is so
detested by Englishmen, that Nic never got back to his right hue in the
eyes of Warbeach. None felt to him as to a countryman, and it may be
supposed that his face was seen no more in the house of gathering, the
Pilot Inn.

He rented one of the Fairly farms, known as the Three-Tree Farm,
subsisting there, men fancied, by the aid of his housekeeper's money.
For he was of those evil fellows who disconcert all righteous prophecy,
and it was vain for Mrs. Boulby and Warbeach village to declare that no
good could come to him, when Fortune manifestly kept him going.

He possessed the rogue's most serviceable art: in spite of a countenance
that was not attractive, this fellow could, as was proved by evidence,
make himself pleasing to women. "The truth of it is," said Mrs. Boulby,
at a loss for any other explanation, and with a woman's love of sharp
generalization, "it's because my sex is fools."

He had one day no money to pay his rent, and forthwith (using for
the purpose his last five shillings, it was said) advertized for a
housekeeper; and before Warbeach had done chuckling over his folly, an
agreeable woman of about thirty-five was making purchases in his name;
she made tea, and the evening brew for such friends as he could collect,
and apparently paid his rent for him, after a time; the distress was not
in the house three days. It seemed to Warbeach an erratic proceeding on
the part of Providence, that Nic should ever be helped to swim; but
our modern prophets have small patience, and summon Destiny to strike
without a preparation of her weapons or a warning to the victim.

More than Robert's old occasional vice was at the bottom of his
popularity, as I need not say. Let those who generalize upon ethnology
determine whether the ancient opposition of Saxon and Norman be at an
end; but it is certain, to my thinking, that when a hero of the
people can be got from the common popular stock, he is doubly dear. A
gentleman, however gallant and familiar, will hardly ever be as much
beloved, until he dies to inform a legend or a ballad: seeing that death
only can remove the peculiar distinctions and distances which the people
feel to exist between themselves and the gentleman-class, and which, not
to credit them with preternatural discernment, they are carefully taught
to feel. Dead Britons are all Britons, but live Britons are not quite
brothers.

It was as the son of a yeoman, showing comprehensible accomplishments,