The times were troublous and promotion rapid; and when at the age of six-and-twenty he heard first the news of his father’s death, and, four months later, of that of his brother, who was thrown from his horse returning from a hunt dinner, he was already a captain. He returned to England at once; for his brother had died unmarried, and he was now therefore the owner of Wyvern Park. In another year he married a pretty, quiet girl, possessed of considerable property; with this new accession, and under his auspices, the property improved greatly. Although he had been only eight years in India, the climate had during that comparatively short residence sufficed to ruin his constitution, and to send him home a confirmed valetudinarian. He found himself therefore, to his great disgust—for he was passionately fond of field sports—obliged to give up all horse exercise. Fortunately he was not prevented from shooting, and in the season would spend all his time in the fields with his dogs and gun; but he was entirely debarred from the hunting field, and was forbidden to indulge to any extent in the pleasures of the table. But although all this was an intolerable grievance to the master of Wyvern Park, yet Wyvern Park throve upon it greatly. In a few years, instead of mortgaging his property as his ancestors had done, Harry Bradshaw found himself in a position to clear off many old standing liabilities on the outlying properties, and to be able to add others to them. Although unable to join in the hunting field, or in the deep-drinking bouts and jovial meetings of the period, there was hardly a more popular man in the county than Harry Bradshaw. He was by no means of the ordinary big burly Bradshaw build, but was a light active figure, with an open kindly bronzed face, clustering black hair, a merry infectious laugh, an inexhaustible fund of fun and anecdote, an inveterate habit of swearing—then a far more common habit than now—a very quick fiery temper, and an intense objection to anything like dictation on the part of others.