thenope--Parthenope--and to-morrow 'Arms and the
man.' Boy," said he sharply, "we do not translate the Aeneid."

"No, sir?"

"Mr. Rogers calls for you to-night. A draft of the 52nd Regiment
sails from Plymouth to-morrow. You will find, when you join it in
Spain, that--that my son-in-law"--he hesitated and spoke the word
with a certain prim deliberateness--"has been gazetted to an
ensigncy in that gallant regiment. I may tell you that he owes this
to no intervention of mine, but solely to the generosity of Miss
Belcher. Before departing--I will do him so much justice--he spoke
to me very frankly of his past, and for my daughter's sake and his
father's I trust that, as under Providence you were an instrument in
averting its consequences, so you may sound him yet to some action
which, whether he lives or falls, may redeem it. Mr. Rogers will sup
with us to-night. If I mistake not, I hear his wheels on the road."
He drew himself up to his full height and bowed. "You have done a
service, boy, to the honour of two families. I thank you for it, and
shall not omit to remember you daily when I thank God. Shall we go
in?"

I had, as I said just now, almost forgotten my fears of the Law: but
that the Law had not relaxed its interest in me was evident from my
friends' precautions. Night had fallen before Mr. Rogers rose from
table and gave the word for departure, and after exchanging some
formal farewells with Major Brooks, and some very tender ones with
Isabel, I was packed in the tilbury and driven off into darkness in
which the world seemed uncomfortably large and vague and my prospects
disconcertingly ill lit.

"D'ye know what _that_ is?" asked Mr. Rogers at the end of five
minutes, pulling up his mare and jerking his whip towards a splash of
white beside the road.

"No, sir."

He pulled a rein, and brought the light of the offside lamp to bear
on a milestone with a bill pasted upon it.

"A full, particular, and none too flattering description of you, my
lad, with an offer of twenty pounds. And I'm a Justice of the Peace!
Cl'k, lass!"

On went the mare; and I, who had been feeling like a needle in a
bundle of hay, now shrank down within my wraps as though the night
had a thousand eyes.

We reached the village of Anthony: and here, instead of holding on
for Torpoint and the ferry, Mr. Rogers struck aside into a lane on
our right, so steep and narrow that he alighted and led the mare
down, holding one