So the years passed with him until he was fifteen; and never grew boy to that age in a happier atmosphere. He was loved by his preceptor, petted by his lady, popular with their children and the others, in himself interested in everything, of a bold and adventurous spirit, yet constitutionally quiet and reasonable. There was a great waste common, south of the village, and consisting largely of morass, which lent itself gloriously to the exploration of youth. This place was much infested by Egyptians, and teemed moreover with small savage life in infinite profusion, being consequently irresistibly attractive to such as Brion and his playmates. Many were the adventures they experienced in this wild, in hunting and trapping, in extemporising rafts for the countless ponds, and thereon pushing to unknown shores, in penetrating thickets in search of animal surprises, and all in the delicious fear of kidnappings and lurking ambuscades. It was a good education for the spirit, fostering courage and self-reliance, and physically a wholesome counteraction to the Greek and Latin their minds absorbed. The cultured sportsman is ever the soundest product of civilization. And then, all in a moment, and without a word of warning, the good life ended. It happened on a memorable evening in March, when one, who had been there once before, came a second time to visit the school. He was a big man, with a heavy bloated face and dark restless eyes. He had been handsome in his time; but years of passion and self-indulgence had impaired the symmetry of features once comely in their strength. Some sickness of soul, moreover, would seem to have cowed an arrogance formidable enough in its day. His looks were furtive, his manner propitiatory, as he stood up before the pedagogue and stated his business. In fact, Mr Justice Bagott was a disgraced and fallen man. He had been disbenched for that obliquity which in a few decades time was to bring to the ground a far greater lawyer than he. In accepting a heavy bribe from a litigant he had dishonoured himself and disgraced his profession. And it had been no amelioration of the offence that the litigant in question was a Papist. The scandal, which might well have cost the Justice his head, had been notorious enough to penetrate into the by-ways, along which it had even come to reach the ears of Brion’s guardian himself. It had agitated that simple soul, even into some fatalistic premonition of what had actually come to pass. And now the blow had fallen: his charge was demanded of him.