prove, by that, that this lesson
has had its effect, that you deeply repent of your conduct, and are
resolved to do your best to be henceforth straight, honourable, and
true, you will, at my death, occupy the position I have intended for
you. If not, not one single penny of my money will you get. I am going
to put you in a school where you will be looked strictly after, and
where you will have every chance of retrieving yourself. I have just
written to a friend of mine, a post captain in his majesty's service,
asking him to receive you as a midshipman. I have told him frankly that
you have been somewhat over indulged, and that the discipline of the
sea life will be of great benefit to you, and have requested him to
keep a tight hand over you, and let me know occasionally how you are
going on. I have told him that your position as my heir will, to a very
large extent, depend upon his reports, and have asked him, in the name
of our old friendship, to be perfectly frank and open in them with me.
I have said 'he is my eldest nephew, but I have others who will take
his place, if he is unworthy of the position, and although I should be
sorry if he should be found wanting, I will commit the interests of all
the tenants and people on my estate to no one who is not, in every
respect, an honourable gentleman.'

"That will do, sir. You need not remain longer in your room, but you
will not leave the grounds. My friend's ship is at Portsmouth at
present, and doubtless I shall receive an answer in the course of a few
days. Until then, the less we see each other, the more pleasant for us
both."

There were few more miserable boys in England than Richard Horton,
during the week which elapsed before the answer to the squire's letter
was received. It cannot be said that, in the true sense of the word, he
was sorry for his fault. He was furious with himself, not because he
had lied, but because of the consequences of the lie. A thousand times
he called himself a fool for having imperilled his position, and risked
being sent back again to the dingy house in London, merely to excuse
himself for being thrashed by a boy smaller than himself. Mad with his
folly, not in having invented the story, but in having neglected to
look round, to assure himself that there were no witnesses who would
contradict it, he wandered disconsolate about the gardens and park,
cursing what he called his fortune.

It was an additional sting to his humiliation, t