hipped ocean, or open as the smooth
sea-surface to the marks of the breeze. Let them be hostile or amicable,
he wanted an audience as hotly as the humped Richard a horse.

At Romfrey Castle he fell upon an audience that became transformed into
a swarm of chatterers, advisers, and reprovers the instant his lips were
parted. The ladies of the family declared his pursuit of the Apology to
be worse and vainer than his politics. The gentlemen said the same, but
they were not so outspoken to him personally, and indulged in asides,
with quotations of some of his uncle Everard's recent observations
concerning him: as for example, 'Politically he's a mad harlequin
jumping his tights and spangles when nobody asks him to jump; and in
private life he's a mad dentist poking his tongs at my sound tooth:'
a highly ludicrous image of the persistent fellow, and a reminder of
situations in Moliere, as it was acted by Cecil Baskelett and Lord
Welshpool. Beauchamp had to a certain extent restored himself to favour
with his uncle Everard by offering a fair suggestion on the fatal field
to account for the accident, after the latter had taken measurements
and examined the place in perplexity. His elucidation of the puzzle was
referred to by Lord Avonley at Romfrey, and finally accepted as possible
and this from a wiseacre who went quacking about the county, expecting
to upset the order of things in England! Such a mixing of sense and
nonsense in a fellow's noddle was never before met with, Lord Avonley
said. Cecil took the hint. He had been unworried by Beauchamp: Dr.
Shrapnel had not been mentioned: and it delighted Cecil to let it be
known that he thought old Nevil had some good notions, particularly
as to the duties of the aristocracy--that first war-cry of his when
a midshipman. News of another fatal accident in the hunting-field
confirmed Cecil's higher opinion of his cousin. On the day of Craven's
funeral they heard at Romfrey that Mr. Wardour-Devereux had been killed
by a fall from his horse. Two English gentlemen despatched by the same
agency within a fortnight! 'He smoked,' Lord Avonley said of the second
departure, to allay some perturbation in the bosoms of the ladies who
had ceased to ride, by accounting for this particular mishap in the
most reassuring fashion. Cecil's immediate reflection was that the
unfortunate smoker had left a rich widow. Far behind in the race for
Miss Halkett, and uncertain of a settled advantage in his oth