
answer often unseated and once discastled them, they swam back to their places,
as born warriors, urged by a passion for land, are almost sure to do; are indeed
quite sure, so long as they multiply sturdily, and will never take no from
Fortune. A family passion for land, that survives a generation, is as effective
as genius in producing the object it conceives; and through marriages and
conflicts, the seizure of lands, and brides bearing land, these sharp-feeding
eagle-eyed Earls of Romfrey spied few spots within their top tower's wide circle
of the heavens not their own.
    It is therefore manifest that they had the root qualities, the prime active
elements, of men in perfection, and notably that appetite to flourish at the
cost of the weaker, which is the blessed exemplification of strength, and has
been man's cheerfulest encouragement to fight on since his comparative
subjugation (on the whole, it seems complete) of the animal world. By-and-by the
struggle is transferred to higher ground, and we begin to perceive how much we
are indebted to the fighting spirit. Strength is the brute form of truth. No
conspicuously great man was born of the Romfreys, who were better served by a
succession of able sons. They sent undistinguished able men to army and
navy-lieutenants given to be critics of their captains, but trustworthy for
their work. In the later life of the family, they preferred the provincial state
of splendid squires to Court and political honours. They were renowned shots,
long-limbed stalking sportsmen in field and bower, fast friends, intemperate
enemies, handsome to feminine eyes, resembling one another in build, and mostly
of the Northern colour, or betwixt the tints, with an hereditary nose and mouth
that cried Romfrey from faces thrice diluted in cousin-ships.
    The Hon. Everard (Stephen Denely Craven Romfrey), third son of the late
Earl, had some hopes of the title, and was in person a noticeable gentleman, in
mind a mediæval baron, in politics a crotchety unintelligible Whig. He inherited
the estate of Holdesbury, on the borders of Hampshire and Wilts, and espoused
that of Steynham in Sussex, where he generally resided. His favourite in the
family had been the Lady Emily, his eldest sister, who, contrary to the advice
of her other brothers and sisters, had yielded her hand to his not wealthy
friend, Colonel Richard Beauchamp. After the death of Nevil's parents, he
adopted the boy, being himself childless, and a widower. Childlessness was the
affliction of the
