“Why, the girl that decoyed you from your father’s roof.”

“No girl decoyed me from here, sir, upon my honor.”

“Whom are we talking about, then?  Who is her?”

“Her?  Why, Lucy Monckton.”

“And who is Lucy Monckton?”

“Why, the girl I fell in love with, and she deceived me nicely; but I found her out in time.”

“And so you came home to snivel?”

“No, sir, I didn’t; I’m not such a muff.  I’m too much your son to love any woman long when I have learned to despise her.  I came home to apologize, and to place myself under your orders, if you will forgive me, and find something useful for me to do.”

“So I will, my boy; there’s my hand.  Now out with it.  What did you go away for, since it wasn’t a petticoat?”

“Well, sir, I am afraid I shall offend you.”

“Not a bit of it, after I’ve given you my hand.  Come, now, what was it?”

Walter pondered and hesitated, but at last hit upon a way to explain.

“Sir,” said he, “until I was six years old they used to give me peaches from Oddington House; but one fine day the supply stopped, and I uttered a small howl to my nurse.  Old John heard me, and told me Oddington was sold, house, garden, estate, and all.”

Colonel Clifford snorted.

Walter resumed, modestly but firmly: 

“I was thirteen; I used to fish in a brook that ran near Drayton Park.  One day I was fishing there, when a brown velveteen chap stopped me, and told me I was trespassing.  ‘Trespassing?’ said I.  ’I have fished here all my life; I am Walter Clifford, and this belongs to my father.’  ‘Well,’ said the man, ’I’ve heerd it did belong to Colonel Clifford onst, but now it belongs to Muster Mills; so you must fish in your own water, young gentleman, and leave ourn to us as owns it.’  Till I was eighteen I used to shoot snipes in a rushy bottom near Calverley Church.  One day a fellow in black velveteen, and gaiters up to his middle, warned me out of that in the name of Muster Cannon.”

Colonel Clifford, who had been drumming on the table all this time, looked uneasy, and muttered, with some little air of compunction:  “They have plucked my feathers deucedly, that’s a fact.  Hang that fellow Stevens, persuading me to keep race-horses; it’s all his fault.  Well, sir, proceed with your observations.”

“Well, I inquired who could afford to buy what we were too poor to keep, and I found these wealthy purchasers were all in trade, not one of them a gentleman.”

“You might have guessed that,” said Colonel Clifford:  “it is as much as a gentleman can do to live out of jail nowadays.”

“Yes, sir,” said Walter.  “Cotton had bought one of these estates, tallow another, and lucifer-matches the other.”

“Plague take them all three!” roared the Colonel.

“Well, then, sir,” said Walter, “I could not help thinking there must be some magic in trade, and I had better go into it.  I didn’t think you would consent to that.  I wasn’t game to defy you; so I did a meanish thing, and slipped away into a merchant’s office.”