absurdly. I am not a gamekeeper, nor fifty
either, nor forty, for that matter."

"It won't do, and it never does," went on
Mr. Wilkes, in the same discontented strain.
"It's folly, and ends in folly, or worse. If
you're for pulling down the old place, and
cutting the trees, to please a child with a pretty face,
mind you've had the warning."

"But I've had no supper, Wilkes," said Mr.
West, a little impatiently. "The old kitchen
chimney draws still, I know. I saw the smoke.
See what they can do for me, like a good old
fellow."

It was a curious night for Gilbert West.
Later, when the little meal was done, and a bottle
of the old wine found in the cellar drunk,
he himself took a lamp and the keys, and
walked over the ancient house. Everywhere
was decay; the paper was falling from the
walls, the boards were decayed. He paused
in every corner, for with each was associated
some scene or memory. Here was his father's
bedroom, and that bedstead, whose canopy
shook and nodded at him like the plumes of
a catafalque. From that bed had angry,
trembling arms waved and menaced him; from
that bed had fiery eyes flashed, and an angry
voice thundered expulsion, misery, punishment.
At the foot of that bed he had made
a weak submission. Here, below, was the
library, the books mouldy and damp, the air
close, where another scene had taken place.
A small trembling figure—a pretty, pale,
trembling girl—had pleaded for herself and
for her father, curate to the old church
whose tower he could see from the top
window; and here, where the poachers and
vagrants were brought in and judged, was she
also sentenced. These things came back on
him more vividly than ever they had done
during his lonely walks up the bleak hills over
Dieppe; and, with something like reproach, he
asked himself "how he could ever bring
himself to forget them?" But a hundred
suggestions—delusive reasonings—came rushing in
to reassure him. What is logic to one in his
state? Was his life to go by in idle moaning
over the past, in vain reverie over old ruins,
old moral tombstones, instead of practical work,
practical usefulness, joined, if you will, to a
tender and judicious recollection of what was
gone? Eighteen years of dismal wandering
was surely a handsome homage enough. Yet
somehow, as he lay down to rest in his old
boy's room, he seemed to hear rung at his ear
the awkward warning of the old servant.

CHAPTER XVII. A WRECK.

ON the next day arrived Mr. Jenkinson, the
clever and "adapting" young architect, who
was later to develop into the well-known reviver
of the mediæval style, and who was indeed now
studying the best models at home and abroad,
and surely laying the foundation of the great
reputation he later earned. How many of the
asylums, poor-houses, institutions, churches,
with which our happy England is dotted over,
fitted thickly, dappled brick structures—piebald
almost—owe their inspiration to him and his
genius!  In little rows of almshouses, dainty
showy little gems, gables, and spires, and an
arched colonnade running in front, he is
specially happy. No one manipulates coloured
bricks like him, or with such surprising servility
of fancy—who does not know " middle-
age " Jenkinson, as he is pleasantly styled in
the profession? Many of our noblest monster
hotels—dashing and florid in the conception,
running wild in windows—and railway stations,
are his creation. A spirited young artist, he
ran down to Westown, and was walking gaily
round the house, with oblong book and pencil in
hand, his head put well back. Mr. West
wondered at his fertility of device. If one thing
did not suit, he had another ready in a second.
In twenty minutes he had the whole arranged;
"we run up a short stumpy campanile at the
corner, to give a rococo look, and break the
monotony; a wooden verandah running round the
corner at the other end; bow-windows, and
terrace-work, and vases." Inside, "we break in a
door here, throw out a window there, take
in these two little closets to the hall, and get
up a short mediæval stair." All this was what
he called mere patching and piecing, and
would take little or no money—a bagatelle.
Perhaps middle-age Jenkinson's principle is not
such a bad one after all, and this judicious
touching might save many an old house.

Mr. West remained three days, and before
he went saw an ornamental gardener, and many
labourers busy with the clearing. The place was,
indeed, a perfect jungle. As he looked on the
bright morning from the steps, he seemed to see
Lucy's figure moving down the walk that ran up
the centre. He had, indeed, often described it
to her, and her eyes used to quicken with interest
as he spoke. She reverenced those old places.
"And the quicker you get all done," he said,
from the window of his chaise, "the better."
The old retainer, Wilkes, still dissatisfied at
"the rookem-rackem" work going on—such
was his strange phrase—turned away, shaking
his head, as the chaise drove off.

In London again, Mr. West found plenty to do.
The time was indeed too short. He lighted
on old friends. He was to them as one
returned from beyond the seas. He had been
called to the Bar, and went down to search out
some friends of the profession. Many, indeed,
had often mentioned him in his absence, and
said that if West had only stuck to the profession
he would have been at the top of the tree.
Wonderful tree! Surprising climbers! And
yet those perched on that uncomfortable apex
looking down and seeing those below crawling
up, may wonder and smile at the infinite labour
and pain of the progress, the sore and torn
hands, the bleeding marks, to say nothing of
the maimed and bruised who have fallen, and
lying dead or wounded thickly round the root.
Mr. Justice Banting had been heard to ask
what had become of that intelligent young