The "Gloria Scott" - Page 2

of spirits and energy, the very opposite to me in
most respects, but we had some subjects in common, and
it was a bond of union when I found that he was as
friendless as I. Finally, he invited me down to his
father's place at Donnithorpe, in Norfolk, and I
accepted his hospitality for a month of the long
vacation.

"Old Trevor was evidently a man of some wealth and
consideration, a J.P., and a landed proprietor.
Donnithorpe is a little hamlet just to the north of
Langmere, in the country of the Broads. The house was
and old-fashioned, wide-spread, oak-beamed brick
building, with a fine lime-lined avenue leading up to
it. There was excellent wild-duck shooting in the
fens, remarkably good fishing, a small but select
library, taken over, as I understood, from a former
occupant, and a tolerable cook, so that he would be a
fastidious man who could not put in a pleasant month
there.

"Trevor senior was a widower, and my friend his only
son.

"There had been a daughter, I heard, but she had died
of diphtheria while on a visit to Birmingham. The
father interested me extremely. He was a man of
little culture, but with a considerable amount of rude
strength, both physically and mentally. He knew
hardly any books, but he had traveled far, had seen
much of the world. And had remembered all that he had
learned. In person he was a thick-set, burly man with
a shock of grizzled hair, a brown, weather-beaten
face, and blue eyes which were keen to the verge of
fierceness. Yet he had a reputation for kindness and
charity on the country-side, and was noted for the
leniency of his sentences from the bench.

"One evening, shortly after my arrival, we were
sitting over a glass of port after dinner, when young
Trevor began to talk about those habits of observation
and inference which I had already formed into a
system, although I had not yet appreciated the part
which they were to play in my life. The old man
evidently thought that his son was exaggerating in his
description of one or two trivial feats which I had
performed.

"'Come, now, Mr. Holmes,' said he, laughing
good-humoredly. 'I'm an excellent subject, if you can
deduce anything from me.'

"'I fear there is not very much,' I answered; 'I might
suggest that you have gone about in fear of some
personal attack with the last twelvemonth.'

"The laugh faded from his lips, and he stared at me in
great surprise.

"'Well, that's true enough,' said he. 'You know,
Victor,' turning to his son, 'when we broke up that
poaching gang they swore to knife us, and Sir Edward
Holly has actually been attacked. I've always been on
my guard since then, though I have no idea