Ravenshoe. By Henry Kingsley.

252 RAVENSHOE.
would, so to speak, trump one another's tricks to any amount.
And if, on these occasions, any one of the three took up an untenable position, the other two would lie him out of it like Jesuits, and
only fall foul of him. when they were alone together, -which, to
say the least of it, was neighborly and decent.'" God save you, gentlemen," said old Master Lee up to Slarrow,
who was allowed to commit himself by the other two, who were
waiting to be "down on him " in private. " Any news from the
Indies lately?"
William and Marston stopped, and William said," No, Master Lee, we have not heard from Captain Archer for
seven months, or more."
"I ask your pardon," said Lee up to Slarrow; "I warn't a
speaking of he. I was speaking of our own darling boy, Master
Charles. When be he a-coming back to see we?"
"'When, indeed!" said William. "I wish I knew, 3MIaster
Lee."
" They Indies," said the old man, " is well enough; but what's
he there no more than any other gentleman? Why don't he
come home to his own? Who's a-keeping on him away?"
William and John Marston walked on without answering.
And then the two other Master Lees fell on to Master Lee up to
Slarrow, and verbally ill-treated him, - partly because he had got
no information out of William, and partly because, having both
sat quiet and given him plenty of rope, he had not hanged himself. Master Lee up to Slarrow had evil times of it that blessed
spring afternoon, and ended by " dratting" both his companions
for a couple of old fools. After which they adjourned to the
public-house and hard cider, sent them to drink for their sins.
"They'll never make a scholar of me, Marston," said William; "I will go on at it for a year, but no more. I shall away
soon to hunt up Charles. Is there any police in America?"
Marston answered absently, "Yes, he believed so"; but was
evidently thinking of something else.
They had gone sauntering out for a walk together. Marston
had come down from Oxford the day before (after an examination for an Exeter fellowship, I believe) for change of air; and
he thought he would like to walk with William up to the top of
the lofty promontory, which bounded Ravenshoe Bay on the
west, and catch the pleasant summer breeze coming in from the
Atlantic.
On the loftiest point of all, with the whispering blue sea on
three sides of them, four hundred feet below, there they sat down
on the short sheep-eaten turf, and looked westward.
Cape after cape stretched away under the afternoon sun, till
the last seemed only a dark cloud floating on the sea. Beyond