The rays of the level sun were nestling in the brown bosom of the beech–clump, and the fugitive light went undulating through the grey–arched portico, like a reedy river; when Cradock and Clayton Nowell met in the old hall of their childhood. With its deep embrasures, and fluted piers, high–corniced mantel of oak relieved with alabaster figures, and the stern array of pike, and steel–cap, battle–axe, and arquebus, which kept the stag–heads over against them nodding in perpetual fear, this old hall was so impressed upon their earliest memories, that they looked upon it, in some sort, as the entrance to their lives. As the twins drew near from opposite doors, each hung back for a moment: knowing all that had passed that day, how would his brother receive him? But in that moment each perceived how the otherʼs heart was; Cradock cried, “Hurrah, all right”! and Claytonʼs arms were round his neck. Clayton sobbed hysterically—for he had always been woman–hearted—while Cradock coaxed him with his hand, as if he were ten years the elder. It was as though the days of childhood had returned once more, the days when the world came not between them, but they were the world to each other. “Crad, I wonʼt have a bit of it. Did you think I would be such a robber, Crad? And I donʼt believe one syllable of their humbugging nursery stories. Why, every fellow knows that you _must_ be the eldest brother”. “Viley, my boy, I am so glad that it has turned out so. You know that I have always longed to fight my way in the world, and I am fitter for it than you are. And you are more the fellow for a baronet, and a big house, and all that sort of thing; and in the holidays I shall come every year to shoot with you, and to break your dogs, and all that; for you havenʼt got the least idea, Viley, of breaking a dog”. “Well, no, I suppose I havenʼt”, said Clayton, very submissively; at any other time he would have said, “Oh, havenʼt I”? for it was a moot point between them. “But, Craddy, you _shall_ have half, at any rate. I wonʼt touch it, unless you take half”. “Then the estates must go to the Queen, or to Mr. Nowell Corklemore, your especial friend, Viley”. Clayton was famed for his mimicry of the pompous Mr. Corklemore, and he could not resist it now, though the tears were still in his eyes. “Haw, yes; I estimate so, sir. A mutually agreeable and unobjectionable arrangement, sir. Is that your opinion? Haw”! and Clayton stroked an imaginary beard, and closed one eye at the ceiling. Cradock laughed from habit; and Clayton laughed because Cradock did.