“A life whose waste
     Ravaged each bloom by which its path was traced,
     Sporting at will, and moulding sport to art,
     With what sad holiness—­the human heart.”

It is a bright, crisp morning, and there is a gathering round the hall door of Kerton Manor.

To the right is Sir Henry Fallowfield, already established on the broad tack of his shooting pony, an invaluable animal, that can leap or creep wherever a man can go, and steady under fire as old Copenhagen.  The baronet is very gouty.  The whip made out of his favorite vices cuts him up sharply at times, and he does not like it alluded to.  I never saw him look so savage at Guy as when the latter quoted, "Raro antecedentem scelestum Deseruit pede poena claudo." Of course, he can not walk much; but, placed in a ride, or at the corner of a cover, he rolls over the hares and pulls down the pheasants unerringly as ever; when you come up, you will find him surrounded by a semicircle of slain, and not a runner among them.

The battle of life has left its tokens on the face of the strong, skillful Protagonist.  The features, once so finely cut, are somewhat full and bloated now; but it is a magnificent ruin, and there are traces yet of “the handsomest man of his day.”  Very expressive are his glances still; a little too much so, some people think, when he is criticising a figure or a face; but, to do him justice, gourmandise is his pet weakness now, a comparatively harmless one; and a delicate entremet will bring the light into his eyes that only war or love could do in the old days.

By Sir Henry’s side, encouraging him with great prophecies of sport, stands Mallett, the head-keeper.  What a contrast his fresh, honest face makes with the veteran roue’s!  He is the elder of the two by a good ten years, and there is scarcely a wrinkle on his ruddy cheeks and smooth forehead.  Wind and weather have used him with a rough kindness, and his foot is almost as light, his hand quite as heavy, as when he entered the service of Guy’s grandfather half a century ago.  For generations his family have been devoted to the preservation of game; his six stalwart sons are all eminent in that line; and the “Kerton breed” of keepers is renowned throughout the Midland shires.  He is a prime favorite with the village children and their mothers, for, in all respects save one, his heart is as soft as a woman’s; to poachers it is as the nether millstone.  There is the stain of a “justifiable homicide” on the old man’s hands—­the blood of an antagonist slain in fair fight, in those rough times when the forest was, and marauders came out by scores to strike its deer.  I do not think the deed has weighed heavily on his conscience (though he never has spoken of it since), or troubled his healthy, honest slumbers.

To the left is Guy, repressing the attentions of four couple of strong red and white spaniels, but not those of Miss Bellasys, who, standing at the oriel window of the library, is good-natured enough to fasten the band of his wide-awake for him, which has come undone.  As he stands with his towering head a little bent, murmuring the “more last words,” Sir Henry, contemplating the picture with much satisfaction, smacks his lips, and suggests “Omphale.”