That young gentleman now lived at his lodgings, but was equally at home at Willow Lawn, and his knock at the library door, when he wished to change a book, usually led to some ‘Prometheus’ discussion, and sometimes to a walk, if Mr. Kendal thought him looking pale; or to dining and to spending the evening.

His scrapes were peculiar.  He had thoroughly mastered his work, and his active mind wanted farther scope, so that he threw himself with avidity into deeper studies, and once fell into horrible disgrace for being detected with a little Plato on his desk.  Mr. Goldsmith nearly gave him up in despair, and pronounced that he would never make a man of business.  He made matters worse by replying that this was the best chance of his not being a man of speculation.  If he were allowed to think of nothing but money, he should speculate for the sake of something to do!

Before Mr. Goldsmith had half recovered the shock, Mr. Dusautoy and Mr. Hope laid violent hands upon young O’More for the evening school twice a week, which almost equally discomposed his aunt.  She had never got over the first blow of Mr. Dusautoy’s innovations, and felt as if her nephew had gone over to the enemy.  She was doubly ungracious at the Sunday dinner, and venomously critical of the choir’s chanting, Mr. Hope’s voice, and the Vicar’s sermons.

The worst scrape came in March.  The Willow Lawn ladies were in the lower end of the garden, which, towards the river, was separated from the lane that continued Tibb’s Alley, by a low wall surmounted by spikes, and with a disused wicket, always locked, and nearly concealed by a growth of laurels; when out brake a horrible hullabaloo in that region of evil report, the shouts and yells coming nearer, and becoming so distinct that they were about to retreat, when suddenly a dark figure leapt over the gate, and into the garden, amid a storm of outcries.  As he disappeared among the laurels, Albinia caught up Maurice, Lucy screamed and prepared to fly, and Sophy started forward, exclaiming, ’It is Ulick, mamma; his face is bleeding!’ But as he emerged, she retreated, for she had a nervous terror of the canine race, and in his hand, at arm’s length he held by the neck a yellow dog, a black pot dangling from its tail.

‘Take care,’ he shouted, as Albinia set down Maurice, and was running up to him; ‘he may be mad.’

Maurice was caught up again, Lucy shrieked, and Sophy, tottering against an apple-tree, faintly said, ‘He has bitten you!’

‘No, not he; it was only a stone,’ said Ulick, as best he might, with a fast bleeding upper lip.  ’They were hunting the poor beast to death—­I believe he’s no more mad than I am—­only with the fright—­ but best make sure.’

‘Fetch some milk, Lucy,’ said Albinia.  ’Take Maurice with you.  No, don’t take the poor thing down to the river, he’ll only think you are going to drown him.  Go, Maurice dear.’

Maurice safe, Albinia was able to find ready expedients after Sir Fowell Buxton’s celebrated example.  She brought Ulick the gardener’s thick gauntlets from the tool-house, and supplied him with her knife, with which he set the poor creature free from the instrument of torture, and then let him loose, with a pan of milk before him, in the old-fashioned summer-house, through the window of which he could observe his motions, and if he looked dangerous, shoot him.