‘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

At the Aurora—­one of those rare antiquated taverns, smelling of comfortable time and solid English fare, that had sprung up in the great coffee days, when taverns were clubs, and had since subsisted on the attachment of steady bachelor Templars there had been dismay, and even sorrow, for a month.  The most constant patron of the establishment—­an old gentleman who had dined there for seven-and-twenty years, four days in the week, off dishes dedicated to the particular days, and had grown grey with the landlady, the cook, and the head-waiter—­this old gentleman had abruptly withheld his presence.  Though his name, his residence, his occupation, were things only to be speculated on at the Aurora, he was very well known there, and as men are best to be known:  that is to say, by their habits.  Some affection for him also was felt.  The landlady looked on him as a part of the house.  The cook and the waiter were accustomed to receive acceptable compliments from him monthly.  His precise words, his regular ancient jokes, his pint of Madeira and after-pint of Port, his antique bow to the landlady, passing out and in, his method of spreading his table-napkin on his lap and looking up at the ceiling ere he fell to, and how he talked to himself during the repast, and indulged in short chuckles, and the one look of perfect felicity that played over his features when he had taken his first sip of Port—­these were matters it pained them at the Aurora to have to remember.