“No; delivered by some confounded bailiff, who’s been hounding me.”

“Bailiffs don’t generally deal in warnings.”

“Will you read it!” Algernon shouted.

The letter ran thus:—­

     “Mr. Algernon Blancove,—­

“The writer of this intends taking the first opportunity of meeting you, and gives you warning, you will have to answer his question with a Yes or a No; and speak from your conscience.  The respectfulness of his behaviour to you as a gentleman will depend upon that.”

Algernon followed his cousin’s eye down to the last letter in the page.

“What do you think of it?” he asked eagerly.

Edward’s broad thin-lined brows were drawn down in gloom.  Mastering some black meditation in his brain, he answered Algernon’s yells for an opinion,—­

“I think—­well, I think bailiffs have improved in their manners, and show you they are determined to belong to the social march in an age of universal progress.  Nothing can be more comforting.”

“But, suppose this fellow comes across me?”

“Don’t know him.”

“Suppose he insists on knowing me?”

“Don’t know yourself.”

“Yes; but hang it! if he catches hold of me?”

“Shake him off.”

“Suppose he won’t let go?”

“Cut him with your horsewhip.”

“You think it’s about a debt, then?”

“Intimidation, evidently.”

“I shall announce to him that the great Edward Blancove is not to be intimidated.  You’ll let me borrow your name, old Ned.  I’ve stood by you in my time.  As for leaving Fairly, I tell you I can’t.  It’s too delightful to be near Peggy Lovell.”

Edward smiled with a peculiar friendliness, and Algernon went off, very well contented with his cousin.

CHAPTER XVII

Within a mile of Fairly Park lay the farm of another yeoman; but he was of another character.  The Hampshireman was a farmer of renown in his profession; fifth of a family that had cultivated a small domain of one hundred and seventy acres with sterling profit, and in a style to make Sutton the model of a perfect farm throughout the country.  Royal eyes had inspected his pigs approvingly; Royal wits had taken hints from Jonathan Eccles in matters agricultural; and it was his comforting joke that he had taught his Prince good breeding.  In return for the service, his Prince had transformed a lusty Radical into a devoted Royalist.  Framed on the walls of his parlours were letters from his Prince, thanking him for specimen seeds and worthy counsel:  veritable autograph letters of the highest value.  The Prince had steamed up the salt river, upon which the Sutton harvests were mirrored, and landed on a spot marked in honour of the event by a broad grey stone; and from that day Jonathan Eccles stood on a pinnacle of pride, enabling him to see horizons of despondency hitherto unknown to him.  For he had a son, and the son was a riotous devil, a most wild young fellow, who had no taste for a farmer’s life, and openly declared his determination not to perpetuate the Sutton farm in the hands of the Eccleses, by running off one day and entering the ranks of the British army.