to all that was uttered; but it was a horrified "No!" when
Robert's cheek pushed nearer.

"Then, see to getting some breakfast for him," said Jonathan. "You're not
anyway bound to kiss a drunken--"

"Dog's the word, sir," Robert helped him. "Dogs can afford it. I never
saw one in that state; so they don't lose character."

He spoke lightly, but dejection was in his attitude. When his aunt Anne
had left the room, he exclaimed,--

"By jingo! women make you feel it, by some way that they have. She's a
religious creature. She smells the devil in me."

"More like, the brandy," his father responded.

"Well! I'm on the road, I'm on the road!" Robert fetched a sigh.

"I didn't make the road," said his father.

"No, sir; you didn't. Work hard: sleep sound that's happiness. I've known
it for a year. You're the man I'd imitate, if I could. The devil came
first the brandy's secondary. I was quiet so long. I thought myself a
safe man."

He sat down and sent his hair distraught with an effort at smoothing it.

"Women brought the devil into the world first. It's women who raise the
devil in us, and why they--"

He thumped the table just as his aunt Anne was preparing to spread the
cloth.

"Don't be frightened, woman," said Jonathan, seeing her start fearfully
back. "You take too many cups of tea, morning and night--hang the stuff!"

"Never, never till now have you abused me, Jonathan," she whimpered,
severely.

"I don't tell you to love him; but wait on him. That's all. And I'll
about my business. Land and beasts--they answer to you."

Robert looked up.

"Land and beasts! They sound like blessed things. When next I go to
church, I shall know what old Adam felt. Go along, sir. I shall break
nothing in the house."

"You won't go, Jonathan?" begged the trembling spinster.

"Give him some of your tea, and strong, and as much of it as he can
take--he wants bringing down," was Jonathan's answer; and casting a
glance at one of the framed letters, he strode through the doorway, and
Aunt Anne was alone with the flushed face and hurried eyes of her nephew,
who was to her little better than a demon in the flesh. But there was a
Bible in the room.

An hour later, Robert was mounted and riding to the meet of hounds.

CHAPTER XVIII

A single night at the Pilot Inn had given life and vigour to Robert's old
reputation in Warbeach village, as the stoutest of drinkers and dear
rascals throughout a sailor-breeding distri