Show f i THE PEEP MOT ALE DROSS EPITOME LITERARY MAGAZINE nor too scrupulous in his honesty but this stood not in the way of his becoming BY E W TDLLIDGE CHAPTER III O' ‘DAY— A - OF TIIE D’LACY HISTORY The D ’Lacy s were one of the oldest and noblest families in England of high Norman descent and as usual with the various branches of that stock of warrior chiefs who came over with William the Conqueror they had ever been distin-guished for pride of family The D’Lacys had not been without ' their bad representatives but the mnjori- ty had been of the quality of Lord Frederick — the Dying Traveler of our first chapter Of course the difference of ages reflected in the more modern repre sentatives of their house a softer texture of character and a higher polish than found in the warlike founders of their race They were exceedingly jealous of their personal and family honor and particular about sustaining the irreproachable character which the D’Lacys bore The grandfather of Lord Frederick considered it a sacred duty which he owed both to his ancestors and descend-- ‘ ants to sustain the magnificence of their house To do this the nobleman considered his income not too large and had it been ten times as much he would have felt bound in honor to have exhausted it to the glorification of the D’Laey name But injustice to the old lord it must be said that he considered a D’Lacy in honor bound to appropriate no inconsiderable portion of liis income to the of his tenantry and preserving and improving his family domains Had the grandfather of Lord Frederick gone no farther than the annual ex- haustioa of his annual income the ruin which afterwards befell his house had not been invoked but it was the too princely magnificence with which the old lord sustained the glory of his race and name which left the D’Lacy estates involved at his death under mortgage to the amount of two hundred thousand pounds Lord Reginald his son as little understood retrenchment as his father for the very necessity of retrenchment was quite a new idea to the D’Lacys and though Lord Reginald yearly paid the interest of the mortgage which to him was very great retrenchment ho paid not a farthing of the principal debt Matters however went well enough until young Frederick his son reached the age of fifteen when a train of cir4 vvell-bein- g cumstances occurred which first pointed to the black looming clouds gathering over the D’Lacy house The firm which held the mortgage of the estates became bankrupt and the mortgage was required to be taken up This put Lord Reginald to his wits end but at the very crisis of his embarrassment there came one to his help whom it would have been better had he never seen At Jlie date of Lord Reginald’s diffi-- ’ culties General Blakely had just re-- : turned from India The history of this who became so vitally con- personage nected with the ruin of the D’Lacys is briefly as follows : The General was by birth a plebeian His father a clerk of a large London banking company was sent by the firm to India at a time when it was beginning to be the HI Dorado of the world He was a sharp industrious money-scrapin- g little man and in a few years he became principal of a firm himself He might not bavo been too strict in his principles His wife and son soon immensely rich followed him to India and the former dying in a year left her husband free to many the daughter of a poor general in the service of the East India Company When the son of the banker and moneylender reached maturity his father obtained for him a commission in the East India service and the young man became a military protege of General Maitland the poor lather-in-laof the rich Simon Blakely Blakely jun was not without courage though of plebeian origin nor is this very remarkable for the lower classes can fight as well as the “ upper ten” In fact pluck is quite a common quality of the Anglo Saxon race There was no reason therefore why young Blakely as an officer in the East India Company should not distinguish himself and in time with the advantages of favor and wealth become what he now Was — himself a general After an absence of twenty-fiv- e years General Blakely returned to his native land which he left as a boy from the people but now he was no longer one of the vulgar populace — he returned to enter the circles of the elite of the land having the passport of high military rank and the reputation of an Indian nabob Now the General rode a high hobbyhorse His ambition was to found a family and he was in search of some broken-downoble house The declining 'family of the D’Lacys threw into his hands the winning card of the stakes for which he His banker introduced him to played Lord Reginald at the crisis of that nobleman’s difficulties and though with much reluctance on the part of D’Lacy a transfer of the mortgage was made to the wealthy General Thus was farther paved the ruin of an ancient house From this we pass along in the history of the D’Lacys until we find the son of Lord Reginald at Eton the renowned school where’ are educated the scions of the b6st families of England The “good Sir Richard” or Sir Richard Courtney and the earliwas an Etonion school-mat- e est and dearest friend of young D’Lacy whom our readers have been introduced to as Lord Frederick D’Lacy — “The Dying Traveler” Richard Courtney was several years the elder and was the senior of young D’Lacy at school “Dick” and “Fred” as the boys familiarly called each other were from the first on such terms of acquaintanceship as would exist between schoolmates and equals but their strong and particular friendship began with the following episode of their school days which also gave birth to special enmity in the breast of Herbert Blakely against our favorite Fred Eton is celebrated for dashing fights among the boys doubtless from the fact that the scholars are proud d youths — scions of the proudest fiunilies in England Many a general statesman and other noted characters have made their debut upon the stage of public life by a fight at Eton and from such an event have dated the special connecof many great tions and men Often have they become acquainted with qualities through a e method fight at school and by a of ready reckoning learned better to appreciate each other from an Eton pugilistic fray than they would in after years had they met fyr the first time in some great national debate in the House of Peers or the Commons of England It was not straDge then that from an each-other- boy-lik- i Eton fight dated the friendship of Sir Richard Courtney and Lord Frederick D’Eacy on one side and on the other the vindictive hatred of the son of General Blakely against “Fred’ which culminated jn the ruin of his house Soon after “Fred” entered Eton a feud grew up between him and young Herbert Blakely the son of the wealthy General who now held the mortgage It could not upon the D’Lacy estates however be exactly termed a feud on the part of “ Fred ” for there was in him none of the elements of an antagonistic spirit He was merely a party iu the feud in a negative sense Herbert Blakely was strong tall and heavily though not badly made and was the very fellow one would hit upon as the bully of the school — “ the cock of the walk’’ His natural bodily advantages and a fair share of Saxon pluck fitted him like his father for a fighting man and as he was decidedly not an highly intellectual type of the human animal he became more distinguished in those branches of an Etonion’s education where physical prowess is in greater demand than brains and the pugilistic hero superior to the intellectual gladiator Herbert Blakely at Eton was in daily association writh youths in whose persons hereditary rank and honors were inheritances Nearly all who arc of plebeian origin while they pretend to despise rank and titles are particularly desirous to wrear them and so Herbert playod aristocracy in his claims He had no family hereditary titles conferred by the Crown but his father was a General and the boy arrogated a kind of an hereditary right to the military title which his father had won LQve r a certain class of Eton boys he assumed a kind of commander-in-chief-ship Some he bowed to his authority because they feared to oppose him and others allowed him to be their chief “man” because his father was rich and he in receipt of a handsome allowance while their fathers were not so favored of fortune Thus it is the strong command the weak — the rich the oor! Like his father Herbert was nown as “The General” Young D’Lacy was just the kind of a boy who in the opinion of the general ought to bow to his commander-ship “Fred” was apparently slender though his slimness was more in appearance than in fact for being tall of his age he did not show to full advantage his naturally powerful frame but Her-bert was three inches taller three years his senior and a “stone” heavier “Fred” was a meek spirited youth and young overbearing fel- Blakely a low who could not distinguish between meekness and timidity but above all which in Herbert’s eyes established his right to command “Fred” was the fact that the mortgage of the D’Lacy estates was in his father’s iron chest Scarcely w’as Frederick D’Lacy initiated into Eton school than Herbert Blakely commenced his assumption of right over him but was surprised to find in the gentle youth a spirit of insubordination This ho attributed to to his arrogance the D’Lacy pride and notions of ancient family etc all of which he was determined to humble in the dust before the greatness of his rising house Hence commenced a series of persecutions from him against “Fred” which the latter resented merely by a quiet proud reserv e and by shunning all companionship with tbe plebeian boy Blakely There was another class of Eton boys who treated Herbert’s leadership with hauteur and contempt and who in fact |