bell of the Town Hall clock began to strike. Anxiously he counted the strokes and sighed with relief when they ended; it was only a quarter past ten.

A little shiver ran through him and he was suddenly conscious of an eerie feeling from being there alone, at night, in the graveyard. Vaguely now he could see the white tomb stones, and each one seemed like a ghost. Hastily stumbling between them he ran back to the road, arriving in the High Street quite breathless and with his heart beating like a hammer. The street was empty; most of the townsfolk had been in bed for the past hour and the only light that was to be seen came from an upper window in Monmouth House, on the corner of Church Lane.

When his breathing had eased, Roger crossed the street and made his way along it, past the bow windows of the now shuttered shops and the few private dwellings interspersed among them; but some way before reaching the Town Hall he turned right, entering a narrow gap between two buildings. The alley, known as Aishley's Lane, was less than a hundred yards in length but continued as a footpath which led straight down the hill between an open field on the one hand and the meadow and walled kitchen garden of his own home on the other.

Now that his eyes were accustomed to the semi-darkness of the summer night he could make out the square pile of the house rising from the lower ground and the outline of the tall trees beyond it. Two minutes' walk brought him to the end of the footpath and into the road on to which the stable gates of the house opened. They were locked, as he expected, but he made short work of hoisting himself up on them and dropping down inside. As he did so the Town clock chimed the half-hour.

Curly, the Irish wolf-hound, came out of his kennel and growled ominously. Roger spoke to him softly and at the sound of the well-known voice the dog fell quiet, shook himself with a rattle of his chain, and retired once more to his kennel. Tip-toeing across the yard Roger entered the garden and, taking to the grass, began to make a cautious circuit of the house for any signs of wakefulness of its occupants.

As he came out on to the lawn he saw, to his intense annoyance, that there was a light behind the curtains of the library window. Evidently his father was waiting up for him. He stood there irresolute for a moment, the terror of what would happen to him if he were caught by his infuriated parent surging through him. He positively dared not go in, yet, somehow he had got to get hold of his money-box before midnight. The only thing to do was to wait a while and hope that his father would go to bed.

Retracing his steps he sat down in the summer-house and, forcing himself to go slowly, counted a thousand. Then he walked round the corner of the house again. The light was still burning. Returning to the summer house he vowed to himself that he would not take another look until some moments after the next chiming of the Town clock, as it seemed to him hardly likely that his father would continue his vigil beyond eleven.

Consumed with impatience, he waited. At last the melodious chimes rang out but, to his amazement and dismay, the bell did not toll eleven; it was only a Quarter-to. All the same he went round the house, but only to meet with another disappointment.

Back in the summer-house once more it suddenly came to him that he had had no dinner and was very hungry. There was plenty of fruit in the garden and, although not very sustaining, it was better than nothing; moreover going in search of it would occupy a little time during the enforced waiting. Tip-toeing up the path he went through the arch to the kitchen garden and made for the west wall, which was covered with fan-trained plum trees. Most of the gages were not yet ripe but he knew every tree in the garden and went straight to a purple plum that was just ready for picking. Having eaten several, he went into the netted cage and attacked the raspberry canes. But they did not taste half as good without sugar and cream, so he abandoned them and, leaving the cage, walked up to the south wall on which grew the peaches and nectarines. Finding that the only early trees had been denuded of their fruit for his father's home-coming dinner of the day before, he fell back on the apricots and ate of them until he was satisfied.

It seemed as if he had been listening for the clock to strike for half an hour, but at last it chimed eleven. Controlling his impatience he made himself count another thousand, then he left the kitchen garden and walked cautiously round the corner of the house again. The light was still burning in the library.

He wondered desperately if he dared enter the house while his father was still up. As his own room was at the back of the house he thought that he would be able to get into it unheard, but, to collect his things he would have to kindle a light, and the door of his room opened on to the half-landing of the staircase. Should his father decide to go up to bed while the light was on he would see it under the door and the fat would then be in the fire with a vengeance. Roger decided that he dared not risk it.

Yet, if he failed to get his money-box in time to be at Northover's quay by midnight, his whole plan would be ruined. He had promised Dan five pounds and, if he could not show the colour of his money Dan might refuse to take him. A prey to the most appalling indecision he hovered there, taking his weight first on one foot then on the other. Suddenly the light went out.

His relief was soon swamped in a new wave of impatience. He must give his father time to lock up and get to bed and, fearing that he might be seen from one of the windows he quickly tiptoed back to the shelter of the summer-house. With his hands clasped he sat there counting the seconds as the interminable minutes dragged away. At last the clock chimed a quarter past. He could bear to wait no longer and, getting up, stole round to the courtyard at the back of the house.

Old Ben's pantry consisted of a single storey passage room connecting the old wing of the house with the new building. By getting on to its roof Roger could easily reach the window of his bedroom. His heart hammering wildly again now, he climbed on to a rain butt and hauled himself up on to the low roof. His window was open a foot. It creaked a little as he raised it further and he paused there listening intently for a moment; but no sound came and he slipped inside.

The room was in pitch darkness but his groping fingers soon found his tinder box and he lit a candle. He had already made a mental list of the things he wanted to take and with quick soft steps he set about collecting them, the solitary candle casting a giant shadow of him on the walls and ceiling.

First he broke open his money-box. He had not added anything to its contents for the past few years, but it had in it most of the cash presents he had received during his childhood. A swift count showed that he had fifteen guineas in gold and a fist full of silver crowns, which was considerably more than he had thought. Next, he stripped off his outer clothes and hurriedly changed into his best blue broad­cloth suit, pulling on top of it his winter overcoat. Taking a roomy leather satchel from a chest he crammed into it a change of linen, the pair of silver-mounted pistols that his mother had given him on his fifteenth birthdayr a pair of court shoes with silver buckles and a number of other items that he thought might come in useful. Thrust­ing his money in one pocket and the fat packet of Georgina's jewels into another he left the letter he had written to his mother propped up on the dressing-chest, gave a last hurried look round, blew out the candle and climbed out of the window.

Having regained the garden he hastened along the grass verge of the terrace to its eastern end, withdrew the bolts of a small postern door in the high wall and let himself out. Turning into the avenue of limes that formed the drive up to the main gate of the house he broke into a run, fearful now that he had been so long in collecting his things that it would be midnight before he could reach the quay. But before he was half way along it the Town clock chimed again, eleven strokes and the three quarters, so with a gasp of relief he dropped back into a walk. Beyond the avenue there lay only a short lane ending in a steep street of old houses that ran down to the water.

At the quayside he found the Sally Ann. Only the silhouette of her mast and rigging now showed against the night sky, but having often seen her in full daylight, he knew her well as a long, rakish, swift-moving craft.

No attempt was being made to conceal her departure, as she nor­mally made one of the fishing fleet, solitary boats of which often sailed from Lymington at the tarn of the tide late at night or in the small hours of the morning.

A gruff voice hailed Roger as he reached the lugger's side and a lantern was raised from behind a pile of tarpaulins. By its light Roger saw that the man who had challenged him was Nick Bartlett, a fellow of ill repute, who picked up a dubious living on the waterfront.

As Roger asked for Dan, Nick said in a grumbling tone: "So it be 'e, be it? Dan said 'e was a-coming wi' us, though what he be after wi' the likes of e' aboard Satan knows."

After this ill reception Roger was glad to see Dan's bearded head emerge from the hatchway and hear him call: "Stow that, Nick Bartlett! What I does be my affair. 'Tis none of 'e's business an' the young gentleman is paying his footing handsome. Come aboard, Master Roger an' don't pay no heed to yon fellow's cussedness."

Scrambling over the lugger's low bulwark Roger joined Dan aft and was taken by him down to the cabin. Three other men were there, whiling away the time until the tide should fall, by gambling for half­pence with a greasy pack of cards. Roger knew two of them by sight: Fred Mullins, a brawny, open-faced man, who, in his youth, had been impressed into the Navy and had later deserted; and Simon Fry, a grizzled, weather-beaten fisherman who had had the ill luck to lose his boat some winters before. The third was a dark, wiry fellow with a sly, cunning look. The others addressed him as Ned, and it later transpired that he came from Boscombe way, where he had quarrelled with and left another gang.

While Roger sat watching them from a corner of the smelly ill-lit cabin, the minutes seemed to drag again. He had a frightening vision of his father paying a last visit to his room before going to sleep, to see if he had come home by the window, and, on seeing the disorder there, coming hot-foot in pursuit of him. But he quickly reassured him­self with the thought that even if his father did now discover the empty money-box and the scattered clothes he could not possibly guess where their owner had got to.

Thirty long minutes ticked away before Nick thrust his head over the edge of the hatchway and called: "Tide's on the ebb, Cap'n."

Abandoning the cards they all went on deck, a lantern was hoisted on the forestay and at a word from Dan the hawsers were cast off. Two of the men got out long sweeps and, as the lugger drifted away from the quayside, began to pole her out into open water. Dan took the tiller and gave another order, the sweeps were drawn inboard and the jib was set. It slapped for a moment, then bellied out, soon giving the ship enough way for Dan to steer her into the channel, and with the water barely rippling along her sides she dropped smoothly down river.

Roger looked back towards Lymington. Across the marshes he could see the two small beacons that marked the entrance to the har­bour and the vague outline of the massed houses behind them; but the long, low salt-pans, from which for centuries the town had supplied half England and made a handsome revenue, were hidden by the darkness, as was the roof of his own home which he would have been able to make out easily, between its sheltering trees, had it been day­time.

Quarter of an hour of gentle tacking round the bends of the creek brought them to its mouth. The breeze seemed fresher now and Dan gave orders for the mainsail to be hoisted. Roger joined the others in hauling on the sheet; the wooden rings rattled against the mast, the boom swung over and the great spread of canvas rose above them. Leaving the land on their starboard beam they headed out towards the western extremity of the Isle of Wight.

After his long sleep Roger was not the least tired and he sat by Dan staring out with eager eyes into the darkness. Ahead he could see the warning beacon flashing on the cruel rocks of the Needles, to his left the friendly lights of Yarmouth harbour but to the right the great sweep of the mainland showed no signs of human occupation. In vain he searched the dark horizon there for a glimpse of Highcliffe Tower, but it was hidden by the night, so he could only gaze at a spot where he imagined it to be, as he thought of the beautiful Georgina, and won­dered if she was still awake and thinking of him, or sound asleep in the big warm bed on which they had shared out her treasure that afternoon.

Giving the Needles a wide berth Dan turned the lugger out to sea and it was some half-hour after this new course had been set that Roger, chancing to glance astern, suddenly saw the faint shimmer of foam creaming at one solitary place in the gloom behind them.

"Dan!" he gasped in an excited whisper: "We're being followed! Look astern there! Naught but a ship's bow cutting through the wake could churn it up so steadily."

"Be easy, lad," Dan replied with unaccustomed familiarity, "There be more mysteries to this trade o' ours than 'e would wot of." Then, to Roger's surprise, he gave orders to douse the lights and lower the sails, and the lugger hove to.

The shimmer of foam rapidly grew to what seemed a quite abnormal height, until it was sufficiently near for Roger suddenly to realise that only the base of the pyramid at which he was gazing was formed of water and that from it rose the brow of a white-painted ship. A moment later her masts and sails were visible, and, checking her speed as she came up with them, she emerged like a ghost-ship out of the night, a trim little two-masted schooner.

Hails were exchanged with the newcomer, then Dan hoisted his jib and after a certain amount of manoeuvring the two ships were brought alongside one another. The schooner's counter was slightly higher than that of the lugger, but by leaning over it the men in her could converse with Dan and his mates without raising their voices.

There was a brief interchange of questions and answers and on both parties ascertaining that all was well with the other Dan said to Roger, "Run, get thy bag, lad. We be goin' aboard her."

Roger hesitated. He had already given Dan the five pounds and he wondered unhappily if the smuggler, having been so averse to taking him in the first place, had later thought up some trick for getting his money but not taking him after all. He had now recognised the white schooner as the Albatross, out of Yarmouth, and suspected that he was to be put aboard her for shipment back to the island.

"What's toward, Dan?" he asked, striving to keep the uneasiness he felt out of his voice. "Why must I board her?"

" Tis not for 'e to ask questions," Dan replied gruffly. "Do as 'e's bid, an' smart about it, now."

Being in no position to argue, Roger turned away. If they intended to send him back there was nothing he could do about it, and no way in which he could recover his money from Dan, either. It was the first dealing he had had with lawless characters and he felt again how incompetent he was to hold his own outside the secure world he knew, in that where poverty made men unscrupulous.

The thought that he still had some fourteen pounds in cash upon him was some consolation. That was enough to get him to London and keep him for a week or two there. But suddenly it flashed upon him that the smugglers might rob him of the rest of his money before putting him ashore.

Hastening his steps he dived down into the cabin, pulled off his boots and poured his guineas and crowns into them, leaving only some small change in his pocket. In something of a panic now he pulled out the bulky packet of Georgina's jewels and wondered how he could possibly manage to conceal it. After a second he tore the silk scarf he was wearing from around his neck, spread it out on the table, undid the packet of jewels and poured them on to it. Rolling the scarf up he tied each of its ends in a knot and the middle with a strand of hemp that was lying handy; then he undid his clothes and arranged the long uneven sausage round his waist next his skin, in such a way that the leather belt of his breeches would keep it in position. He was still stuffing back his shirt over it when Dan's stentorian voice came to him.

"Below there! What the hell's keeping 'e?"

"Coming!" called Roger, and he stumbled up on deck again.

To his surprise he saw that several strange men from the schooner were now aboard the lugger and that her own crew were in the process of climbing over the schooner's counter. Evidently the two ships were exchanging crews and this, though queer, seemed somewhat reassuring; so, without further attempt to secure an explanation, he followed Dan aboard the Albatross.

The exchange having been made the two ships cast off. Amidst a chorus of muttered farewells from their crews the bumpers were hauled in and they drew apart.

When the Sally Ann had been swallowed up in the darkness Roger made his way down to the schooner's cabin. It was roomier and somewhat cleaner than that of the lugger, and it had eight bunks instead of only four. Depositing his satchel on one of them he went up again to seek out Dan, now feeling a twinge of remorse at his recent fears that the smuggler intended to cheat and rob him.

The crew were busy setting the sails and Dan was standing at the break of the shallow poop behind the big wheel.