that Robert took his lead. He was a very brave, a sweet-hearted, and a
handsome young man, and he had very chivalrous views of life, that were
understood by a sufficient number under the influence of ale or brandy,
and by a few in default of that material aid; and they had a family
pride in him. The pride was mixed with fear, which threw over it a
tender light, like a mother's dream of her child. The people, I have
said, are not so lost in self-contempt as to undervalue their best men,
but it must be admitted that they rarely produce young fellows wearing
the undeniable chieftain's stamp, and the rarity of one like Robert lent
a hue of sadness to him in their thoughts.

Fortune, moreover, the favourer of Nic Sedgett, blew foul whichever the
way Robert set his sails. He would not look to his own advantage; and
the belief that man should set his little traps for the liberal hand
of his God, if he wishes to prosper, rather than strive to be merely
honourable in his Maker's eye, is almost as general among poor people as
it is with the moneyed classes, who survey them from their height.

When jolly Butcher Billing, who was one of the limited company which had
sat with Robert at the Pilot last night, reported that he had quitted
the army, he was hearkened to dolefully, and the feeling was universal
that glorious Robert had cut himself off from his pension and his
hospital.

But when gossip Sedgett went his rounds, telling that Robert was down
among them again upon the darkest expedition their minds could conceive,
and rode out every morning for the purpose of encountering one of the
gentlemen up at Fairly, and had already pulled him off his horse and
laid him in the mud, calling him scoundrel and challenging him either
to yield his secret or to fight; and that he followed him, and was out
after him publicly, and matched himself against that gentleman, who
had all the other gentlemen, and the earl, and the law to back him, the
little place buzzed with wonder and alarm. Faint hearts declared that
Robert was now done for. All felt that he had gone miles beyond the
mark. Those were the misty days when fogs rolled up the salt river
from the winter sea, and the sun lived but an hour in the clotted sky,
extinguished near the noon.

Robert was seen riding out, and the tramp of his horse was heard as he
returned homeward. He called no more at the Pilot. Darkness and mystery
enveloped him. There were nightly meetings under Mrs. Bo