orchard apple in the morning!
there lay his commandership convincingly. What was proved overnight was
confirmed at dawn.

Mr. Robert had his contrast in Sedgett's son, Nicodemus Sedgett, whose
unlucky Christian name had assisted the wits of Warbeach in bestowing on
him a darkly-luminous relationship. Young Nic loved also to steep his
spirit in the bowl; but, in addition to his never paying for his luxury,
he drank as if in emulation of the colour of his reputed patron, and
neighbourhood to Nic Sedgett was not liked when that young man became
thoughtful over his glass.

The episode of his stabbing the landlady's son Harry clung to him
fatally. The wound was in the thigh, and nothing serious. Harry was up
and off to sea before Nic had ceased to show the marks of Robert's
vengeance upon him; but blood-shedding, even on a small scale, is so
detested by Englishmen, that Nic never got back to his right hue in the
eyes of Warbeach. None felt to him as to a countryman, and it may be
supposed that his face was seen no more in the house of gathering, the
Pilot Inn.

He rented one of the Fairly farms, known as the Three-Tree Farm,
subsisting there, men fancied, by the aid of his housekeeper's money. For
he was of those evil fellows who disconcert all righteous prophecy, and
it was vain for Mrs. Boulby and Warbeach village to declare that no good
could come to him, when Fortune manifestly kept him going.

He possessed the rogue's most serviceable art: in spite of a countenance
that was not attractive, this fellow could, as was proved by evidence,
make himself pleasing to women. "The truth of it is," said Mrs. Boulby,
at a loss for any other explanation, and with a woman's love of sharp
generalization, "it's because my sex is fools."

He had one day no money to pay his rent, and forthwith (using for the
purpose his last five shillings, it was said) advertized for a
housekeeper; and before Warbeach had done chuckling over his folly, an
agreeable woman of about thirty-five was making purchases in his name;
she made tea, and the evening brew for such friends as he could collect,
and apparently paid his rent for him, after a time; the distress was not
in the house three days. It seemed to Warbeach an erratic proceeding on
the part of Providence, that Nic should ever be helped to swim; but our
modern prophets have small patience, and summon Destiny to strike without
a preparation of her weapons or a warning to the victim.

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