and knitted
people together--an estimable office in a land where your house is so
grievously your castle.

"What the devil have you got in you now?" Jonathan cried out to him.

Mr. Sedgett was seized by his complaint and demanded commiseration, but,
recovering, he chuckled again.

"Oh, Bob Eccles! Don't you never grow older? And the first day
down among us again, too. Why, Bob, as a military man, you ought to
acknowledge your superiors. Why, Stephen Bilton, the huntsman, says,
Bob, you pulled the young gentleman off his horse--you on foot, and him
mounted. I'd ha' given pounds to be there. And ladies present! Lord
help us! I'm glad you're returned, though. These melons of the farmer's,
they're a wonderful invention; people are speaking of 'em right
and left, and says, says they, Farmer Eccles, he's best farmer
going--Hampshire ought to be proud of him--he's worth two of any others:
that they are fine ones! And you're come back to keep 'em up, eh, Bob?
Are ye, though, my man?"

"Well, here I am, Mr. Sedgett," said Robert, "and talking to my father."

"Oh! I wouldn't be here to interrupt ye for the world." Mr. Sedgett made
a show of retiring, but Jonathan insisted upon his disburdening himself
of his tale, saying: "Damn your raw beginnings, Sedgett! What's been up?
Nobody can hurt me."

"That they can't, neighbour; nor Bob neither, as far as stand up man to
man go. I give him three to one--Bob Eccles! He took 'em when a boy.
He may, you know, he may have the law agin him, and by George! if he
do--why, a man's no match for the law. No use bein' a hero to the
law. The law masters every man alive; and there's law in everything,
neighbour Eccles; eh, sir? Your friend, the Prince, owns to it, as much
as you or me. But, of course, you know what Bob's been doing. What
I dropped in to ask was, why did ye do it, Bob? Why pull the young
gentleman off his horse? I'd ha' given pounds to be there!"

"Pounds o' tallow candles don't amount to much," quoth Robert.

"That's awful bad brandy at 'The Pilot,'" said Mr. Sedgett, venomously.

"Were you drunk when you committed this assault?" Jonathan asked his
son.

"I drank afterwards," Robert replied.

"'Pilot' brandy's poor consolation," remarked Mr. Sedgett.

Jonathan had half a mind to turn his son out of the gate, but the
presence of Sedgett advised him that his doings were naked to the world.

"You kicked up a shindy in the hunting-field--what about? Who mounted
ye?"