rank sedition and hater of aristocracy, a political poacher, managed to
make himself heard. He was tossed to the Press for morsel, and tossed
back to the people in strips. Everard had a sharp return of appetite in
reading the daily and weekly journals. They printed logic, they printed
sense; they abused the treasonable barking cur unmercifully. They
printed almost as much as he would have uttered, excepting the strong
salt of his similes, likening that rascal and his crew to the American
weed in our waters, to the rotting wild bees' nest in our trees, to the
worm in our ships' timbers, and to lamentable afflictions of the human
frame, and of sheep, oxen, honest hounds. Manchester was in eclipse.
The world of England discovered that the peace-party which opposed was
the actual cause of the war: never was indication clearer. But my
business is with Mr. Beauchamp, to know whom, and partly understand his
conduct in after-days, it will be as well to take a bird'seye glance at
him through the war.

'Now,' said Everard, 'we shall see what staff there is in that fellow
Nevil.'

He expected, as you may imagine, a true young Beauchamp-Romfrey to be
straining his collar like a leash-hound.




CHAPTER IV

A GLIMPSE OF NEVIL IN ACTION

The young gentleman to whom Everard Romfrey transferred his combative