Ever at his heels, the ‘brazen Tripod’ contrived to establish an entrance at Willow Lawn; scratched till Mr. Kendal would interrupt a ‘Prometheus talk’ to let him in at the library door; and gradually made it a matter of course to come into the drawing-room, and repose upon Sophy’s flounces.

This was by way of compensation for his misadventures elsewhere.  He was always bringing Ulick into trouble; shut or tie him up as he might, he was sure to reappear when least wanted.  He had been at church, he had been in Miss Goldsmith’s drawing-room, he had been found times without number curled up under Ulick’s desk.  Mr. Goldsmith growled hints about hanging him, and old Mr. Johns, who really was fond of his bright young fellow clerk, gave grave counsel; but Ulick only loved his protege the better, and after having exhausted an Irish vocabulary of expostulation, succeeded in prevailing on him to come no farther than the street; except on very wet days, when he would sometimes be found on the mat in the entry, looking deplorably beseeching, and bringing on his master an irate, ‘Here’s that dog again!’

‘Would that no one fell into worse scrapes,’ sighed Mr. Dusautoy, when he heard of Ulick’s disasters with Hyder Ali, and it was a sigh that the house of Kendal re-echoed.

Nobody could be surprised when, towards the long vacation, tidings came to Bayford, that after long forbearance on the part of the authorities, the insubordination and riotous conduct of the two young men could be endured no longer.  It appeared that young Dusautoy, with his weak head and obstinate will, had never attempted to bend to rules, but had taken every reproof as an insult and defiance.  Young men had not been wanting who were ready to take advantage of his lavish expenditure, and to excite his disdain for authorities.  They had promoted the only wit he did understand, broad practical jokes and mischief; and had led him into the riot and gambling to which he was not naturally prone.  Gilbert Kendal, with more sense and principle, had been led on by the contagion around him, and at last an outrageous wine party had brought matters to a crisis.  The most guilty were the most cunning, and the only two to whom the affair could actually be brought home, were Dusautoy and Kendal.  The sentence was rustication, and the tutor wrote to Mr. Dusautoy, as the least immediately affected, to ask him to convey the intelligence to Mr. Kendal.

The vicar was not a man to shrink from any task, however painful, but he felt it the more deeply, as, in spite of his partiality, he was forced to look on his own favourite Algernon as the misleader of Gilbert; and when he overtook the sisters on his melancholy way down the hill, he consulted them how their father would bear it.

‘Oh!  I don’t know,’ said Lucy; ’he’ll be terribly angry.  I should not wonder if he sent Gilbert straight off to India; should you, Sophy?’

‘I hope he will do nothing in haste,’ exclaimed Mr. Dusautoy.  ’I do believe if those two lads were but separated, or even out of such company, they would both do very well.’