collared his ruffian, and subsequently sat in condemnation of the wretch:
for he who can attest a villany is best qualified to punish it. Gangs
from the metropolis found him too determined and alert for their sport.
It was the factiousness of here and there an unbroken young scoundrelly
colt poacher of the neighbourhood, a born thief, a fellow damned in an
inveterate taste for game, which gave him annoyance. One night he took
Master Nevil out with him, and they hunted down a couple of sinners that
showed fight against odds. Nevil attempted to beg them off because of
their boldness. 'I don't set my traps for nothing,' said his uncle,
silencing him. But the boy reflected that his uncle was perpetually
lamenting the cowed spirit of the common English-formerly such fresh and
merry men! He touched Rosamund Culling's heart with his description of
their attitudes when they stood resisting and bawling to the keepers,
'Come on we'll die for it.' They did not die. Everard explained to the
boy that he could have killed them, and was contented to have sent them
to gaol for a few weeks. Nevil gaped at the empty magnanimity which his
uncle presented to him as a remarkably big morsel. At the age of
fourteen he was despatched to sea.

He went unwillingly; not so much from an objection to a naval life as
from a wish, incomprehensible to grown men and boys, and especially to
his cousin, Cecil Baskelett, that he might remain at school and learn.
'The fellow would like to be a parson!' Everard said in disgust. No
parson had ever been known of in the Romfrey family, or in the Beauchamp.
A legend of a parson that had been a tutor in one of the Romfrey houses,
and had talked and sung blandly to a damsel of the blood--degenerate maid
--to receive a handsome trouncing for his pains, instead of the holy
marriage-tie he aimed at, was the only connection of the Romfreys with
the parsonry, as Everard called them. He attributed the boy's feeling to
the influence of his great-aunt Beauchamp, who would, he said, infallibly