This was a bitter blow to the lord of Fairburn; he knew so well the abject fear which he had inspired in my unhappy friend, that, notwithstanding all that had come and gone yet, he did not doubt that a few words in his own handwriting would bring the truant back, however loath. We are living now in such quiet times, and under the protection of such equal laws, that I am aware my younger readers will have a difficulty in conceiving how one human being, however powerful, could be held in such terror by others. I was aware, from the first, that the present universal security would give my narrative an air of improbability, and I fear that this must increase as it proceeds. I have only to say, that at the period of which I write, there was no poor man in Fairburn parish, however honest, however prudent, who might not have been lodged in jail at the instance of his squire, and would have found it difficult to clear himself; or who might not, on a hint from the same quarter, have been pressed, if he did but give the opportunity, on board a man-of-war. I am likewise certain that had Sir Massingberd ventured upon such a step, he might have recovered possession of his nephew, or at least withdrawn him from his protector, by the strong hand of the law, upon the ground of Mr. Gerard's professing revolutionary principles. In these days of Palmerston and Derby, of Tweedledum and Tweedledee, it is impossible for those who are not old enough to have witnessed it, to imagine the rancour of political parties half a century ago, or the despotism and flagrant injustice that were sanctioned under the convenient name of Order. For the haughty baronet to be thus cut off from all intercourse with his victim, was to be foiled indeed. At first, he stung himself well-nigh to frenzy, like a scorpion within its circle of flame; but after a time the white heat of his wrath began apparently to abate. He seemed to have made up his mind to sit down quietly under his defeat, and to content himself with tyrannizing over those who were yet in his power. This comparatively peaceful state of things was looked upon by Mr. Long and myself at first with suspicion, but at last with real satisfaction. When Sir Massingberd sent over five pine-apples and some splendid grapes to the Rectory with his compliments (for the first time within twenty years), we shook our heads, and my tutor addressed the messenger of his bounty in these words; "Tell your master I am exceedingly obliged to him for his kindness. 'Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes.'" "Would you be so good as to write that down, sir?" said the man. "You may give him the message without the tail," replied the rector, a little discomfited at his own indiscretion, but congratulating himself very much that he had expressed his thoughts so classically.