ody now-a-days. Livings are a sort of thing that people buy. But
you'd have got it under favorable circumstances."

"The fact is, Archie, I'm not very fond of the church, as a profession."

"I should have thought it easy work. Look at your father. He keeps a
curate and doesn't take any trouble himself. Upon my word, if I'd known
as much then as I do now, I'd have had a shy for it myself. Hugh
couldn't have refused it to me."

"But Hugh can't give it while his uncle holds it."

"That would have been against me to be sure, and your governor's life is
pretty nearly as good as mine. I shouldn't have liked waiting; so I
suppose it's as well as it is."

There may perhaps have been other reasons why Archie Clavering's regrets
that he did not take holy orders were needless. He had never succeeded
in learning anything that any master had ever attempted to teach him,
although he had shown considerable aptitude in picking up acquirements
for which no regular masters are appointed. He knew the fathers and
mothers--sires and dams I ought perhaps to say--and grandfathers and
grandmothers, and so back for some generations, of all the horses of
note living in his day. He knew also the circumstances of all
races--what horses would run at them, and at what ages, what were the
stakes, the periods of running, and the special interests of each
affair. But not, on that account, should it be thought that the turf had
been profitable to him. That it might become profitable at some future
time, was possible; but Captain Archibald Clavering had not yet reached
the profitable stage in the career of a betting man, though perhaps he
was beginning to qualify himself for it. He was not bad-looking, though
his face was unprepossessing to a judge of character. He was slight and
well made about five feet nine in height, with light brown hair, which
had already left the top of his head bald, with slight whiskers, and a
well-formed moustache. But the peculiarity of his face was in his eyes.
His eyebrows were light-colored and very slight, and this was made more
apparent by the skin above the eyes, which was loose and hung down over
the outside corners of them, giving him a look of cunning which was
disagreeable. He seemed always to be speculating, counting up the odds,
and calculating whether anything could be done with the events then
present before him. And he was always ready to make a bet, being ever
provided with a book for that purpose. He would