construction, dramatic
situations, and a skilful arrangement of incidents.
Altogether, Payn wrote about sixty volumes of novels and short
stories.

_I.--Neither Fearing God Nor Regarding Man_

In a Midland county, not as yet scarred by factories, there stands a
village called Fairburn, which at the time I knew it first had for its
squire, its lord, its despot, one Sir Massingberd Heath. Its rector, at
that date, was the Rev. Matthew Long, into whose wardship I, Peter
Meredith, an Anglo-Indian lad, was placed by my parents. I loved Mr.
Long, although he was my tutor; and oh, how I feared and hated Mr.
Massingberd! It was not, however, my boyhood alone that caused me to
hold this man as a monster of iniquity; it was the opinion which the
whole county entertained of him, more or less. Like the unjust judge, he
neither feared God nor regarded man.

He had been a fast, very fast friend of the regent; but they were no
longer on speaking terms. Sir Massingberd had left the gay, wicked world
for good, and was obliged to live at his beautiful country seat in spite
of himself. He was irretrievably ruined, and house and land being
entailed upon his nephew Marmaduke, he had nothing but a life interest
in anything.

Marmaduke Heath was Mr. Long's pupil as well as myself, and he resided
with his uncle at the Hall. He dreaded his relative beyond measure. All
the pretended frankness with which the old man sometimes treated the lad
was unable to hide the hate with which Sir Massingberd really regarded
him; but for this heir-presumptive to the entail, the baronet might
raise money to any extent, and once more take his rightful station in
the world.

Abject terror obscured the young existence of Marmaduke Heath. The
shadow of Sir Massingberd cast itself over him alike when he went out
from his hated presence and when he returned to it.

Soon after my first meeting with Marmaduke, Sir Massingberd unexpectedly
appeared before me. He was a man of Herculean proportions, dressed like
an under-gamekeeper, but with the face of one who was used to command.
On his forehead was a curious indented frown like the letter V, and his
lips curled contemptuously upward in the same shape. These two together
gave him a weird, demoniacal look, which his white beard, although long
and flowing, had not enough of dignity to do away with. He ordered his
nephew to go home, and the boy instantly obeyed, as though he almost
dreaded a blo