of advantageous matrimony had earned for him at Court
the nickname of "The Sparrowhawk." But even these efforts had soon to be
relinquished for want of the wherewithal.

The doting mother no longer could supply him with a sufficiency of money
to vie with the rich gallants at the Court, and the savings which Sir
Jeremy had been patiently accumulating with a view to freeing the Acol
estates from mortgage went instead to rescue young Marmaduke from a
debtor's prison.

Poor Sir Jeremy did not long survive his disappointment. Marmaduke
returned to Acol Court only to find his mother a broken invalid, and his
father dead.

Since then it had been a perpetual struggle against poverty and debt, a
bitter revolt against Fate, a burning desire to satisfy ambition which
had received so serious a check.

When the great conflict broke out between King and Parliament, he threw
himself into it, without zest and without conviction, embracing the
cause of the malcontents with a total lack of enthusiasm, merely out of
disappointment--out of hatred for the brilliant Court and circle in
which he had once hoped to become a prominent figure.

He fought under Ireton, was commended as a fairly good soldier, though
too rebellious to be very reliable, too self-willed to be wholly
trusted.

Even in these days of brilliant reputations quickly made, he remained
obscure and practically unnoticed. Advancement never came his way and
whilst younger men succeeded in attracting the observant eye of old
Noll, he was superseded at every turn, passed over--anon forgotten.

When my Lord Protector's entourage was formed, the Household organized,
no one thought of the Sparrowhawk for any post that would have satisfied
his desires. Once more he cursed his own poverty. Money--the want of
it--he felt was at the root of all his disappointments. A burning desire
to obtain it at any cost, even that of honor, filled his entire being,
his mind, his soul, his thoughts, every nerve in his body. Money, and
social prestige! To be somebody at Court or elsewhere, politically,
commercially,--he cared not. To handle money and to command attention!

He became wary, less reckless, striving to obtain by diplomatic means
that which he had once hoped to snatch by sheer force of personality.
The Court of Chancery having instituted itself sole guardian and
administrator of the revenues and fortunes of minors whose fathers had
fought on the Royalist side, and were either dead o