Several weeks passed by and, as Colonel Baskerville had predicted, nothing was left undone to make Archy feel how desirable a position Lord Bellingham's grandson and heir would hold. Every afternoon his grandfather sent for him, and talked long and interestingly to him, telling of the early days at the court of George II., describing splendid court functions to him, and impressing upon him with great art the important position that the Baron of Bellingham would always hold, both socially and politically—for Lord Bellingham had the disposal of three seats in Parliament.

Archy listened attentively enough, but the effect of much that he heard was directly the contrary of what his grandfather expected. Archy was quite sharp enough to realize that many of the usual advantages of rank did not appeal to him, while its restrictions were almost intolerable. He saw that the possession of a great name and estate, and all the vast privileges of a peer in the eighteenth century, had only intensified all of his grandfather's faults, his violent temper, his dictatorial disposition—and had neutralized his talents, which were considerable. The sight of an irritable, eccentric old man leading a life of perfect solitude, estranged from all his family except his half-brother, and using every art of cajolery to make himself tolerable to his only grandson, was not an inspiring one to a boy of Archy Baskerville's high and daring spirit and inborn love of adventure.

Nevertheless, Lord Bellingham showed signs of softening, which were more surprising to Colonel Baskerville and the rest of his household than to Archy, who had seen really the best of him. He seemed to take a melancholy interest in hearing of Langton's many fine qualities and personal charm—and one day, after a long conversation with Archy, Lord Bellingham said, almost as if talking to himself:

"My poor daughter—what misery to lose such a son!"

A day or two after that Colonel Baskerville said to Archy, in his usual kind but curt manner:

"You have done a good thing in speaking of Langton to your grandfather. He has this day written to his daughter—the first time for twenty years. He is really becoming quite human."

Lord Bellingham, however, seemed to be ashamed of any soft or generous impulse, and harangued Archy upon the subject of his daughter and her son as if the real sorrow was not Langton's death, but the loss of a possible heir to the Bellingham estates—and as for the title, he seemed to regard Archy's indifference to it as something sacrilegious.

"All titles are not honorable, sir," said Archy. "There is Sir Henry Clinton, the British commander at New York. He is called the Prince of Blunderers. Nothing pleasant about that, sir."

Lord Bellingham showed his appreciation of this news about Sir Henry Clinton by giving a savage kick to a chair near him, which in its turn knocked over a table with candles on it, and only Archy's quickness prevented a fire on the spot. When quiet was restored, this young American, in perfect good faith, and thinking himself rather a clever fellow for hitting upon a solution of the question of the estates, came near bringing a hurricane of wrath down on himself.

"There are two girls, sir. Langton has often told me of his sisters, and you could give the estates to them."

"Girls!" almost shrieked Lord Bellingham, and then relapsed into a state of silent fury at the idea that Bellingham should go to two girls. Archy looked deeply hurt at the way his remark had been received, and left his grandfather's presence with an air of haughtiness ridiculously like the old man's, which caused Colonel Baskerville to laugh heartily at the scene. But Archy made no more suggestions as to the disposition of the Bellingham estates.

At the end of December the assizes were held at York, and Lord Bellingham, as Lord-lieutenant of the North Riding, was to attend them in state.

"And I should be glad, my dear Archibald, to have your company in the coach," said the old gentleman, in a tone of dulcet softness, having forgiven Archy his maladroit speech.

Archy, who would walk ten miles any day to see a fine show, readily agreed. Nothing was said about clothes; but when Archy carefully examined his blue uniform that night, he found that it was indeed on its last legs. His elbows were out, his knees were but little better, and, worse than all, he was shooting up so tall and filling out so fast that he had completely outgrown both jacket and trousers. There was no help for it; Archy laid his beloved shabby uniform away carefully, and next morning appeared at breakfast in the handsome brown riding-suit.

Colonel Baskerville noted it with an approving nod.

"I fully reckoned on your getting a broken head, sooner or later, for wearing your American uniform. It was foolhardy; but I perceive, nephew, you are inclined to be foolhardy."

"The French, sir, called Captain Jones foolhardy when he sailed into the narrow seas with the Ranger sloop, and they had fifty-five sail of the line holding on to their anchors at L'Orient; but he came back all safe, and brought the Drake with him. And they said he was worse than foolhardy when he went out in the poor old Bon Homme Richard; but he came back again, and that time he brought the Serapis—huzza!" Here Archy got up and cut a pigeon-wing, nearly upsetting Diggory with a tray full of cups and saucers.

"Let me tell you one thing, young man," remarked Colonel Baskerville, coolly; "you have a very clever trick of always having the last word, but don't imagine for a moment that it proves you are always right. Clever tricks count for but little in the long-run."

Archy went into a brown-study at this remark, and at the end of ten minutes came out of it to say:

"Uncle, I believe you know a great deal, one way and another."

"Hear! hear!" said Colonel Baskerville, sarcastically. "A young gentleman not yet seventeen gracefully admits that a man three times his age actually knows something! You amaze me, nephew."

"I don't admit that I don't know anything," stoutly protested Archy.

"Far from it, my dear boy. You know more now than you ever will, if you live to be a hundred. Every year of your life you will know less—in your own estimation, that is. But at present you have nothing to learn."

At which Archy laughed rather sheepishly, and went on with his breakfast.

Immediately after breakfast the splendid coach-and-four, with outriders, was drawn up at the main entrance, and Lord Bellingham appeared, magnificently dressed, with his breast covered with orders, and a diamond-hilted sword on his hip. He entered the coach, taking the middle of the back seat, while Colonel Baskerville and Archy sat facing him.

It was a beautifully clear December morning, and when the horses took the road through the park at a rattling gait, it was exhilarating in the highest degree. Colonel Baskerville's plain but kindly face lighted up, and even Lord Bellingham seemed to feel a briskness in the blood. But Archy grew unaccountably grave. He had an indefinable feeling that he was leaving it all for the last time, and caught himself involuntarily looking around at the gray old castle on the hill, the slopes of the park on which the red deer stood peacefully feeding, the low chain of blue hills in the distance, as if he were saying farewell to them—nor could he shake off this singular impression during the whole drive.

At the park gates they were joined by the mounted yeomanry, and every parish they passed through sent its quota, until, when they reached the old minster city of York, they had a great cavalcade behind them. The venerable town was in holiday garb. The trainbands were out, with fife and drum; the sheriffs and lord-lieutenants of all three ridings were present in state; and the judges in their robes awaited the forming of the procession to the assize hall.

The life, the color, the masses of people who filled the picturesque streets of the beautiful old town, were captivating to Archy—but what amazed him most was to see a number of man-o'-warsmen about. He was not long in finding out that there was a large fleet at the mouth of the Humber, and these were liberty men who had come to York in wagons to spend their few hours of shore time.

But Archy was himself a sailor, and he began to consider that captains were not wont to allow men so far inland merely for a day's holiday, and the presence of several officers threw a flood of light on the question.

"They are press-gangs," he thought to himself. "The fleet, I have heard, is short-handed, and they have selected some of the trustiest fellows and sent them here with their officers, and many a stout countryman will sleep to-morrow night on one of his Majesty's ships."

But Archy soon became so taken up with the splendid pageant of opening the assizes that he forgot the sailors for the time. The highwayman and his accomplice, the coachman of the Comet, were to be tried at that term, but Archy soon found that the trial would not come off until the next day, and his testimony would not be wanted until then. All was grand and imposing until the prisoners were brought in, but the sight of so much misery and wickedness smote the boy to the heart, and he quickly left the favored position he occupied in the hall, and went out and walked about the streets.

The sitting of the Court was unusually prolonged, and the short December day was rapidly closing in before the procession was again formed, with something less of state, to return to the grand dinner served to the judges and all the great functionaries. In the evening there was to be a splendid assize ball, and while wretches were bemoaning the sentences of death or transportation they had received, and trembling prisoners waited in anguish the coming of their turn of trial, a splendid company assembled for the ball. But the same strange feeling of oppression still hung upon Archy. The sights he had seen were very brilliant, but there was something in the very word Assize that sobered him.

After dinner he slipped quietly away from Colonel Baskerville, and joining the crowd outside the noble building where the ball was to be held, watched the assembling of the guests. Among the last to come was his grandfather. Never had Lord Bellingham looked more superb than when he descended from his coach, bowing right and left to the cheering crowd. He was an unpopular man, a hard landlord, and overbearing to his equals—but he was noble to look at, and the unthinking crowd cheered him because of that.

Archy felt no inclination to enter the ballroom then, and wrapping his cloak around him, he sauntered away into the distant streets, now silent and deserted under the quiet stars.

He was thinking deeply and rather sadly—trying to imagine how his father had walked those streets twenty years before—recalling Langton, and pitying his grandfather's coming loneliness when both he and Colonel Baskerville left him—for he had made up his mind to go to London with Colonel Baskerville shortly, and to see what his prospects of exchange were. He wandered on and on, until he found himself in a remote corner of the town, opposite a quaint, old-fashioned inn, its spacious tap-room opening on a level with the street.

Inside were a number of sailors and countrymen, and slightly separated from them, in little box-like compartments, were two or three naval officers. Archy was surprised at this at first, but he soon reasoned it out for himself.

"It is a regular raid they are planning," he thought, "and the officers are there to quietly direct. Oh, there will be a love of a scrimmage!" and this notion proving very enticing, Archy entered, and calling for bread and cheese and ale, seated himself in one of the little boxes by the fire.

The landlady, a handsome, middle-aged woman, and her three buxom daughters, he soon guessed were in the plot with the officers, who spent their money freely, and kept the landlord and all his assistants on the trot. One party at a table particularly attracted his attention. There were half a dozen sailors who let on, in their characteristically imprudent way, that they had lately been paid off at Plymouth, and being north-country men, were on their way home to see their relatives instead of spending their money in riot and dissipation in Plymouth and London. One of them, a hale, handsome, well-made man of about fifty, particularly struck Archy's eye.

"You won't stand much of a chance, my fine fellow, with a press-gang," thought Archy, admiring the old sailor's brawny figure and fine, sailor-like air, "nor your mates either, and if I were out on a press for men I don't know but I would be as quick to nab you as anybody."

Besides the main door, there was another door opening upon a corridor that led to the court-yard, and through this corridor passed the landlord and his wife and daughters, and the waiters, serving the guests. Presently Archy saw an officer get up nonchalantly, open the door slightly, then close it, and the landlady quietly barred and locked it. Archy, however, had a momentary glimpse down the corridor, and he caught sight of a huge covered wagon, with four horses, drawn up in the court-yard.

Five minutes afterwards every light went out like magic, leaving only the half-light of a blazing sea-coal fire; the front door was clapped to, and as if by a preconcerted effort a dozen sailors dashed at the seafaring men seated at the middle table, others made a rush for several countrymen quietly munching bread and cheese, and a general mÊlÉe was in order.

After the first moment of surprise, the sailors did not have it all their own way, and a tremendous uproar followed. It seemed to be quite free from any of the enmities of a fight, though, and the landlord, standing off impartially, grinned, while the landlady and her three daughters seemed to consider it the height of a frolic. The three officers on the edge of the struggling crowd shouted out orders, and several brawny countrymen were secured after a hard scuffle. But the sailors at the middle table were used to that sort of thing, and it was plain that the press-gang had its work cut out to capture these men. The next thing they did, after fighting off the first onslaught, was to throw themselves like a battering-ram against the door leading to the corridor, the main door being much too heavy and too securely fastened for them to break it down. The corridor door gave way with a crash as they hurled themselves against it, but a dozen sailors rushed to it, and fought them back step by step. The men, led by the handsome old fellow that Archy had admired, held their ground stoutly, but they were slowly driven back from the door, only to intrench themselves behind the long tables, where, brandishing chairs, shovels and tongs, sticks, and anything else they could lay hold of, they jeered at the sailors with cutlasses, and dared them to come on.

"Catch that old fellow, my lads—he's the best topman in the service," bawled one of the officers, and in response to this half a dozen men surrounded the old sailor, who, armed with the kitchen poker, made it fly around like a flail. During all this uproar and confusion Archy had sat still in his corner, a perfectly disinterested observer; but when he saw a young sailor suddenly begin to crawl under the table to seize the old man by the legs, Archy could not remain neutral another minute. He made a dash at the young fellow, and, seizing him by the legs in turn, immediately found himself in the thick of the fight.

The men who were to be pressed, encouraged by their new recruit, who yelled out, "Stick to it, my lads! Don't let 'em take you against your will!" made a sortie from behind the table, valiantly led by Archy with his sword; but this rash proceeding proved disastrous—they were quickly overpowered by numbers, and every one of them finally captured. They made a desperate fight for their new ally, and protected him to the end, the old sailor being the last to succumb; but when Archy's fortunes seemed most desperate, he suddenly found a friend in the landlady.

"Hey, there!" exclaimed this sturdy Amazon. "Let the young gentleman alone. He ain't no man for a press-gang!" And with that she pushed her way between the struggling, shouting men, and, planting herself firmly before Archy, cried out, brandishing a canister of snuff she had snatched off the mantel-piece, "The first man as lays hold on this here young gentleman gets snuff in his eyes. And you, Hizzy, Betsy, and Nancy, come here and help me to keep this sweet young gentleman out o' the way o' them murderin' ruffians, bad luck to 'em!"

THE LANDLADY STOOD BETWEEN ARCHY AND THE OFFICER

Hizzy, Betsy, and Nancy, three great, strapping girls, each bigger than Archy, ran forward at this. Hizzy, pulling out a table-drawer and handing a rolling-pin to Betsy and another to Nancy, armed herself with a tremendous pair of shears, and, marching to her mother's side, prepared to defend "the sweet young gentleman."

The officers and men, disconcerted for a moment by the sudden move on the part of the women, fell back, laughing.

"Please, sir," said one of the sailors, with a broad grin, to the officers, "we knows how to fight men, but we ain't used to handlin' women—and we leaves 'em to our betters."

The landlady, who had heretofore made no objection to the rumpus going on, now suddenly discovered that it was a very outrageous proceeding, and began to harangue at the top of her lungs.

"Nice goings on, this, for a respectable tavern! Next thing we'll be up afore a justice and have our license took away! And arter takin' away our customers, peaceable men as pays their score, you wants to nab with your beastly press-gang a beautiful young gentleman, with a handsome cloak and silk stockings. But never you mind, my darlin', we'll keep them murderin' ruffians off and send you home to your lady mother"—this last to the hero of this tale, who, in his heart, somewhat resented the language of his rescuers.

"Madam," explained one of the officers, in a tone of the mildest argument, "we are exceedingly sorry to cause your ladyship and your ladyship's lovely daughters any inconvenience, but that young gentleman we mean to have, to serve as we please, for his insolence in daring to resist the King's officers; so here goes"—and at this he made a dash forward, and, seizing the landlady round the waist, attempted to drag her away. But the Amazon, as good as her word, gave him a shower of snuff in the face. His two brother officers, coming to his rescue, were so unmercifully whacked on the head with the rolling-pins in the hands of Betsy and Nancy, while Hizzy jabbed at them with the shears, that they soon found it prudent to retire amid the roars of laughter of both victors and vanquished. They presently returned to the charge; and now beheld Mr. Archibald Baskerville, late midshipman on the continental ship Bon Homme Richard, dodging back and forth behind the women's petticoats, and always managing to keep the buxom form of one of their ladyships, as the officer had called them, between him and his assailants. Meanwhile, what with the scuffle, the sneezing from the snuff which the landlady had so freely distributed, and the roars of laughter with which the combat was witnessed, the cries and shouts, there was a noise like Bedlam; but Archy, anxiously dodging hither and yon, found nothing to laugh at in his somewhat grotesque circumstances. The fight was desperate, the manoeuvring masterly—but, at last, a young lieutenant with a long arm seized Archy from behind Hizzy's skirts, and giving him a clip on the ear, he suddenly fell over, and the world became a blank to him; he heard not another sound and knew nothing more of the fight with the press-gang.