of the nest. This done, he walked on in search of another.
“Come,” thought Henry, “one brood is enough to be sacrificed in this sort of way—enough for my purpose.”
Throwing away the stump of his cigar, he dropped down from the tree, and rushed after the nest-robber.
Doggy saw him, and attempted to escape to the Whibley covers. But before he could cross the fence, the fingers of his pursuer were tightly clutched upon the collar of his velveteen coat; and he came to the ground, crushing the eggs within his game-bag. This being turned inside out, the spilt yolks and shattered shells gave proof of the plunder he had committed.
Henry Harding was at this time a strapping youth, with strength and spirit inherited from his soldier father. Moreover, he was acting with right on his side.
The keeper had neither his weight nor his inches, and was further enfeebled by his sense of wrong-doing. Under these circumstances, he saw the absurdity of making resistance. He made none; but permitted the irate youth to cudgel him with the Malacca cane until every bone in his body seemed about to be shattered like the egg-shells late carried in his game-bag.
“Now, you thief!” cried young Harding, when his passion was nearly spent. “You can go back to Mr Whibley’s covers, and hatch whatever plot may suit you and your snob of a master, but no more of my pheasants’ eggs.”
Doggy did not dare to make reply, lest it should tempt a fresh application of the cudgel. Clambering over the fence, he hobbled back across the common, and hid himself among the hazels of the Whibley preserves.
Turning towards the plundered nest, Henry Harding examined the ground in its proximity. He discovered a scattering of buckwheat, that had been steeped in some sweet-smelling liquid. It was the same he had seen Doggy distribute over the sward.
He collected a quantity in his kerchief, and carried it home. On analysis it proved to be poison!
Though there was no trial instituted, the story, with all its details, soon became known in the neighbourhood. Doggy Dick knew better than to bring an action for assault; and the Hardings were satisfied with the punishment that had been already administered to their disgraced keeper.
As for the retired stockbroker, he had no alternative but discharge his ill-conditioned servant, who from that time became notorious as the most adroit poacher in the parish.
The submissiveness with which he had received the castigation administered by Henry Harding seemed afterwards to have been a source of regret to him: for in future encounters of a similar kind he proved himself a desperate and dangerous assailant—so dangerous that, in a conflict with one of General Harding’s watchers, occurring about a year from that time, he inflicted a severe wound upon the man, resulting in his death. He saved his own neck from the halter by making his escape out of the country; and though traced to Boulogne, and thence to Marseilles—in the company of some jockeys who were taking English horses to Italy—he finally eluded justice by hiding himself in some corner of that classic land, then covered by a network of petty states; most of them not only obstructive to justice, but corrupt in their administration.
Chapter Three.
The Archery Fête.
Three years had elapsed, and the half-brothers were again home from college. They had both passed beyond the boundaries of boyhood. Nigel was of age, and Henry full grown.
Nigel had become noted for sedateness of conduct, economy in expenditure, and close application to his studies.
Henry, on the other hand, had won a very different character. If not considered an absolute scapegrace, he was looted upon as a young gentleman of somewhat loose habits,—hating books, loving all sorts of jollity, and scorning economy, as if, instead of a virtue, it were the curse of life.
In reality, Nigel was only restrained by an astute, secretive, and selfish, nature; while Henry, with a heart of more generous inclinings, gave way to the seductions of pleasure, with a freedom that would be tempered by time. The General, however satisfied with the conduct of his elder son, was not pleased with the proclivities of the younger; more especially as his heart, like Jacob’s, had a yearning for his last born.
Although struggling against any preference, he could not help thinking at times, how much happier it would have made him if Henry would but imitate the conduct of Nigel—even though their rôles should be reversed! But it seemed as if this desire was not to be gratified. During their sojourn within college walls, the rumours of diableries, of which his younger son had been the hero, were scarce compensated by the reports of scholastic triumphs on the part of the elder.
It is true that Nigel himself had been habitually the herald to proclaim these mingled insinuations and successes, for Henry was but an indifferent correspondent. His letters, when they did come, were but too confirmatory of the contents of those written by his brother, being generally solicitations for a little more cash. The ci-devant soldier, himself generous to a fault, had never failed to forward the cheque, caring less for the money than the way in which it was spent.
The education of the Harding youths was now considered complete. They were enjoying that pleasant interval of idleness, when the chrysalis of the school or college is about to burst forth into a butterfly, and wing its way through the world.
If the old rancour existed it showed no outward sign. A stranger would have seen nothing between the half-brothers beyond a fair fraternal friendship. Henry was frank and outspoken, Nigel reserved and taciturn; but this was their natural disposition, and no one remarked upon it. In all matters of parental respect, the elder brother was the more noticed. He was implicit in his obedience to the wishes of his father; while Henry, on the other hand, was prone to neglect this duty—though only in matters of minor consequence, such as keeping late hours, lavish expenditure, and the like. Still, by such acts the father’s heart was often sorely grieved, and his affection terribly tested.
At length came a cause that tried the temper of the half-brothers towards one another—one before which the strongest fraternal affection has oft changed into bitter hostility. It was love. Both fell in love, and with the same woman—Belle Mainwaring.
Miss Belle Mainwaring was a young lady, whose fair face and fascinating manners might have turned wiser heads than those of the two ex-collegians. She was older than either; but if not in its first blush, she was still in the bloom of her beauty. Like her baptismal name, she was a belle in her own county, which was that inhabited by the Hardings. She was the daughter of an Indian officer, a poor colonel, who, less fortunate than the General, had left his bones in the Punjaub, and his widow just sufficient to maintain her in a simple cottage residence that stood outside, and not far from, the palings of Beechwood Park.
It was a dangerous proximity for two youths just entering on manhood, and with very little business before them beyond making love, and afterwards settling down with a wife. Both would be amply provided for without troubling their heads about a profession. The paternal estate, under the hammer, would any day have realised a clear hundred thousand; and he who cannot live upon half of this is not likely to increase it by a calling.
That the property would be equally divided there was no reason to doubt. There was no entail; and General Harding was not the man from whom an act of partiality might be expected. The old soldier was not without traits of eccentricity; not exactly crotchets
