They were heard for an instant striding along the floor of the hall, and then were exchanged for the sound of his horse's hoofs urged to speed along the carriage-drive. Sir Massingberd Heath had met for once with his match--and more. CHAPTER IX. MR. HARVEY GERARD. So entirely engrossed had I been with the action and dialogue of the speakers in the preceding scene, that it scarcely struck me while it was going on that I had not paid for my place in the pit in the usual fashion, but was a mere eavesdropper under an orange-tree. So soon as Sir Massingberd was really gone, however, I became conscious of the impropriety of my situation, and not wishing to own what I had done, I stole noiselessly out into the garden, and then re-entered the conservatory, and thereby the drawing-room, as though I had been out of sight and hearing all the time. It was not quite a chivalrous act; but I do not think that the boys of my time, myself included, were quite so honourable and frank as Mr. Tom Brown describes those of the present day to be. There was something, moreover, about Mr. Harvey Gerard which told me he would have loathed a listener, nor would have been very ready to have accepted fear as any excuse for my conduct. He was a man of noble bearing, nearly six feet in height, and extremely well formed. He was dressed in a blue lapelled coat, light waistcoat and kerseys, and Hessian boots. These last I had not seen before upon any person, and I remember them well. I think they were the most graceful covering for the leg that has yet been devised, although, I own, they may not have been so convenient as the modern knickerbockers. He wore his own grey hair--which was not very usual with persons of his rank of life--and rather long. His features were large, but handsome; and there was a kind of youthful blandness about them which gave his face a most agreeable expression in ordinary. When excited by passion, however, as I had lately seen him, his appearance greatly changed. His thin lips parted contemptuously, and showed his threatening teeth, while his blue eyes, gentle almost to dreaminess, became blood-streaked, and almost started from their sockets. As I now beheld him calmly kindling a lamp on the drawing-room table, no one could have been a greater contrast than himself to the man who had just driven Sir Massingberd Heath from the room with such a hail-storm of invective. "Well, young gentleman," exclaimed he, cheerfully, "the enemy is repulsed, you see, although, I confess, your friend the baronet is rather a formidable fellow. He's uncommonly like Front de Boeuf. I daresay you have read the new romance of 'Ivanhoe,' have you not?" "Marmaduke has, sir, I believe," replied I; "but I am sorry to say I am no great reader."