gaping fools, to be satisfied by a History of Portugal?  If you refuse to take the business at once, they will sell me up, and quite right too.  Understand your choice.  There’s Mr. Goren has promised to have you in London a couple of months, and teach you what he can.  He is a kind friend.  Would any of your gentlemen acquaintance do the like for you?  Understand your choice.  You will be a beggar—­the son of a rogue—­or an honest man who has cleared his father’s name!’

During this strenuously uttered allocution, Mrs. Mel, though her chest heaved but faintly against her crossed hands, showed by the dilatation of her eyes, and the light in them, that she felt her words.  There is that in the aspect of a fine frame breathing hard facts, which, to a youth who has been tumbled headlong from his card-castles and airy fabrics, is masterful, and like the pressure of a Fate.  Evan drooped his head.

‘Now,’ said Mrs. Mel, ‘you shall have some supper.’

Evan told her he could not eat.

‘I insist upon your eating,’ said Mrs. Mel; ’empty stomachs are foul counsellors.’

‘Mother! do you want to drive me mad?’ cried Evan.

She looked at him to see whether the string she held him by would bear the slight additional strain:  decided not to press a small point.

‘Then go to bed and sleep on it,’ she said—­sure of him—­and gave her cheek for his kiss, for she never performed the operation, but kept her mouth, as she remarked, for food and speech, and not for slobbering mummeries.

Evan returned to his solitary room.  He sat on the bed and tried to think, oppressed by horrible sensations of self-contempt, that caused whatever he touched to sicken him.

There were the Douglas and the Percy on the wall.  It was a happy and a glorious time, was it not, when men lent each other blows that killed outright; when to be brave and cherish noble feelings brought honour; when strength of arm and steadiness of heart won fortune; when the fair stars of earth—­sweet women—­wakened and warmed the love of squires of low degree.  This legacy of the dead man’s hand!  Evan would have paid it with his blood; but to be in bondage all his days to it; through it to lose all that was dear to him; to wear the length of a loathed existence!—­we should pardon a young man’s wretchedness at the prospect, for it was in a time before our joyful era of universal equality.  Yet he never cast a shade of blame upon his father.

The hours moved on, and he found himself staring at his small candle, which struggled more and more faintly with the morning light, like his own flickering ambition against the facts of life.

CHAPTER VIII

INTRODUCES AN ECCENTRIC