g's ride.

CHAPTER SIX.

LORD HOWE'S VICTORY.

Harry got back at luncheon time to Texford, where the family were
assembled in the dining-hall. Sir Reginald--a fine-looking old man, the
whiteness of whose silvery locks, secured behind a well-tied pig-tail,
was increased by the hair-powder which besprinkled them--sat at the foot
of the table in the wheel-chair used by him to move from room to room.
His once tall and strongly-built figure was slightly bent, though,
unwilling to show his weakness, he endeavoured to sit as upright as
possible while he did the honours of his hospitable board. Still it was
evident that age and sickness were making rapid inroads on his strength.

He had deputed his niece, Mrs Castleton, to take the head of his table.
She had been singularly handsome, and still retained much of the beauty
of her younger days; with a soft and feminine expression of countenance
which truly portrayed her gentle, and perhaps somewhat too yielding,
character--yielding, at least, as far as her husband, Ralph Castleton,
was concerned, to whose stern and imperious temper she had ever been
accustomed to give way.

"My dear Harry, we were afraid that you must have lost your way," she
said, when the young midshipman entered the room.

"I rode over to the post-office at Morbury for letters, and had to wait
while the bag was made up. I slung it over my back, and I fancy was
taken for a government courier as I rode along. I have brought
despatches for every one in the house, I believe; a prodigious big one
for you, Uncle Fancourt, from the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty,
I suspect, for I saw the seal when it was put into the bag," he said,
addressing a sunburnt, fine-looking man, with the unmistakable air of a
naval officer, seated by his mother's side. "Mr Groocock, to whom I
gave the bag, will send them up as soon as he has opened it. There is
something in the wind, I suspect, for I heard shouting and trumpeting
just as I rode out of the town. Knowing that I had got whatever news
there is at my back, I came on with it rather than return to learn more
about the matter."

"Probably another enemy's ship taken," observed Captain Fancourt.

"Are the Admiralty going to send you to sea again, Fancourt?" asked Sir
Reginald, who had overheard Harry's remark.

"They are not likely, during these stirring times, Sir Reginald, to
allow any of us to remain idle on shore if they think us worth our salt,
and I h