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It was Algernon who witnessed and chronicled young Richard's first fight, which was with young Tom Blaize of Belthorpe Farm, three years the boy's senior. Hippias Feverel was once thought to be the genius of the family.
Isle, flowers, and shrine had for ever vanished, and nothing remained but the round monotony of the desert ocean. Then throwing off his grief with a laugh, he eagerly anticipated the impressions of the visit he meditated to Belthorpe Park, and his soul went out to meet this new adventure.
She's gone! Well?" Tom was brought to understand he must make the most of trifles, and recited how he had heard from a female domestic at Belthorpe of the name of Davenport, formerly known to him, that the young lady never slept a wink from the hour she knew she was going, but sat up in her bed till morning crying most pitifully, though she never complained.
Adrian perceived a reserve in the boy's manner, and as he was not quite satisfied that his chief should suppose him to have been the only idle, and not the most acute and vigilant member of the family, he commenced a cross-examination of him by asking who had last spoken with the tenant of Belthorpe? "I think I saw him last," murmured Richard, and relinquished his father's hand.
Lieutenant Belthorpe ordered his men to picket their horses and feed them; and in another hour the soldiers and their beasts had all been fed. Seated on the grass with his two lieutenants, the captain listened to the report of Deck on the events of the forenoon.
It pleased him to write letters with Belthorpe Park printed on the top of the first page, and he wrote many for this reason.
In the lane near Belthorpe he met a maid of the farm not unknown to him, one Molly Davenport by name, a buxom lass, who, on seeing him, invoked her Good Gracious, the generic maid's familiar, and was instructed by reminiscences vivid, if ancient, to giggle. "Are you looking for your young gentleman?" Molly presently asked.
When he came to his encounter with Captain Letcher, both of his auditors were intensely interested, though he told his story very modestly. "I suppose you caused Ceph to stand up on end when you found yourself in a tight place?" suggested Tom Belthorpe. "I did not," answered Deck very emphatically.
Belthorpe Park was often full of visitors, and when walking with them on the terraces, his thoughts ran on Mount Rorke Castle, his own success, and Frank's failure; and when he awoke in the sweet, luxurious rooms, in the houses where he was staying, his brain filled with febrile sensations of triumph, and fitful belief that he was above any caprice of destiny.
"How little," he exclaimed, "does one yeoman know another! To elevate a distinction into a difference is the natural action of their minds. I will point that out to Blaize. He shall see that the idea is native born." Richard saw his father go forth. Adrian, too, was ill at ease. "This trotting down to Belthorpe spoils all," said he. "The affair would pass over to-morrow Blaize has no witnesses.