me as
if there were a distinction of position between them, petitioned: "Mr.
Harley! you won't go for doin' any harm to 'em 'cause of what I said,
will you now? Do say you won't now, Mr. Harley! She is good, though
she's a Catholic. She was kind to me when I was ill, and I wouldn't have
her crossed--I'd rather be showed up myself, I would!"

The wise youth gave no positive promise to Molly, and she had to read
his consent in a relaxation of his austerity. The noise of a lumbering
foot plodding down the lane caused her to be abruptly dismissed.
Molly took to flight, the lumbering foot accelerated its pace, and the
pastoral appeal to her flying skirts was heard--"Moll! you theyre! It be
I--Bantam!" But the sprightly Silvia would not stop to his wooing, and
Adrian turned away laughing at these Arcadians.

Adrian was a lazy dragon. All he did for the present was to hint and
tease. "It's the Inevitable!" he said, and asked himself why he should
seek to arrest it. He had no faith in the System. Heavy Benson had.
Benson of the slow thick-lidded antediluvian eye and loose-crumpled
skin; Benson, the Saurian, the woman-hater; Benson was wide awake. A
sort of rivalry existed between the wise youth and heavy Benson. The
fidelity of the latter dependant had moved the baronet to commit to him
a portion of the management of the Raynham estate, and this Adrian did
not like. No one who aspires to the honourable office of leading
another by the nose can tolerate a party in his ambition. Benson's surly
instinct told him he was in the wise youth's way, and he resolved to
give his master a striking proof of his superior faithfulness. For some
weeks the Saurian eye had been on the two secret creatures. Heavy Benson
saw letters come and go in the day, and now the young gentleman was off
and out every night, and seemed to be on wings. Benson knew whither he
went, and the object he went for. It was a woman--that was enough. The
Saurian eye had actually seen the sinful thing lure the hope of Raynham
into the shades. He composed several epistles of warning to the baronet
of the work that was going on; but before sending one he wished to
record a little of their guilty conversation; and for this purpose the
faithful fellow trotted over the dews to eavesdrop, and thereby aroused
the good fairy, in the person of Tom Bakewell, the sole confidant of
Richard's state.

Tom said to his young master, "Do you know what, sir? You be watched!"

Richard,