“Pooh! you need not be so shy,” answered the other; “everyone for himself is but fair, and I had much rather you had got it than the rascally ganger.  I was making interest for it myself, and I think I had some title.  I voted for this same baronet at the last election, and made some of my friends do so, too; though I would not have you imagine that I sold my vote.  No, I scorn it—­let me tell you I scorn it; but I thought as how this man was staunch and true, and I find he’s but a double-faced fellow after all, and speechifies in the House for any side he hopes to make most by.  A murrain on the smooth-tongued knave, and after all to get it for this rascal of a ganger.”

“The ganger!  There must be some mistake,” said Harley.  “He writes me that it was engaged for one whose long services—­”

“Services!” interrupted the other; “some paltry convenience to the baronet.  A plague on all rogues!  I shall but just drink destruction to them to-night and leave London to-morrow by sunrise.”

“I shall leave it, too,” said Harley; and so he accordingly did.

In passing through Piccadilly, he had observed on the window of an inn a notification of the departure of a stage-coach for a place on his road homewards; on the way back to his lodgings, he took a seat in it.

IV.—­He Meets an Old Acquaintance

When the stage-coach arrived at the place of its destination, Harley, who did things frequently in a way different from what other people call natural, set out immediately afoot, having first put a spare shirt in his pocket and given directions for the forwarding of his portmanteau.  It was a method of travelling which he was accustomed to take.

On the road, about four miles from his destination, Harley overtook an old man, who from his dress had been a soldier, and walked with him.

“Sir,” said the stranger, looking earnestly at him, “is not your name Harley?  You may well have forgotten my face, ’tis a long time since you saw it; but possibly you may remember something of old Edwards?  When you were at school in the neighbourhood, you remember me at South Hill?”

“Edwards!” cried Harley, “O, heavens! let me clasp those knees on which I have sat so often.  Edwards!  I shall never forget that fireside, round which I have been so happy!  But where have you been?  Where is Jack?  Where is your daughter?”

“’Tis a long tale,” replied Edwards, “but I will try to tell it you as we walk.”

Edwards had been a tenant farmer where his father, grandfather, and great-grandfather had lived before him.  The rapacity of a land steward, heavy agricultural losses, and finally the arrival of a press-gang had reduced him to misery.  By paying a certain sum of money he had been accepted by the press-gang instead of his son, and now old Edwards was returning home invalided from the army.

When they had arrived within a little way of the village they journeyed to, Harley stopped short and looked steadfastly on the mouldering walls of a ruined house that stood by the roadside.