this male beauty’s star was in the ascendant.  All the town talked of him, his dress, his high play, the various intrigues he was engaged in and was not reluctant that the world of fashion should hear of.  The party of young gentlemen who had been led by him at the University took him for their model in town, so that there were a set of beaux whose brocaded coats, lace steenkirks, sword-knots, and carriage were as like Sir John’s as their periwigs were like his fair locks, they having been built as similar as possible by their peruquiers.  His coach and four were the finest upon the road, his chair and chariot, in the town; he had fought a duel about a woman, and there were those who more than suspected that the wildest band of Mohocks who played pranks at night was formed of half a dozen pretty fellows who were known as the “Jack Oxonites.”

He was not a young man whose acquirements were to be praised or emulated, but there were pretty women who flattered him and men of fashion who found pleasure in his society, for a time at least, and many a strange scandal connected itself with his name.

He sang, he told wicked stories, he gambled, and at certain coffee-houses shone with resplendent light as a successful beau and conqueror.

’Twas at a club that Roxholm first beheld him.  He had heard him spoken of but had not seen him, and going into the coffee-room one evening with a friend, a Captain Warbeck, found there a noisy party of beaux, all richly dressed, all full of wine, and all seeming to be the guests of a handsome fellow more elegantly attired and wearing a more dashing air than any of them.  He was in blue and silver and had fair golden love-locks which fell in rich profusion on his shoulders.

He stood up among the company leaning against the table, taking snuff from a jewelled gold snuff-box with an insolent, laughing grace.

“A quaint jade she must be, damme,” he said.  “I have heard of her these three years, and she is not yet fifteen.  Never were told me such stories of a young thing’s beauty since I was man-born.  Eyes like stars, flaming and black as jet, a carriage like a Juno, a shape—­good Lord! like all the goddesses a man has heard of—­and hair which is like a mantle and sweeps upon the ground.  In less than a year’s time I will go to Gloucestershire and bring back a lock of it—­for a trophy.”  And he looked about him mockingly, as if in triumph.

“She will clout thee blind, Jack, as she clouted the Chaplain,” cried one of the company.  “No man that lives can tame her.  She is the fiercest shrew in England, as she is the greatest beauty.”

“She will thrash thee, Jack, as she thrashed her own father with his hunting crop when she was but five years old,” another cried.

The beau in blue and silver flicked the grains of snuff lightly from the lace of his steenkirk with a white jewelled hand and smiled, slowly nodding his fair curled head.