“The fellow who wrote this is worse than a murderer!” he exclaimed.  “I’ll shoot him—­unless he prefers cold steel, and then I shall serve him as I served General Griscelli; and ’pon my soul I believe Griscelli was the least rascally of the two!  I would as lief be hunted by blood-hounds as be stabbed in the back by anonymous slanderers!”

And then he wanted me to take a challenge to the enterprising editor, and arrange for a meeting, which rendered it necessary to remind him that we were not in the England of fifty years ago, and that duelling was abolished, and that his traducer would not only refuse to fight, but denounce his challenger to the police and gibbet him in his paper.  I pointed out, on the other hand, that the article was clearly libellous, and recommended Mr. Fortescue either to obtain a criminal information against the proprietor of the paper, or sue him for damages.

“No, sir!” he answered, with a gesture of indignation and disdain—­“no, sir, I shall neither obtain a criminal information nor sue for damages.  The man who goes to law surrenders his liberty of action and becomes the sport of chicaning lawyers and hair-splitting judges.  I would rather lose a hundred thousand pounds!”

Mr. Fortescue passed the remainder of the day at his desk, writing and arranging his papers.  The next morning I heard, without surprise, that he and Ramon were going abroad.

“I don’t know when I shall return,” said Mr. Fortescue, as we shook hands at the hall door, “but act as you always do when I am from home, and in the course of a few days you will hear from me.”

I did hear from him, and what I heard was of a nature so surprising as nearly to take my breath away.

“You will never see me at Kingscote again,” he wrote; “I am going to a country where I shall be safe, as well from the attacks of Corsican assassins as from the cowardly outrages of rascally newspapers.”  And then he gave instructions as to the disposal of his property at Kingscote.  Certain things, which he enumerated, were to be packed up in cases and forwarded to Amsterdam.  The furniture and effects in and about the house were to be sold, and the proceeds placed at the disposal of the county authorities for the benefit of local charities.  Every outdoor servant was to receive six months’ pay, every in-door servant twelve months’ pay, in lieu of notice.  Geirt was to join Mr. Fortescue in a month’s time at Damascus; and to me, in lieu of notice, and as evidence of his regard, he gave all his horses, carriages, saddlery, harness, and stable equipments (not being freehold) of every description whatsoever, to be dealt with as I thought fit for my personal advantage.  His solicitors, with my help, would wind up his affairs, and his bankers had instructions to discharge all his liabilities.

His memoirs, or so much of them as I had written down, I might (if I thought they would interest anybody) publish, but not before the fiftieth year of the Victorian era, or the death of the German emperor, whichever event happened first.  The letter concluded thus:  “I strongly advise you to buy a practice and settle down to steady work.  We may meet again.  If I live to be a hundred, you shall hear from me.  If I die sooner you will probably hear of my demise from the house at Amsterdam, to whom please send your new address.”