in which he would stand before this immense concourse of people, many of whom had put their money upon his judgment, if he should find himself at the last moment with an impotent excuse instead of a champion to put before them.  What a situation for a man who prided himself upon his aplomb, and upon bringing all that he undertook to the very highest standard of success!  I, who knew him well, could tell from his wan cheeks and his restless fingers that he was at his wit’s ends what to do; but no stranger who observed his jaunty bearing, the flecking of his laced handkerchief, the handling of his quizzing glass, or the shooting of his ruffles, would ever have thought that this butterfly creature could have had a care upon earth.

It was close upon nine o’clock when we were ready to start for the Downs, and by that time my uncle’s curricle was almost the only vehicle left in the village street.  The night before they had lain with their wheels interlocking and their shafts under each other’s bodies, as thick as they could fit, from the old church to the Crawley Elm, spanning the road five-deep for a good half-mile in length.  Now the grey village street lay before us almost deserted save by a few women and children.  Men, horses, carriages—­all were gone.  My uncle drew on his driving-gloves and arranged his costume with punctilious neatness; but I observed that he glanced up and down the road with a haggard and yet expectant eye before he took his seat.  I sat behind with Belcher, while the Hon. Berkeley Craven took the place beside him.

The road from Crawley curves gently upwards to the upland heather-clad plateau which extends for many miles in every direction.  Strings of pedestrians, most of them so weary and dust-covered that it was evident that they had walked the thirty miles from London during the night, were plodding along by the sides of the road or trailing over the long mottled slopes of the moorland.  A horseman, fantastically dressed in green and splendidly mounted, was waiting at the crossroads, and as he spurred towards us I recognised the dark, handsome face and bold black eyes of Mendoza.

“I am waiting here to give the office, Sir Charles,” said he.  “It’s down the Grinstead road, half a mile to the left.”

“Very good,” said my uncle, reining his mares round into the cross-road.

“You haven’t got your man there,” remarked Mendoza, with something of suspicion in his manner.

“What the devil is that to you?” cried Belcher, furiously.

“It’s a good deal to all of us, for there are some funny stories about.”

“You keep them to yourself, then, or you may wish you had never heard them.”

“All right, Jem!  Your breakfast don’t seem to have agreed with you this morning.”

“Have the others arrived?” asked my uncle, carelessly.

“Not yet, Sir Charles.  But Tom Oliver is there with the ropes and stakes.  Jackson drove by just now, and most of the ring-keepers are up.”