aid to be breaking up through unparalleled excesses, his heart, it was
currently reported in domestic circles, was sound: and what a noble feat
would it be to reclaim him! It was also reckoned impossible that any
amount of extravagance could have seriously embarrassed such a property
as he had inherited, indeed long since, but of which he had had the sole
control only a few years. At the time of which we speak Carew was but
thirty-five, though he looked much older. His muscles were still firm,
his limbs yet active, and his hand and eye as steady with the gun or
bridle as ever. But his bronzed face showed signs of habitual
intemperance; his head was growing prematurely bald; and once or twice,
though the fact was known to himself only, his iron nerve had of late
failed him. The secret consciousness of this last fact made him more
venturesome and reckless than ever. "Time," he swore, "should never play
_him_ tricks. He was as good a man as ever he was. There was a quarter
of a million, more or less, to be got through yet, and, by Jove, he
would see it out!" Of course he did not swear by Jove; for, as we have
said, he kept a chaplain, and was therefore no heathen.

One of the arguments that the mothers of those young ladies who sought
his hand were wont to make use of, to their great comfort, was that Mr.
Carew was a churchman. There was a private chapel at Crompton, the
existence of which, of course, explained why his presence did not grace
the parish church. Then his genealogy was of the most satisfactory
description. Carews had dwelt at Crompton in direct succession for many
a century. Charles I., it is almost unnecessary to state, had slept
there--that most locomotive of monarchs seems to have honored all old
English mansions with a night's visit--and had hunted in the chase next
morning. Queen Elizabeth had also been most graciously pleased to visit
her subject, John Carew, on which occasion a wooden tower had been
erected for her in the park, from which to see "ten buckes, all having
fayre lawe, pulled down with grey-houndes;" she shot deer, too, with her
own virgin hands, for which purpose "a cross-bowe was delivered to her
by a nymph with a sweet song." These things, however, were in no way
commemorated. Carew was all in all: his devouring egotism swallowed up
historical association. His favorite female bull-dog, with her pups,
slept in the royal martyr's apartment. The places in Crompton Chase held
remarkable were