ovoked to despise their
kind. But the poacher was another kind of vermin than the stupid tenant.
Everard did him the honour to hate him, and twice in a fray had he
collared his ruffian, and subsequently sat in condemnation of the
wretch: for he who can attest a villany is best qualified to punish it.
Gangs from the metropolis found him too determined and alert for their
sport. It was the factiousness of here and there an unbroken young
scoundrelly colt poacher of the neighbourhood, a born thief, a fellow
damned in an inveterate taste for game, which gave him annoyance. One
night he took Master Nevil out with him, and they hunted down a couple
of sinners that showed fight against odds. Nevil attempted to beg them
off because of their boldness. 'I don't set my traps for nothing,'
said his uncle, silencing him. But the boy reflected that his uncle was
perpetually lamenting the cowed spirit of the common English-formerly
such fresh and merry men! He touched Rosamund Culling's heart with his
description of their attitudes when they stood resisting and bawling
to the keepers, 'Come on we'll die for it.' They did not die. Everard
explained to the boy that he could have killed them, and was contented
to have sent them to gaol for a few weeks. Nevil gaped at the empty
magnanimity which his uncle presented to him as a remarkably big morsel.
At the age of fourteen he was despatched to sea.

He went unwillingly; not so much from an objection to a naval life as
from a wish, incomprehensible to grown men and boys, and especially to
his cousin, Cecil Baskelett, that he might remain at school and learn.
'The fellow would like to be a parson!' Everard said in disgust.
No parson had ever been known of in the Romfrey family, or in the
Beauchamp. A legend of a parson that had been a tutor in one of the
Romfrey houses, and had talked and sung blandly to a damsel of the
blood--degenerate maid--to receive a handsome trouncing for his pains,
instead of the holy marriage-tie he aimed at, was the only connection
of the Romfreys with the parsonry, as Everard called them. He attributed
the boy's feeling to the influence of his great-aunt Beauchamp, who
would, he said, infallibly have made a parson of him. 'I'd rather enlist
for a soldier,' Nevil said, and he ceased to dream of rebellion, and of
his little property of a few thousand pounds in the funds to aid him in
it. He confessed to his dear friend Rosamund Culling that he thought
the parsons ha