ed to
make it, where's his right to complain?' Men of sense rarely obtain
satisfactory answers: they are provoked to despise their kind. But the
poacher was another kind of vermin than the stupid tenant. Everard did
him the honour to hate him, and twice in a fray had he collared his
ruffian, and subsequently sat in condemnation of the wretch: for he who
can attest a villany is best qualified to punish it. Gangs from the
metropolis found him too determined and alert for their sport. It was the
factiousness of here and there an unbroken young scoundrelly colt poacher
of the neighbourhood, a born thief, a fellow damned in an inveterate
taste for game, which gave him annoyance. One night he took Master Nevil
out with him, and they hunted down a couple of sinners that showed fight
against odds. Nevil attempted to beg them off because of their boldness.
'I don't set my traps for nothing,' said his uncle, silencing him. But
the boy reflected that his uncle was perpetually lamenting the cowed
spirit of the common English-formerly such fresh and merry men! He
touched Rosamund Culling's heart with his description of their attitudes
when they stood resisting and bawling to the keepers, 'Come on we'll die
for it.' They did not die. Everard explained to the boy that he could
have killed them, and was contented to have sent them to gaol for a few
weeks. Nevil gaped at the empty magnanimity which his uncle presented to
him as a remarkably big morsel. At the age of fourteen he was despatched
to sea.

He went unwillingly; not so much from an objection to a naval life as
from a wish, incomprehensible to grown men and boys, and especially to
his cousin, Cecil Baskelett, that he might remain at school and learn.
'The fellow would like to be a parson!' Everard said in disgust. No
parson had ever been known of in the Romfrey family, or in the Beauchamp.
A legend of a parson that had been a tutor in one of the Romfrey houses,
and had talked and sung blandly to a damsel of the blood--degenerate
maid--to receive a handsome trouncing for his pains, instead of the holy
marriage-tie he aimed at, was the only connection of the Romfreys with
the parsonry, as Everard called them. He attributed the boy's feeling to
the influence of his great-aunt Beauchamp, who would, he said, infallibly
have made a parson of him. 'I'd rather enlist for a soldier,' Nevil said,
and he ceased to dream of rebellion, and of his little property of a few
thousand pounds in