rd the garlanded victim lowing as I left him to
the squire's mercy.

Janet followed me out. 'It was my fault, Harry. You won't blame him, I
know. But will he fib? I don't think he's capable of it, and I'm sure he
can't run and double. Grandada will have him fast before a minute is
over.'

I told her to lose no time in going and extracting the squire's promise
that Peterborough should have his living,--so much it seemed possible to
save.

She flew back, and in Peterborough's momentary absence, did her work.
Nothing could save the unhappy gentleman from a distracting scene and
much archaic English. The squire's power of vituperation was notorious:
he could be more than a match for roadside navvies and predatory tramps
in cogency of epithet. Peterborough came to me drenched, and wailing that
he had never heard such language,--never dreamed of it. And to find
himself the object of it!--and, worse, to be unable to conscientiously
defend himself! The pain to him was in the conscience,--which is, like
the spleen, a function whose uses are only to be understood in its
derangement. He had eased his conscience to every question right out, and
he rejoiced to me at the immense relief it gave him. Conscientiously, he
could not deny that he knew the squire's objection to my being in my
father's society; and he had connived at it 'for reasons, my dearest
Harry, I can justify to God and man, but not--I had to confess as
much--not, I grieve to say, to your grandfather. I attempted to do
justice to the amiable qualities of the absent. In a moment I was
assailed with epithets that . . . and not a word is to be got in when he
is so violent. One has to make up one's mind to act Andromeda, and let
him be the sea-monster, as somebody has said; I forget the exact origin
of the remark.'

The squire certainly had a whole ocean at command. I strung myself to
pass through the same performance. To my astonishment I went
unchallenged. Janet vehemently asserted that she had mollified the angry
old man, who, however, was dark of visage, though his tongue kept
silence. He was gruff over his wine-glass the blandishments of his
favourite did not brighten him. From his point of view he had been
treated vilely, and he was apparently inclined to nurse his rancour and
keep my fortunes trembling in the balance. Under these circumstances it
was impossible for me to despatch a letter to Ottilia, though I found
that I could write one now, and I sat in my ro