drinking, and confined himself to little more
than a quart of white ale per diem; he
stayed his more objectionable songs in mid-
verse whenever she entered her father's
banqueting-room, or changed them into
ditties more suited to maiden's ears, and it
was altogether wonderful how comparatively
virtuous he got, in order to effect his vicious
object.

My father, however, both as minister of
the parish, and because he had a fondness
for the simple girl, came over to Watersleap,
and had a long talk with Jacob upon the
subject. When he had stated his fears to
the old smuggler, and expressed his sorrow
at seeing him encourage the young man as he
did, Jacob Ashfield answered by pointing to
a ship's cutlass that hung over the mantelpiece,
and adding these words: "Young Master
Hindon is not a very wise man, sir, and not
a very scrupulous one; but he knows right
well that if he or any man dared to offer love
to my daughter Kitty that was not honourable,
I'd cut him asunder with that old sword
of mine as clean as ever I did a Frenchman;"
which threat, in consideration of the parson's
presence, he considerately garnished with not
more than six of his most stupendous expletives.
Dick, who was as brave as a lion, was
indeed aware of his danger, and had no desire
to incur the old man's vengeance; and it was
half with the intention of performing his
promise upon oath of becoming her husband that
he ran away with Kitty one summer evening,
both upon the galloping grey. They had three
hours clear start of Jacob; to whom my father
lent his horse to pursue them on, after having
extracted from him a solemn vow that there
should be no murder committed. He
tracked them with great sagacity along the
moor, and to a neighbouring town, from
which they had taken a post-chaise to
Horncastle, and thither he followed them. Kitty
had left a slip of paper behind her for her
father's eyes:—"Richard is going to marry
me at Gretna;" and with that in his hand,
and the redoubtable cutlass hanging by his
side, he strode into the inn parlour where the
two runaways were, Kitty drowned in tears,
and Dick trying to comfort her in vain with
(Excise) brandy and water. "Well," said
Jacob, "young people, since you have chosen
to give me this wild goose chace instead of
being married quietly at Scarcliff, which you
might have done any day, you must entertain
your father instead of his entertaining
you; only since York and not Horncastle
lies on your way to Gretna, I shall now take
the liberty of never letting you out of my
sight until you have gone to church together."
The old man never used fewer imprecations;
but he never looked more determined than
upon that occasion, and Richard Hindon did
not hesitate or quibble a moment, but was
married the very next morning.

That was the best that was ever known of
Dick, and almost the last. He never came back
again to Watersleap; and Kitty, delicate,
sickly, sadly altered, only came home to die.

She was a widow, and had a son of fourteen
years old—the only one—by that time. Many
changes, too, had taken place at Scarcliff
during her absence. I was the clergyman
who attended her bedside in my father's
place; her brother Jack was also dead, and
his young wife dead, leaving a daughter,
Mary, more beautiful, as I think, even than
her aunt; but old Jacob Ashfield was hale
and hearty still, and gave her and young
Harry Hindon, a warm welcome at the
cottage. It was no wonder; nobody who had
known her in her youth could have seen
her pinched with want, weary with care,
without a tender pity, and Jacob had been
a loving father all along; that portmanteau
full of guineas had almost all been
spent in assisting her and her husband in
their long and wretched struggle against
poverty, in a foreign land (for debt had made
it necessary), and amongst utter strangers.
From the marriage-day of poor Scapegrace
Dick, not a shilling's worth of help had he
received from his proud unyielding parent,
not a doe among all the deer herds in the
Wolds had ever been fatted against that
prodigal's return. Vice had been often
winked at, crime (provided it were of the
aristocratic sort) would have met with
extenuation enough; but not even the glimmer
of pardon was held out to the unblushing
Hindon who had dared to contract legal
marriage with the daughter of a private
seaman—an A.B.—a man before the mast—a
hand! This blot on the 'scutcheon, this
polluter of Norman blood, was erased by his
own act at once from the pedigree leaf of the
family Bible, and from the clause which left
him—in spite of all other disgraces—ten
thousand pounds in Sir Marmaduke's will;
and it is due to his dead son to say, wicked as
he was, and wild as he was, that he never
visited these things upon the innocent cause
of them—his wife. A bad father and a bad
husband he was, yet a kind one; better,
perhaps, in both relations than the old baronet
with all his outward seeming had been before
him; and, indeed, as long as he could get his
allowance of brandy, he felt his deprivations
but very little. She, like a true woman,
accused herself of all his misfortunes, and
suffered from them most upon his account.

Their son Harry, naturally enough, grew up
with a great liking for his unseen relatives at
Scarcliff, and with a proportionate prejudice
against his progenitors in the Wolds. He was
a beautiful boy, as might have been expected
from such parents, and could read and write
with great facility—which might not have been
expected; his slightly foreign pronunciation
atoned for his somewhat indifferent English,
and, mongrel as he was, his independent air
and bluff natural manner contrasted well with
his unquestionably high-born Hindon of
Hindon looks. He was a favourite of mine, of