denied him the proper gifts; he is fond of play, but his cunning
always renders him suspected." He was at this time thirty-two years
of age, and, as the phrase goes, a man of pleasure, but his militant
prowess had hitherto been more conspicuous in the courts of Venus
than in the field of Mars. The man was typical of his day and
generation: should you desire his closer acquaintance you will find
a lively sketch of him in _Joseph Andrews_, under the name of Beau
Didapper.

If Mary was the Eve of this Henley "Paradise," the captain clearly
possessed many characteristics of the serpent. As First-Lieutenant
of Sir Andrew Agnew's regiment of marines, he had been "out"--on the
wrong side, for a Scot--in the '45, and the butcher Cumberland
having finally killed the cause at Culloden on 16th April, this
warrior was now in Henley beating up recruits to fill the vacancies
in the Hanoverian lines caused by the valour of the "rebels." Such a
figure was a commonplace of the time, and Mr. Blandy would not have
looked twice at him but for the fact that it appeared Lord Mark was
his grand-uncle. The old lawyer, following up this aristocratic
scent, found to his surprise and joy that the little lieutenant,
with his courtesy style of captain, was no less a person than the
fifth son of a Scots peer, William, fifth Lord Cranstoun, and his
wife, Lady Jane Kerr, eldest daughter of William, second Marquis of
Lothian. True, he learned the noble union had been blessed with
seven sons and five daughters; my Lord Cranstoun had died in 1727,
and his eldest son, James, reigned in his stead. The captain, a very
much "younger" son, probably had little more than his pay and a fine
assortment of debts; still, one cannot have everything. The rights
of absent Captain D---- were forgotten, now that there was a chance
to marry his daughter to a man who called the daughter of an Earl
grandmother, and could claim kinship with half the aristocracy of
Scotland; and Mr. Blandy frowned as he called to mind the
presumption of the Bath apothecary.

How far matters went at this time we do not know, for Cranstoun left
Henley in the autumn and did not revisit "The Paradise" till the
following summer. Meanwhile Captain D---- returned from abroad, but
unaccountably failed to communicate with the girl he had the year
before so reluctantly left behind him. Mary's uncles, "desirous of
renewing a courtship which they thought would turn much to the
honour and benefit of t