“Johnny will become quite a hero in town,” said Crofts.

“Yes; I fear he’ll get the most of the credit; and yet I was at it twice as long as he was.  I’ll tell you what, young men, when I got to that gate I didn’t think I’d breath enough left in me to get over it.  It’s all very well jumping into a hedge when you’re only two-and-twenty; but when a man comes to be sixty he likes to take his time about such things.  Dinner ready, is it?  So am I. I quite forgot that mutton chop of yours to-day, doctor.  But I suppose a man may eat a good dinner after a fight with a bull?”

The evening passed by without any very pleasurable excitement, and I regret to say that the earl went fast to sleep in the drawing-room as soon as he had swallowed his cup of coffee.  During dinner he had been very courteous to both his guests, but towards Eames he had used a good-humoured and, almost affectionate familiarity.  He had quizzed him for having been found asleep under the tree, telling Crofts that he had looked very forlorn,—­“So that I haven’t a doubt about his being in love,” said the earl.  And he had asked Johnny to tell the name of the fair one, bringing up the remnants of his half-forgotten classicalities to bear out the joke.  “If I am to take more of the severe Falernian,” said he, laying his hand on the decanter of port, “I must know the lady’s name.  Whoever she be, I’m well sure you need not blush for her.  What! you refuse to tell!  Then I’ll drink no more.”  And so the earl had walked out of the dining-room; but not till he had perceived by his guest’s cheeks that the joke had been too true to be pleasant.  As he went, however, he leaned with his hand on Eames’s shoulder, and the servants looking on saw that the young man was to be a favourite.  “He’ll make him his heir,” said Vickers.  “I shouldn’t wonder a bit if he don’t make him his heir.”  But to this the footman objected, endeavouring to prove to Mr Vickers that, in accordance with the law of the land, his lordship’s second cousin, once removed, whom the earl had never seen, but whom he was supposed to hate, must be his heir.  “A hearl can never choose his own heir, like you or me,” said the footman, laying down the law.  “Can’t he though really, now?  That’s very hard on him; isn’t it?” said the pretty housemaid.  “Psha,” said Vickers:  “you know nothing about it.  My lord could make young Eames his heir to-morrow; that is, the heir of his property.  He couldn’t make him a hearl, because that must go to the heirs of his body.  As to his leaving him the place here, I don’t just know how that’d be; and I’m sure Richard don’t.”

“But suppose he hasn’t got any heirs of his body?” asked the pretty housemaid, who was rather fond of putting down Mr Vickers.

“He must have heirs of his body,” said the butler.  “Everybody has ’em.  If a man don’t know ’em himself, the law finds ’em out.”  And then Mr Vickers walked away, avoiding further dispute.

In the meantime, the earl was asleep upstairs, and the two young men from Guestwick did not find that they could amuse themselves with any satisfaction.  Each took up a book; but there are times at which a man is quite unable to read, and when a book is only a cover for his idleness or dulness.  At last, Dr Crofts suggested, in a whisper, that they might as well begin to think of going home.