doing the pious work of bearing the dead to the grave.  None suspected him, for the disguise is complete, and a duke may walk unknown beside a water-carrier, bearing the corpse of a cobbler.  All would have been well, but that at the very brink of the grave the boy’s fiend—­’tis his own word—­impelled him to break forth into his wild “Ho! ho! ho!” with an eldritch shriek, and slipping out of his cerements, dash off headlong over the wall of the cemetery.  He was not followed.  I believe the poor body belonged to a fellow whose salvation was more than doubtful in spite of all the priests could do, and that the bearers really took him for the foul fiend.  It was not till a week or two after that the ring of his voice and laugh caused him to be recognised by one of the Duke of Savoy’s gentlemen, happily a prudent man, loth to cause a tumult against one of my suite, and he told me all privately in warning.  Ay, and when I spoke to Peregrine, I found him thoroughly penitent at having insulted the dead; he had been unhappy ever since, and had actually bestowed his last pocket-piece on the widow.  He made handsome apologies in good Italian, which he had picked up as fast as the German, to the gentleman, who promised that it should go no farther, and kept his word.  It was the solemnity, Peregrine assured me, that brought back all the intolerableness of the preachings at home, and awoke the same demon.”

“How long ago was this, sir?”

“About eighteen months.”

“And has all been well since?”

“Fairly well.  He has had fuller and more responsible work to do for me, his turn for languages making him a most valuable secretary; and in the French Court, really the most perilous of all to a young man’s virtue, he behaved himself well.  It is not debauchery that he has a taste for, but he must be doing something, and if wholesome occupations do not stay his appetite, he will be doing mischief.  He brought on himself a very serious rebuke from the Prince of Orange, churlishly and roughly given, I allow, but fully merited, for making grimaces at his acquaintance among the young officers at a military inspection.  Heaven help the lad if he be left with his father, whose most lively notion of innocent sport is scratching the heads of his hogs!”

Nothing could be said in answer save earnest wishes that the knight might persuade his brother.  Mrs. Woodford wished her brother-in-law to go with him to add force to his remonstrance; but on the whole it was thought better to leave the family to themselves, Dr. Woodford only writing to Major Oakshott, as well as to the youth himself.

The result was anxiously watched for, and in another week, earlier in the day than Mrs. Woodford was able to leave her room, Sir Peregrine’s horses stopped at the door, and as Anne ascertained by a peep from the window, he was only accompanied by his servants.

“Yes,” he said to the Doctor in his vexation, “one would really think that by force of eating Southdown mutton my poor brother had acquired the brains of one of his own rams!  I declare ’tis a piteous sight to see a man resolute on ruining his son and breaking his own heart all for conscience sake!”