"No, no," cried Mr. Croyland; "it wasn't that good, rash, rattle-pate, coxcomb of a fellow, who is only fit to be caged with little Zara; and then they may live together very well, like two monkeys in a show-box. No, he had nothing to do with it, though he has been busy enough since he came here, shooting partridges, and fighting young Radfords, and all that sort of thing." "Fighting young Radfords!" exclaimed Sir Henry Leyton, suddenly grasping the sheath of his sword with his right hand. "He should not have done that--at least, without letting me know." "Why, he knew nothing about it himself," replied Mr. Croyland, "till the minute it took place. The young vagabond followed him to my house; so I civilly told my brother's pet that I didn't want to see him; and he walked away with your friend Digby just across the lawn in front of the house, when, after a few minutes of pleasant conversation, the baronet applies me a horsewhip, with considerable unction and perseverance, to the shoulders of Richard Radford, Esquire, junior; upon which out come the pinking-irons, and in the course of the scuffle, Sir Edward receives a little hole in the shoulder, and Mr. Radford is disarmed and brought upon his knee, with a very unpleasant and ungentleman-like bump upon his forehead, bestowed, with hearty good-will, by the hilt of Master Digby's sword. Well, when he had got him there, instead of quietly poking a hole through him, as any man of common sense would have done, your friend lets him get up again, and ride away, just as a man might be supposed to pinch a Cobra that had bit him, by the tail, and then say, 'Walk off, my friend.' However, so stands the matter; and young Radford rode away, vowing all sorts of vengeance. He'll have it, too, if he can get it; for he's as spiteful as a baboon; so I hope you've caught him, as he was with these smuggling vagabonds, that's certain." Sir Henry Leyton shook his head. "He has escaped, I am sorry to say," he replied. "How, I cannot divine; for I took means to catch him that I thought were infallible. All the roads through Harbourne Wood were guarded, but yet in that wood, all trace of him was lost. He left his horse in the midst of it, and must have escaped by some of the by-paths." "He's concealed in my brother's house, for a hundred guineas!" cried Mr. Croyland. "Robert's bewitched, to a certainty; for nothing else but witchcraft could make a man take an owl for a cock pheasant. Oh yes! there he is, snug in Harbourne House, depend upon it, feeding upon venison and turbot, and with a magnum of claret and two bottles of port to keep him comfortable--a drunken, beastly, vicious brute! A cross between a wolf and a swine, and not without a touch of the fox either--though the first figure is the best; for his father was the wolf, and his mother the sow, if all tales be true."