CHAPTER I
CHAPTER II
CHAPTER III
CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER V
CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VII
CHAPTER VIII
CHAPTER IX
CHAPTER X
CHAPTER XI
CHAPTER XII
CHAPTER XIII
CHAPTER XIV
CHAPTER XV
CHAPTER XVI
CHAPTER XVII
CHAPTER XVIII
CHAPTER XIX
CHAPTER XX
CHAPTER XXI
CHAPTER XXII
CHAPTER XXIII
CHAPTER XXIV
BY THE SAME AUTHOR.
'Then, by Heaven! I'll leave the country. I won't stop here to bebullied for doing what scores of other fellows have done and nothingthought about it. It's unjust, it's intolerable—'
Thus spoke impetuous Youth.
'I should say something would depend upon the family tradition of the"other fellows" to whom you refer. In ours gambling debts and shadytransactions with turf-robbers happen to be forbidden luxuries.'
Thus spoke philosophic Age, calm, cynical, unsparing.
No power of divination was needed to decide that the speakers werefather and son; no prophet to discover, on one side, sullen defiancefollowing a course of reckless folly; on the other, wounded family prideand long-nursed consuming wrath.
As the rebellious son stood up and faced his sire, it was curious tomark the similarity of the inherited lineaments brought out more clearlyin his moments of rage and defiance.
Both men were strong and sinewy, dark in complexion, and bearing theineffaceable impress of gentle nurture, leisure, and assured position.The younger man was the taller, and of a frame which, when fullydeveloped, promised unusual strength and activity. More often than theconverse, does it obtain that the son, in outward appearance or mentalconstitution, reproduces his mother's attributes or those of her malerelatives; the daughter, in complemental ratio, inheriting the paternaltraits. But in this case Nature had strongly adhered to theold-established formula 'like father like son,' for whoso looked onMervyn Trevanion, of Wychwood—the head of one of the oldest families inCornwall—could not doubt for one moment that Launcelot Trevanion washis son.
If all other features had been amissing or impaired, the eyes alone,which contributed the