The Parts Men Play | Page 7

they would reserve for, and solemnly use at, the next gathering of the
neighbouring gentry.
When Elise was ten and Dick seven, she read him highwaymen's tales
until his large blue eyes almost escaped from their sockets. It was at the
finish of one of these narratives of derring-do that she whispered
temptation into his ear, with the result that they bided their opportunity,
and, when the one groom on duty was asleep, repaired to the stables
armed with a loaded shot-gun. After herculean efforts they succeeded
in harnessing Lord Durwent's famous hunter with the saddle back to
front, the curb-bit choking the horse's throat, the brow-band tightly
strapped around the poor beast's nostrils, the surcingle trailing in the
dust.
With improvised masks over their faces, they mounted the steed and set
out for adventure, the horse seeming to comprehend its strange burden
and stepping as lightly as its tortures would permit, while the saddle
slid cheerfully about its back, threatening any moment to roll the
desperados on to the road.
They had just emerged from the estate into the public highway, when a
passing butcher's cart stopped their progress. The younger Durwent,
who had been mastering the art of retaining his seat while his steed was
in motion, was unprepared for its cessation, and promptly overbalanced
over the horse's shoulder, reaching the road head first, and discharging
a couple of pellets from the shotgun into a fleshy part of the
butcher-boy's anatomy.
The groom was dismissed; the butcher-boy received ten pounds;
Richard (when it was certain that concussion of the brain was not going
to materialise) was soundly whipped; and Elise was banished for

forty-eight hours to her room, issuing with a carefully concocted plan
to waylay the rector coming from church, steal the collection, and
purchase with the ill-gotten gains the sole proprietary interests in the
village sweet-shop.
There is little doubt but that the coup would have been attempted had
not Lord Durwent decided that the influence of his sister was not good
for Dick, and sent him to a preparatory school at Bexhill-on-Sea, there
to imbibe sea-air and some little learning, and await his entrance into
Eton.
Robbed of her brother's stimulating loyalty, Elise relapsed into a sulky
obedience to her governess and her mother. To their puny vision it
seemed that her attitude towards them was one of haughty aloofness,
and everything possible was done to subdue her spirit. Being unable to
see that the child was lonely, and too proud to admit her craving for
sympathetic companionship, they tried to tame the thoroughbred as
they would a mule.
Only when Dick returned for holidays would her petulant moods vanish,
and in his company her old vitality sparkled like the noonday sun upon
the ocean's surface. And if her affection for him knew no variation, his
was no less true. The friendships and the adventures of school were
forgotten in the comradeship of his sister as, over the fields of
Roselawn or on the tennis-court, they would renew their childhood's
hours. He taught her to throw a fly for trout, and she initiated him into
the mysteries of answering the calls of birds in the woods. Mounted on
a couple of ponies, they became familiar figures at the tenants' cottages,
and though the spirit of outlawry mellowed with advancing years, Lady
Durwent never saw them start away from the house without the uneasy
feeling that there was more than a chance they would get into some
mischief before they returned.
In the meantime the elder son was bringing credit to his ancestors and
himself. His accent became a thing of perfection, nicely nuanced, and
entirely free of any emphasis or intensity that might rob it of its placid
suggestion of good-breeding. His attitude towards the servants was one
of pleasant dignity, and the tenantry all spoke of Master Malcolm as a

fine young gentleman who would make a worthy ruler of Roselawn.
Between him and Richard there was little love lost. The elder boy
disapproved of his hoydenish sister, and sought at all times to shame
her tempestuous nature by insistence on decorum in their relations.
Richard, who invariably brought home adverse reports from school,
could find no fault in his colourful sister, and blindly espoused her
cause at all times.
On one occasion, when Malcolm had been more than usually
censorious, Dick challenged him to a fight. They adjourned to the
seclusion of a small plot of grass by a great oak, where the Etonian
knocked Dick down five times in succession, afterwards escorting him
to the cook, who placed raw beefsteak on his eyes.
It was characteristic of the worthy Richard that he bore his brother no
malice whatever for the punishment. He had proposed the fight,
conscious of the fact that he would be