my century, was familiar with these things; but
my mother forbade my meddling with them. I expect she knew enough
herself--all the resident gentry did. But Ralph--though he was to some
extent of the new school, and used to boast that, if applied to, he
"would grant a warrant against any Free Trader"--never did, as a matter
of fact, or not for many years.

Carlos, then, Rooksby's Spanish kinsman, had come and gone, and I
envied him his going, with his air of mystery, to some far-off lawless
adventures--perhaps over there in Spain, where there were war and
rebellion. Shortly afterwards Rooksby proposed for the hand of Veronica
and was accepted--by my mother. Veronica went about looking happy. That
upset me, too. It seemed unjust that she should go out into the great
world--to Bath, to Brighton, should see the Prince Regent and the great
fights on Hounslow Heath--whilst I was to remain forever a farmer's boy.
That afternoon I was upstairs, looking at the reflection of myself in
the tall glass, wondering miserably why I seemed to be such an oaf.

The voice of Rooksby hailed me suddenly from downstairs. "Hey,
John--John Kemp; come down, I say!"

I started away from the glass as if I had been taken in an act of folly.
Rooksby was flicking his leg with his switch in the doorway, at the
bottom of the narrow flight of stairs.

He wanted to talk to me, he said, and I followed him out through the
yard on to the soft road that climbs the hill to westward. The evening
was falling slowly and mournfully; it was dark already in the folds of
the sombre downs.

We passed the corner of the orchard. "I know what you've got to tell
me," I said. "You're going to marry Veronica. Well, you've no need of my
blessing. Some people have all the luck. Here am I . . . look at me!"

Ralph walked with his head bent down.

"Confound it," I said, "I shall run away to sea! I tell you, I'm
rotting, rotting! There! I say, Ralph, give me Carlos' direction...." I
caught hold of his arm. "I'll go after him. He'd show me a little life.
He said he would."

Ralph remained lost in a kind of gloomy abstraction, while I went on
worrying him for Carlos' address.

"Carlos is the only soul I know outside five miles from here. Besides,
he's friends in the Indies. That's where I want to go, and he could give
me a cast. You remember what Tomas Castro said. . . ."

Rooksby came to a sudden halt, and began furiously to switch his corded
legs.

"Curse Carlos,