Well, now, the Curtis Fakenham of Captain Kirby’s day had a good deal of his uncle as well as his father in him, the spirit of one and the outside, of the other; and, favoured or not, he had been distinguished among Countess Fanny’s adorers:  she certainly chose to be silent about the name of the assailant.  And it has been attested on oath that two days and a night subsequent to the date furnished by Charles Dump, Curtis Fakenham was brought to his house, Hollis Grange, lame of a leg, with a shot in his breast, that he carried to the family vault; and his head gamekeeper, John Wiltshire, a resolute fellow, was missing from that hour.  Some said they had a quarrel, and Curtis was wounded and John Wiltshire killed.  Curtis was known to have been extremely attached to the man.  Yet when Wiltshire was inquired for, he let fall a word of ’having more of Wiltshire than was agreeable to Hampshire’—­his county.  People asked what that meant.  Yet, according to the tale, it was the surviving servant, by whom he, or whoever it may have been, was accidentally shot.

We are in a perfect tangle.  On the other hand, it was never denied that Curtis and John Wiltshire were in London together at the time of Countess Fanny’s flight:  and Curtis Fakenham was one of the procession of armed gentleman conducting her in her carriage, as they supposed; and he was known to have started off, on the discovery of the cheat, with horrible imprecations against Frenchwomen.  It became known, too; that horses of his were standing saddled in his innyard at midnight.  And more, Charles Dump the postillion was taken secretly to set eyes on him as they wheeled him in his garden-walk, and he vowed it was the identical gentleman.  But this coming by and by to the ear of Curtis, he had Charles Dump fetched over to confront him; and then the man made oath that he had never seen Mr. Curtis Fakenham anywhere but there, in his own house at Hollis!  One does not really know what, to think of it.

This postillion made a small fortune.  He was everywhere in request.  People were never tired of asking him how he behaved while the fight was going on, and he always answered that he sat as close to his horse as he could, and did not dream of dismounting; for, he said, ’he was a figure on a horse, and naught when off it.’  His repetition of the story, with some adornments, and that same remark, made him the popular man of the county; people said he might enter Parliament, and I think at one time it was possible.  But a great success is full of temptations.  After being hired at inns to fill them with his account of the battle, and tipped by travellers from London to show the spot, he set up for himself as innkeeper, and would have flourished, only he had contracted habits on his rounds, and he fell to contradicting himself, so that he came to be called Lying Charley; and the people of the country said it was ’he who drained the Punch-Bowl, for though he helped to put the capital into it, he took all the interest out of it.’