stricter; and as a
man of honour, Mr. Raikes, you see, can't very well--'

'By Jove! I wish I wasn't a man of honour!' Raikes interposed, heavily.

'You see, Van, Old Tom's circumstances'--Andrew ducked, to smother a
sort of laughter--'are now such that he'd be glad of the money to let
him off, no doubt; but Mr. Raikes has spent it, I can't lend it, and you
haven't got it, and there we all are. At the end of the year he's free,
and he--ha! ha! I'm not a bit the merrier for laughing, I can tell you.'

Catching another glimpse of Evan's serious face, Andrew fell into louder
laughter; checking it with doleful solemnity.

Up hill and down hill, and past little homesteads shining with yellow
crocuses; across wide brown heaths, whose outlines raised in Evan's mind
the night of his funeral walk, and tossed up old feelings dead as the
whirling dust. At last Raikes called out:

'The towers of Fallow field; heigho!'

And Andrew said:

'Now then, Van: if Old Tom's anywhere, he's here. You get down at the
Dragon, and don't you talk to me, but let me go in. It'll be just the
hour he dines in the country. Isn't it a shame of him to make me face
every man of the creditors--eh?'

Evan gave Andrew's hand an affectionate squeeze, at which Andrew had to
gulp down something--reciprocal emotion, doubtless.

'Hark,' said Raikes, as the horn of the guard was heard. 'Once that
sound used to set me caracoling before an abject multitude. I did
wonders. All London looked on me! It had more effect on me than
champagne. Now I hear it--the whole charm has vanished! I can't see
a single old castle. Would you have thought it possible that a small
circular bit of tin on a man's person could produce such changes in
him?'

'You are a donkey to wear it,' said Evan.

'I pledged my word as a gentleman, and thought it small, for the money!'
said Raikes. 'This is the first coach I ever travelled on, without
making the old whip burst with laughing. I'm not myself. I'm haunted.
I'm somebody else.'

The three passengers having descended, a controversy commenced between
Evan and Andrew as to which should pay. Evan had his money out; Andrew
dashed it behind him; Evan remonstrated.

'Well, you mustn't pay for us two, Andrew. I would have let you do it
once, but--'

'Stuff!' cried Andrew. 'I ain't paying--it 's the creditors of the
estate, my boy!'

Evan looked so ingenuously surprised and hurt at his lack of principle,
that Andrew chucked a six