please to recollect. I'll have no vagabond names here'--he
puffed himself hot, muttering, 'Nor vagabond airs neither.'

I knew very well what it meant. A sore spirit on my father's behalf kept
me alive to any insult of him; and feeling that we were immeasurably
superior to the Beltham blood, I merely said, apart to old Sewis,
shrugging my shoulders, 'The squire expects me to recollect where I was
born. I'm not likely to forget his nonsense.'

Sewis, in reply, counselled me to direct a great deal of my attention to
the stables, and drink claret with the squire in the evening, things so
little difficult to do that I moralized reflectively, 'Here 's a way
of gaining a relative's affection!' The squire's punctilious regard for
payments impressed me, it is true. He had saved me from the disgrace of
owing money to my detested schoolmaster; and, besides, I was under his
roof, eating of his bread. My late adventurous life taught me that I
incurred an obligation by it. Kiomi was the sole victim of my anger that
really seemed to lie down to be trampled on, as she deserved for her
unpardonable treachery.

By degrees my grandfather got used to me, and commenced saying
in approval of certain of my performances, 'There's Beltham in
that--Beltham in that!' Once out hunting, I took a nasty hedge and ditch
in front of him; he bawled proudly, 'Beltham all over!' and praised me.
At night, drinking claret, he said on a sudden, 'And, egad, Harry, you
must jump your head across hedges and ditches, my little fellow. It
won't do, in these confounded days, to have you clever all at the wrong
end. In my time, good in the saddle was good for everything; but now you
must get your brains where you can--pick here, pick there--and sell 'em
like a huckster; some do. Nature's gone--it's damned artifice rules, I
tell ye; and a squire of our country must be three parts lawyer to keep
his own. You must learn; by God, sir, you must cogitate; you must stew
at books and maps, or you'll have some infernal upstart taking the
lead of you, and leaving you nothing but the whiff of his tail.' He
concluded, 'I'm glad to see you toss down your claret, my boy.'

Thus I grew in his favour, till I heard from him that I was to be the
heir of Riversley and his estates, but on one condition, which he did
not then mention. If I might have spoken to him of my father, I should
have loved him. As it was, I liked old Sewis better, for he would talk
to me of the night when