, as somebody must
have felt toward Archididasculus, as Boswell felt toward Johnson.

"Come into my den," he said, and lifting me gently by the seat of my
pantaloons he carried me up stairs and deposited me, before I could
apologize, on the sofa. I looked around the room. It was a bachelor's
apartment, characteristically furnished in the taste of the proprietor.
A few claymores and battle-axes were ranged against the wall, and a
culverin, captured by Sir Ralph Heavystone, occupied the corner, the
other end of the room being taken up by a light battery. Foils,
boxing-gloves, saddles, and fishing-poles lay around carelessly. A
small pile of billets-doux lay upon a silver salver. The man was not
an anchorite, nor yet a Sir Galahad.

I never could tell what Guy thought of women. "Poor little beasts," he
would often say when the conversation turned on any of his fresh
conquests. Then, passing his hand over his marble brow, the old look
of stern fixedness of purpose and unflinching severity would straighten
the lines of his mouth, and he would mutter, half to himself, "S'death!"

"Come with me to Heavystone Grange. The Exmoor Hounds throw off
to-morrow. I'll give you a mount," he said, as he amused himself by
rolling up a silver candlestick between his fingers. "You shall have
Cleopatra. But stay," he added, thoughtfully; "now I remember, I
ordered Cleopatra to be shot this morning."

"And why?" I queried.

"She threw her rider yesterday and fell on him--"

"And killed him?"

"No. That's the reason why I have ordered her to be shot. I keep no
animals that are not dangerous--I should add--DEADLY!" He hissed the
last sentence between his teeth, and a gloomy frown descended over his
calm brow.

I affected to turn over the tradesman's bills that lay on the table,
for, like all of the Heavystone race, Guy seldom paid cash, and said:--

"You remind me of the time when Leonidas--"

"O, bother Leonidas and your classical allusions. Come!"

We descended to dinner.

CHAPTER III.

"He carries weight, he rides a race,
'Tis for a thousand pound."

"There is Flora Billingsgate, the greatest coquette and hardest rider
in the country," said my companion, Ralph Mortmain, as we stood upon
Dingleby Common before the meet.

I looked up and beheld Guy Heavystone bending haughtily over the
saddle, as he addressed a beautiful brunette. She was indeed a
splendidly groomed and high-spirited woman. We wer