er a difficult catch. He missed several
catches, and it seemed as if he were always panting after balls, which,
as Edward Dixon said, any fool, even a baby, could have stopped. At last
the game broke up, solely from Lucian's lack of skill, as everybody
declared. Edward Dixon, who was thirteen, and had a swollen red face and
a projecting eye, wanted to fight him for spoiling the game, and the
others agreed that he funked the fight in a rather dirty manner. The
strange boy, who was called De Carti, and was understood to be faintly
related to Lord De Carti of M'Carthytown, said openly that the fellows at
his place wouldn't stand such a sneak for five minutes. So the afternoon
passed off very pleasantly indeed, till it was time to go into the
vicarage for weak tea, homemade cake, and unripe plums. He got away at
last. As he went out at the gate, he heard De Carti's final observation:

"We like to dress well at our place. His governor must be beastly poor to
let him go about like that. D'y' see his trousers are all ragged at heel?
Is old Taylor a gentleman?"

It had been a very gentlemanly afternoon, but there was a certain relief
when the vicarage was far behind, and the evening smoke of the little
town, once the glorious capital of Siluria, hung haze-like over the
ragged roofs and mingled with the river mist. He looked down from the
height of the road on the huddled houses, saw the points of light start
out suddenly from the cottages on the hillside beyond, and gazed at the
long lovely valley fading in the twilight, till the darkness came and all
that remained was the somber ridge of the forest. The way was pleasant
through the solemn scented lane, with glimpses of dim country, the vague
mystery of night overshadowing the woods and meadows. A warm wind blew
gusts of odor from the meadowsweet by the brook, now and then bee and
beetle span homeward through the air, booming a deep note as from a great
organ far away, and from the verge of the wood came the "who-oo, who-oo,
who-oo" of the owls, a wild strange sound that mingled with the whirr and
rattle of the night-jar, deep in the bracken. The moon swam up through
the films of misty cloud, and hung, a golden glorious lantern, in
mid-air; and, set in the dusky hedge, the little green fires of the
glowworms appeared. He sauntered slowly up the lane, drinking in the
religion of the scene, and thinking the country by night as mystic and
wonderful as a dimly-lit cathedral. He had