before him on
a gray crag, and the moonlight full on his face, he saw a solitary man,
looking upwards with a still and mournful gaze, evidently absorbed in
abstract contemplation.

Recalling the description of the stranger which he had heard from Mr.
Lethbridge and the Saundersons, Mr. Travers felt sure that he had come
on him at last. He approached gently; and, being much concealed by the
tall ferns, Kenelm (for that itinerant it was) did not see him advance,
until he felt a hand on his shoulder, and, turning round, beheld a
winning smile and heard a pleasant voice.

"I think I am not mistaken," said Leopold Travers, "in assuming you to
be the gentleman whom Mr. Lethbridge promised to introduce to me, and
who is staying with my tenant, Mr. Saunderson?"

Kenelm rose and bowed. Travers saw at once that it was the bow of a man
in his own world, and not in keeping with the Sunday costume of a petty
farmer. "Nay," said he, "let us talk seated;" and placing himself on the
crag, he made room for Kenelm beside him.

"In the first place," resumed Travers, "I must thank you for having
done a public service in putting down the brute force which has long
tyrannized over the neighbourhood. Often in my young days I have felt
the disadvantage of height and sinews, whenever it would have been a
great convenience to terminate dispute or chastise insolence by a
resort to man's primitive weapons; but I never more lamented my physical
inferiority than on certain occasions when I would have given my ears to
be able to thrash Tom Bowles myself. It has been as great a disgrace to
my estate that that bully should so long have infested it as it is
to the King of Italy not to be able with all his armies to put down a
brigand in Calabria."

"Pardon me, Mr. Travers, but I am one of those rare persons who do not
like to hear ill of their friends. Mr. Thomas Bowles is a particular
friend of mine."

"Eh!" cried Travers, aghast. "'Friend!' you are joking.

"You would not accuse me of joking if you knew me better. But surely you
have felt that there are few friends one likes more cordially, and ought
to respect more heedfully, than the enemy with whom one has just made it
up."

"You say well, and I accept the rebuke," said Travers, more and more
surprised. "And I certainly have less right to abuse Mr. Bowles than
you have, since I had not the courage to fight him. To turn to another
subject less provocative. Mr. Lethbridge has told me of you