out and signed it solemnly.  It was in these words:—­“I make on this day a promiss, that if I marry my Cousin Kate Doughty, this year, or before three years are over, at the latest, to build a church or chapel at Tichborne to the Holy Virgin, in thanksgiving for the protection which she has showed us in praying God that our wishes might be fulfilled.”  Roger went back to his regiment and indulged his habitual melancholy.  To his great regret, the order for the Carabineers to go to India had been countermanded; but he had no intention of leading the dull round of barrack life in Canterbury.  He had determined to go abroad for a year and a half or two years; by that time the allotted period of trial would be near an end.  He had determined to leave a profession which offered no outlet for his energies.  The tame round of the cities and picture-galleries of Europe had no charms for him.  Among the many books which he had read at this time were the Indian romances of Chateaubriand, “Rene,” “Attila,” and “Le Dernier Abencerage.”  How deeply these stories had impressed his mind is apparent in his letters to Lady Doughty.  “Happy,” he says, “was the life of Rene.  He knew how to take his troubles with courage, and keep them to himself,—­retired from all his friends to be more at liberty to think about his sorrows and misfortunes, and bury them in himself.  I admire that man for his courage; that is, the courage to carry those sorrows to the grave which drove him into solitude.”  Among his intimate friends and schoolfellows at Stonyhurst, was Mr. Edward Waterton, whose father, the celebrated naturalist, had given to the college a collection of stuffed foreign birds and other preserved animals; and there can be no doubt that the famous narratives of adventure in South America of that distinguished traveller were among the books which Roger and other college friends read at that period.  How deeply the splendours of the natural history collection of Stonyhurst had impressed the mind of the boy is evidenced in the fact that Roger took delight at school in practising the art of preserving birds and other animals; while long afterwards, in humble emulation of the great naturalist’s achievement, he gathered and sent home, when on his travels, many a specimen of birds of splendid plumage.  South America, in short, had long been the subject of his dreams; and now in travelling in that vast continent, he would try to find occupation for the mind, and get through the long time of waiting which he had undertaken to bear patiently.  His scheme was to spend a twelvemonth in Chili, Guayaquil, and Peru, seeing not only wild scenes but famous cities; thence to visit Mexico, and so by way of the United States find his way back to England.  Having taken this resolution, he set about putting his affairs in order, for Roger was a man of business-like habits, and by no means prone to neglect his worldly interests.  He made his will,—­saying, however, as he remarked in one of his letters, “nothing about the church