Alan was more than discontented, whenever he thought over these things, calmly and dispassionately, in after days. Twice he had looked his enemies in the face, and on both occasions had doubtless borne off the honours of the day; but it was an unsubstantial victory at best, and a triumph scarcely more profitable than that of the Imperial trifler, who mustered his legions to battle, and brought back as trophies shells from the sea-shore. The recollection was not poisonous enough to destroy the good elements of his character, but it darkened and embittered his nature, permanently. The fact is, when a man has been thoroughly duped and deluded, and has suffered irreparably from the fraud, it is not easily forgotten, unless retaliation has been fully commensurate with the injury. I am not advocating a principle, but simply stating a general fact. With a great misfortune it is different. We say--"Let us fall into His hand, not into the hand of man." So, at least, is consolation more easily sought for, and found. Remember Esau--as he was before he sold his birthright--as he is when, in fear and trembling, Jacob looks upon his face again. That score of years has changed the cheery, careless hunter of deer into the stern, resolute leader of robber-tribes--ruling his wild vassals with an iron sceptre--no longer "seeking for his meat from God," but grasping plunder, where he may find it, with the strong hand, by dint of bow and spear--truly, a fitting sire from whose loins twelve Dukes of Edom should spring--not wholly exempt from kind, generous impulses, as that meeting between Penuel and Succoth proves--but as little like his former self, as a devil is like an angel. If the eyes of the blind old patriarch, who loved his reckless first-born so well, had been opened as he lay a-dying, he could scarcely have told if "this were his very son Esau, or no." CHAPTER XXIV. SEMI-AMBUSTUS EVASIT. Are you curious to know how, all this while, it fared with the Great Earl and his beautiful bride? If the truth is to be told, I fear the answer must be unsatisfactory. No one, well acquainted with the contracting parties, believed that the marriage would be a _very_ happy one; but they hoped it would turn out as well as the generality of conventional alliances. It was not so. Alan Wyverne was right enough in thinking that Clydesdale was most unfitted to the task of managing a haughty, wilful wife; but even he never supposed that dissension would arise so quickly, and rankle so constantly. There had been few overt or actual disputes, but a spirit of bitter antagonism was ever at work, which sooner or later was certain to have an evil ending.