e than before. He showed it especially whenever Mr
Ranald was at home, and I am afraid that Mr Ralph often made matters
worse instead of trying to mend them.

At last Mr Ranald left home altogether, for as he had come into a part
of his mother's property, he was independent of his father. Some time
afterwards a letter was received from him saying that he had sailed for
the Indies. Whether or not he had married the young lady spoken of at
college was not known to a certainty.

As may be supposed, old Martin Goul and his poor witless wife were in a
sad taking when they found that their son had been carried off by a
pressgang. Old Goul vowed vengeance against those who had managed to
have his son spirited away. His own days, however, were coming to a
close. He found out the ship on board which young Martin had sailed,
and he tried every means to send after him to get him back. That was no
easy matter, however; indeed, the money which he had scraped together
and cheated out of many a lone widow and friendless orphan had come to
an end. No one knew how it had gone, except, perhaps, his son. He
himself even, it was said, could not tell, though he spent his days and
nights poring over books and papers, trying to find out, till he became
almost as crazy as his wife. No one went to consult him on law
business, except, perhaps, some smuggler or other knave who could get no
decent lawyer to undertake his case, and then old Goul was sure to lose
it, so that even the rogues at last would not trust him.

He and his wife had had for long only one servant in the house. A poor
friendless creature was old Nan. One day the tax-gatherer called when
Martin Goul, who was seated in his dusty room which had not been cleaned
out for years, told him that Nan had the money to pay, and that he would
find her in the kitchen. He went downstairs and there, sure enough, was
poor Nan stretched out on the floor. She had died of starvation, there
was no doubt about that, for there was not a crust of bread in the
kitchen, nor a bit of coal to light a fire. How Martin Goul had managed
to live it was hard to say, except that his wife had been seen stealing
out at dusk, and it was supposed that she had managed to pick up food
for herself and her husband.

Meantime it was known that young Martin had been aboard the _Resistance_
frigate, which had gone away out to the East Indies. At last news came
home that the _Resistance_ had been blown u