ubstance to carry it off. Though his parents were
healthy and vigorous, he was of weakly constitution, which would not
have been half so dangerous to him if his mind also had been weakly.
But his mind (or at any rate that rudiment thereof which appears in the
shape of self-will even before the teeth appear) was a piece of muscular
contortion, tough as oak and hard as iron. "Pet" was his name with his
mother and his aunt; and his enemies (being the rest of mankind) said
that pet was his name and his nature.

For this dear child could brook no denial, no slow submission to his
wishes; whatever he wanted must come in a moment, punctual as an
echo. In him re-appeared not the stubbornness only, but also the keen
ingenuity of Yordas in finding out the very thing that never should be
done, and then the unerring perception of the way in which it could be
done most noxiously. Yet any one looking at his eyes would think how
tender and bright must his nature be! "He favoreth his forebears; how
can he help it?" kind people exclaimed, when they knew him. And the
servants of the house excused themselves when condemned for putting up
with him, "Yo know not what 'a is, yo that talk so. He maun get 's own
gait, lestwise yo wud chok' un."

Being too valuable to be choked, he got his own way always.

CHAPTER III

A DISAPPOINTING APPOINTMENT

For the sake of Pet Carnaby and of themselves, the ladies of the house
were disquieted now, in the first summer weather of a wet cold year, the
year of our Lord 1801. And their trouble arose as follows:

There had long been a question between the sisters and Sir Walter
Carnaby, brother of the late colonel, about an exchange of outlying
land, which would have to be ratified by "Pet" hereafter. Terms
being settled and agreement signed, the lawyers fell to at the linked
sweetness of deducing title. The abstract of the Yordas title was nearly
as big as the parish Bible, so in and out had their dealings been, and
so intricate their pugnacity.

Among the many other of the Yordas freaks was a fatuous and generally
fatal one. For the slightest miscarriage they discharged their lawyer,
and leaped into the office of a new one. Has any man moved in the
affairs of men, with a grain of common-sense or half a pennyweight of
experience, without being taught that an old tenter-hook sits easier to
him than a new one? And not only that, but in shifting his quarters he
may leave some truly fundamental thin