en the cloth was drawn, and sack and sugar became the order of the
day, and the queen's health had been duly drunk with all the honours,
Frank rose.

"And now, gentlemen, let me give you a health which none of you, I dare
say, will refuse to drink with heart and soul as well as with lips--the
health of one whom beauty and virtue have so ennobled that in their
light the shadow of lowly birth is unseen--the health of 'The Rose of
Torridge,' and a double health to that worthy gentleman, whosoever he
may be, whom she is fated to honour with her love."

Whereupon young Will Cary, of Clovelly Court, calls out, "Join hands all
round, and swear eternal friendship, as brothers of the sacred order of
the--of what, Frank Leigh?"

"The Rose!" said Frank, quietly.

And somehow or other, whether it was Frank's chivalrous speech, or
Cary's fun, or Amyas's good wine, or the nobleness which lies in every
young lad's heart, the whole party shook hands all round, and vowed on
the hilt of Amyas's sword to stand by each other and by their lady-love,
and neither grudge nor grumble, let her dance with, flirt with, or marry
with whom she would; and, in order that the honour of their peerless
dame and the brotherhood which was named after her might be spread
through all lands, they would go home, and ask their fathers' leave to
go abroad wheresoever there were "good wars."

Then Amyas, hearing a sneeze, made a dash at the arras behind him, and,
finding a doorway there, speedily returned, dragging out Mr. John
Brimblecombe, the stout, dark-skinned son of the schoolmaster.

Jack Brimblecombe, now one-and-twenty and a bachelor of Oxford, was in
person exceedingly like a pig; but he was a pig of self-helpful and
serene spirit, always, while watching for the best, contented with the
worst, and therefore fattening fast while other pigs' ribs stare through
their skins.

He had lingered in the passage, hovering around the fragrant smell; and,
once there he could not help hearing what passed inside, till Rose
Salterne's name fell on his ear. And now behold him brought in
red-handed to judgment, not without a kick or two from the wrathful foot
of Amyas Leigh.

"What business have I here?" said Jack, making answer fiercely, amid
much puffing and blowing. "As much as any of you. If you had asked me in
I would have come. You laugh at me because I'm a poor parson's son, and
you fine gentlemen. God made us both, I reckon. I tell you I've loved
her t