"I believe I am indebted to you, sir, for my smashed tackle and the loss of a heavy fish besides?" said Charles Heathcote, as he came up to where the youth was lying, his voice and manner indicating the anger that moved him.

"I thought to have saved the rod and caught the fish too," said the other, half indolently; "but I only got a wet jacket for my pains."

"I rather suspect, young gentleman, you are more conversant with a measuring-yard than a salmon-rod," said Heathcote, insolently, as he surveyed the damaged fragments of his tackle.

"What do you mean by that, sir?" cried the boy, springing with a bound to his feet, and advancing boldly towards his adversary.

"Simply that it 's not exactly the sort of sport you follow in Bond Street," retorted Heathcote, whose head was full of "Mosely and Trip,"

and felt certain that a scion of that great house was before him.

"You must be a rare snob not to know a gentleman when you see him," said Agincourt, with an insolent defiance in his look.

"Perhaps I'd be a better judge if I saw him after a good washing," said Heathcote, who, with one hasty glance at the river, now turned a fierce eye on the youth.

Agincourt's gun-room experiences had not taught him to decline an offered battle, and he threw off his cap to show that he was ready and willing to accept the challenge, when suddenly Layton sprang between them, crying out, "What's the meaning of all this?"

"The meaning is, that your young friend there has taken the liberty, first, to smash my fishing-gear, and then to be very insolent to me, and that I had very serious intentions of sending him to look for the one and pay forfeit for the other."

"Yes, I broke his rod, and I 'll pay for it, or, if he's a gentleman, I'll beg his pardon, or fight him," said the boy, in a tone of ill-repressed anger.

"When there is an evident mistake somewhere," said Layton, gently, "it only needs a moment of forbearance to set it right."

"Here's how it all happened," broke in the boy, eagerly. And in a few words he related his chance arrival at the spot, how he had seen the rod in what he deemed imminent danger, and how with the best intentions he had interfered to save it.

"I beg you to accept all my excuses for what I have said to you," said Heathcote, with a frank and manly courtesy. "I am quite ashamed of my ill-temper, and hope you'll forgive it."

"To be sure I will. But what about the rod,--you can't easily get such another in these parts?"

The boy looked eagerly at Layton as he spoke. Layton as quickly gave an admonitory glance of caution, and the youth's instinctive good breeding understood it.

"I think you came over with a party of friends to see the villa," said Heathcote, to relieve the awkward pause between them.

"Not friends, exactly; people of our hotel."

Heathcote smiled faintly, and rejoined,--

"Some of our pleasantest acquaintances come of chance intimacies,--don't you think so?"

"Oh, for the matter of that, they 're jolly enough. There's a wonderful Londoner, and a rare Yankee, and there's an Irishman would make the fortune of the Haymarket."

"You must own, Harry, they are all most kind and good-natured to you,"

said Layton, in a tone of mild half-rebuke.

"Well, ain't I just as--what shall I call it?--polite and the like to them? Ay, Layton, frown away as much as you like, they're a rum lot."

"It is young gentlemen of this age who nowadays are most severe on the manners and habits of those they chance upon in a journey, not at all aware that, as the world is all new to them, their criticism may have for its object things of every-day frequency."

The youth looked somewhat vexed at this reproof, but said nothing.

"I have the same unlucky habit myself," said Heathcote, good-humoredly.

"I pronounce upon people with wonderfully little knowledge of them, and no great experience of the world neither; and--case in point--your American acquaintance is exactly one of those I feel the very strongest antipathy to. We have met at least a dozen times during the winter and autumn, and the very thought of finding _him_ in a place would decide _me_ to leave it."

It was not Layton's business to correct what he deemed faulty in this sentiment; but in the sharp glance he threw towards his pupil, he seemed to convey his disapproval of it.

"'My Coach,' Mr. Layton, is dying to tell us both we are wrong, sir,"

said the boy; "he likes the 'kernal.'" And this he said with a nasal twang whose imitation was not to be mistaken.

Though Heathcote laughed at the boy's mimicry, his attention was more taken by the expression "my Coach," which not only revealed the relations of tutor and pupil between them, but showed, by its familiarity, that the youth stood in no great awe of his preceptor.

Perhaps Layton had no fancy for this liberty before a stranger; perhaps he felt ashamed of the position itself; perhaps he caught something in Heathcote's quick glance towards him,--whatever it was, he was irritated and provoked, and angrily bit his lip, without uttering a word.

"Oh, here come the sight-seers! they are doing the grounds, and the grottos, and the marble fountains," cried the boy, as a large group came out from a flower-garden and took their way towards an orangery. As they issued forth, however, Mrs. Morris stopped to caress a very large St. Bernard dog, who lay chained at the foot of an oak-tree. Charles Heathcote had not time to warn her of her danger, when the animal sprang fiercely at her. Had she not fallen suddenly backward, she must have been fearfully mangled; as it was, she received a severe wound in the wrist, and, overcome by pain and terror together, sank fainting on the sward.

For some time the confusion was extreme. Some thought that the dog was at liberty, and fled away in terror across the park; others averred that he was--must be--mad, and his bite fatal; a few tried to be useful; but Quackinboss hurried to the river, and, filling his hat with water, sprinkled the cold face of the sufferer and washed the wound, carefully binding it up with his handkerchief in a quick, business-like way, that showed he was not new to such casualties.

Layton meanwhile took charge of the little girl, whose cries and screams were heartrending.

"What a regular day of misfortunes, this!" said Agin-court, as he followed the mournful procession while they carried the still fainting figure back to the house. "I fancy you 'll not let another batch of sight-seers into your grounds in a hurry."

"The ill-luck has all befallen our guests," said Heathcote. "Our share of the mishap is to be associated with so much calamity."

All that care and kindness could provide waited on Mrs. Morris, as she was carried into the villa and laid on a bed. May Leslie took all upon herself, and while the doctor was sent for, used such remedies as she had near. It was at once decided that she should not be removed, and after some delay the company departed without her; the day that had dawned so pleasantly thus closing in gloom and sadness, and the party so bent on amusement returned homeward depressed and dispirited.

[Illustration: 066]

"They 're mean vicious, these Alp dogs, and never to be trusted," said Quackinboss.

"Heroines will be heroines," said Mrs. Morgan, gruffly.

"Or rather won't be heroines when the occasion comes for it. She fainted off like a school-girl," growled out Morgan.

"I should think she did!" muttered Mosely, "when she felt the beast's teeth in her."

"A regular day of misfortunes!" repeated Agincourt.

"And we lost the elegant fine luncheon, too, into the bargain," said O'Shea. "Every one seemed to think it wouldn't be genteel to eat after the disaster."

"It is the fate of pleasure parties," said Layton, moodily. And so they jogged on in silence.

And thus ended a day of pleasure, as many have ended before it.

Assuredly, they who plan picnics are not animated by the spirit of an actuary. There is a marvellous lack of calculation in their composition, since, of all species of entertainment, there exists not one so much at the mercy of accident, so thoroughly dependent for success on everything going right. Like the Walcheren expedition, the "wind must not only blow from the right point, but with a certain graduated amount of force."

What elements of sunshine and shade, what combinations of good spirits and good temper and good taste! what guidance and what moderation, what genius of direction and what "respect for minorities"! We will not enter upon the material sources of success, though, indeed, it should be owned they are generally better looked to, and more cared for, than the moral ingredients thus massed and commingled.

It was late when the party reached the Bagni, and, wishing each other a half-cold good-night, separated.

And now, one last peep at the villa, where we have left the sufferer. It was not until evening that the Heathcotes had so far recovered from the shock of the morning's disaster and its consequences as to be able to meet and talk over the events, and the actors in them.

"Well," said Sir William, as they all sat round the tea-table, "what do you say to my Yankee now? Of all that company, was there one that showed the same readiness in a difficulty, a quick-witted aptitude to do the right thing, and at the same time so unobtrusively and quietly that when everything was over it was hard to say who had done it?"