the house. Then one day came a
letter from an Irish peer, the Earl of Kildonan (who had known Dr.
Ashton at college), putting it to the doctor whether he would consider
taking into his family the Viscount Saul, the Earl's heir, and acting
in some sort as his tutor. Lord Kildonan was shortly to take up a post
in the Lisbon Embassy, and the boy was unfit to make the voyage: "not
that he is sickly," the Earl wrote, "though you'll find him whimsical,
or of late I've thought him so, and to confirm this, 'twas only
to-day his old nurse came expressly to tell me he was possess'd: but
let that pass; I'll warrant you can find a spell to make all straight.
Your arm was stout enough in old days, and I give you plenary
authority to use it as you see fit. The truth is, he has here no boys
of his age or quality to consort with, and is given to moping about in
our raths and graveyards: and he brings home romances that fright my
servants out of their wits. So there are you and your lady
forewarned." It was perhaps with half an eye open to the possibility
of an Irish bishopric (at which another sentence in the Earl's letter
seemed to hint) that Dr. Ashton accepted the charge of my Lord
Viscount Saul and of the 200 guineas a year that were to come with
him.

So he came, one night in September. When he got out of the chaise that
brought him, he went first and spoke to the postboy and gave him some
money, and patted the neck of his horse. Whether he made some movement
that scared it or not, there was very nearly a nasty accident, for the
beast started violently, and the postilion being unready was thrown
and lost his fee, as he found afterwards, and the chaise lost some
paint on the gateposts, and the wheel went over the man's foot who was
taking out the baggage. When Lord Saul came up the steps into the
light of the lamp in the porch to be greeted by Dr. Ashton, he was
seen to be a thin youth of, say, sixteen years old, with straight
black hair and the pale colouring that is common to such a figure. He
took the accident and commotion calmly enough, and expressed a proper
anxiety for the people who had been, or might have been, hurt: his
voice was smooth and pleasant, and without any trace, curiously, of an
Irish brogue.

Frank Sydall was a younger boy, perhaps of eleven or twelve, but Lord
Saul did not for that reject his company. Frank was able to teach him
various games he had not known in Ireland, and he was apt at learning
them; a