g life
afresh unbeholden to my father (even for what he could not take away
from me--my own name),--is a simple affair, although pitiful enough
perhaps. But memories of family wrongs and family quarrels are of
their nature painful; and, as I am a mirth-loving fellow, I hate to
bring them upon me. But perhaps it has occurred to you that I may have
brought some disgrace upon the name I have forsaken."

"I never allowed myself to think so," said Sir Adrian, surprised.
"Your very presence by my fireside is proof of it."

Again the captain scrutinised his host; then with a little laugh:
"Pardon me," he cried, "with another man one might accept that likely
proof and be flattered. But with you? why, I believe I know you too
well not to feel sure that you would have received me as kindly and
unreservedly, no matter what my past if only you thought that I had
repented; that you would forgive even a _crime_ regretted; and having
forgiven, forget.... But, to resume, you will believe me when I say
that there was nothing of the sort. No," he went on, with a musing
air, "but I could tell you of a boy, disliked at home for his stubborn
spirit, and one day thrashed, thrashed mercilessly--at a time when he
had thought he had reached to the pride of man's estate, thrashed by
his own father, and for no just cause.... Oh, Adrian, it is a terrible
thing to have put such resentment into a lad's heart." He rose as he
spoke, and placed himself before the hearth.

"If ever I have sons," he added after a pause, and at the words his
whole handsome face relaxed, and became suffused with a tender glow,
"I would rather cut my right hand off than raise such a spirit in
them. Well, I daresay you can guess the rest; I will even tell you in
a few words, and then dismiss the subject.--I have always had a
certain shrewdness at the bottom of my recklessness. Now there was a
cousin of the family, who had taken to commerce in Liverpool, and who
was therefore despised, ignored and insulted by us gentry of the
Shaws. So when I packed my bundle, and walked out of the park gate, I
thought of him; and two days later I presented myself at his mansion
in Rodney Street, Liverpool. I told him my name, whereat he scowled;
but he was promptly brought round upon hearing of my firm
determination to renounce it and all relations with my father's house
for ever, and of my reasons for this resolve, which he found
excellent. I could not have lighted upon a better man. He