but farthingales and 'modesty
pieces' high enough to graze her chin. 'Some of their words we did not
understand'"--reading from the letter, and he looked at the company
with a large comprehensive wink. "'Her breeding is disgraceful and her
langwidge a disgrace to her secks'--Well, I'll be hanged if she isn't a
girl after a man's own heart, if she's handsome enough to dress like a
lad, and has the spirit to ride and leap like one--and can slap a
Chaplain's face for him when he plays the impudent goat. Aren't you of
my opinion, Roxholm, for all you don't laugh as loud as the rest of us?
Aren't you of my mind?"

"Yes," said Roxholm, who for a few moments had been gazing at the wall
with a somewhat fierce expression.

"Hello!" exclaimed Tantillion, not knowing the meaning of it. "What are
you thinking of?"

Roxholm recovered himself, but his smile was rather a grim one.

"I think of the Chaplain," he said, "and how I should like to have
dealt with him myself--after young Mistress Wildairs let him go."

_CHAPTER IX_

_Sir John Oxon Lays a Wager at Cribb's Coffee House_.

This is to be no story of wars and battles, of victories and historic
events, such great engines being but touched upon respectfully, as
their times and results formed part of the atmosphere of the life of a
gentleman of rank who moved in the world affected by them, and among
such personages as were most involved in the stirring incidents of
their day. That which is to be told is but the story of a man's life
and the love which was the greatest power in it--the thing which
brought to him the fiercest struggles, the keenest torture, and the
most perfect joy.

During the next two years Gerald Mertoun saw some pretty service and
much change of scene, making the "grand tour," as it were, under
circumstances more exciting and of more moment to the world at large
than is usually the case when a gentleman makes it. He so acquitted
himself on several occasions that England heard of him and prophesied
that if my Lord Marlborough's head were taken off in action there was a
younger hero who might fill his place. At the news of each battle,
whether it ended in victory or not, old Rowe rang the bells at
Camylott, rejoicing that even if the enemy was not routed with great
slaughter, my lord Marquess was still alive to fight another day. At
Blenheim he so bore himself that the Duke talked long and gravely with
him in private, laying before him all the tr