certainly
not before it was needed), that, "whosoever had children, wards,
etc., in the parts beyond the seas, should send in their names to the
ordinary, and within four months call them home again." So Eustace was
now staying with his father at Chapel, having, nevertheless, his private
matters to transact on behalf of the virtuous society by whom he
had been brought up; one of which private matters had brought him to
Bideford the night before.

So he sat down beside Amyas on the pebbles, and looked at him all over
out of the corners of his eyes very gently, as if he did not wish to
hurt him, or even the flies on his back; and Amyas faced right round,
and looked him full in the face with the heartiest of smiles, and held
out a lion's paw, which Eustace took rapturously, and a great shaking of
hands ensued; Amyas gripping with a great round fist, and a quiet quiver
thereof, as much as to say, "I AM glad to see you;" and Eustace pinching
hard with white, straight fingers, and sawing the air violently up and
down, as much as to say, "DON'T YOU SEE how glad I am to see you?" A
very different greeting from the former.

"Hold hard, old lad," said Amyas, "before you break my elbow. And where
do you come from?"

"From going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in
it," said he, with a little smile and nod of mysterious self-importance.

"Like the devil, eh? Well, every man has his pattern. How is my uncle?"

Now, if there was one man on earth above another, of whom Eustace Leigh
stood in dread, it was his cousin Amyas. In the first place, he knew
Amyas could have killed him with a blow; and there are natures, who,
instead of rejoicing in the strength of men of greater prowess than
themselves, look at such with irritation, dread, at last, spite;
expecting, perhaps, that the stronger will do to them what they feel
they might have done in his place. Every one, perhaps, has the same
envious, cowardly devil haunting about his heart; but the brave men,
though they be very sparrows, kick him out; the cowards keep him, and
foster him; and so did poor Eustace Leigh.

Next, he could not help feeling that Amyas despised him. They had not
met for three years; but before Amyas went, Eustace never could argue
with him, simply because Amyas treated him as beneath argument. No doubt
he was often rude and unfair enough; but the whole mass of questions
concerning the unseen world, which the priests had stimulated in his