“What would your brother have said if I had asked him to give it to me?”

“He wouldn’t have given it of course.  Nobody does give anything to anybody now-a-days.  Livings are a sort of thing that people buy.  But you’d have got it under favorable circumstances.”

“The fact is, Archie, I’m not very fond of the church, as a profession.”

“I should have thought it easy work.  Look at your father.  He keeps a curate and doesn’t take any trouble himself.  Upon my word, if I’d known as much then as I do now, I’d have had a shy for it myself.  Hugh couldn’t have refused it to me.”

“But Hugh can’t give it while his uncle holds it.”

“That would have been against me to be sure, and your governor’s life is pretty nearly as good as mine.  I shouldn’t have liked waiting; so I suppose it’s as well as it is.”

There may perhaps have been other reasons why Archie Clavering’s regrets that he did not take holy orders were needless.  He had never succeeded in learning anything that any master had ever attempted to teach him, although he had shown considerable aptitude in picking up acquirements for which no regular masters are appointed.  He knew the fathers and mothers—­sires and dams I ought perhaps to say—­and grandfathers and grandmothers, and so back for some generations, of all the horses of note living in his day.  He knew also the circumstances of all races—­what horses would run at them, and at what ages, what were the stakes, the periods of running, and the special interests of each affair.  But not, on that account, should it be thought that the turf had been profitable to him.  That it might become profitable at some future time, was possible; but Captain Archibald Clavering had not yet reached the profitable stage in the career of a betting man, though perhaps he was beginning to qualify himself for it.  He was not bad-looking, though his face was unprepossessing to a judge of character.  He was slight and well made about five feet nine in height, with light brown hair, which had already left the top of his head bald, with slight whiskers, and a well-formed moustache.  But the peculiarity of his face was in his eyes.  His eyebrows were light-colored and very slight, and this was made more apparent by the skin above the eyes, which was loose and hung down over the outside corners of them, giving him a look of cunning which was disagreeable.  He seemed always to be speculating, counting up the odds, and calculating whether anything could be done with the events then present before him.  And he was always ready to make a bet, being ever provided with a book for that purpose.  He would take the odds that the sun did not rise on the morrow, and would either win the bet or wrangle in the losing of it.  He would wrangle, but would do so noiselessly, never on such occasions damaging his cause by a loud voice.  He was now about thirty-three years of age, and was two years younger than the baronet.