“Of course, lest I should forge. Once for all, hear me, Sir Cradock Nowell. So help me the God who has now forsaken me, who has turned my life to death, and made my own father curse me—every word of yours is a curse, I say—so help me that God (if there be one to help, as well as to smite a man), till you crave my pardon upon your knees, as I have craved yours this day, I will never take one yard of your land, I will never call myself ‘Nowell’, or own you again as my father. God knows I am very unlucky and little, but you have shown yourself less. And some day you will know it”. In the full strength of his righteous pride, he walked for the first time like a man, since he leaped that deadly hedge. From that moment a change came over him. There was nothing to add to his happiness, but something to rouse his manhood. The sense of justice, the sense of honour—that flower and crown of justice—forbade him henceforth to sue, and be shy, and bemoan himself under hedges. From that day forth he was as a man visited of God, and humbled, but facing ever his fellow–men, and not ashamed of affliction. CHAPTER XXVII. With an even step, and no frown on his forehead, nor glimpse of a tear in his eyes, young Cradock walked to his own little room, his “nest”, as he used to call it; where pipes, and books, and Oxford prints—no ballet–girls, however, and not so very many hunters—and whips, and foils, and boxing–gloves—_cum multis aliis quæ nunc describere longum est; et cui non dicta_ long ago?—were handled more often than dusted. All these things, except one pet little pipe, which he was now come to look for, and which Viley had given him a year ago, when they swopped pipes on their birthday (like Diomed and the brave Lycian), all the rest were things of a bygone age, to be thought of no more for the present, but dreamed of, perhaps, on a Christmas–eve, when the air is full of luxury.