A M ASTER OF FORTUN E . part 1 . CHA PT E R 1 . I T w as r after twelve, and the rive lay in a b laze of summer light when Carteret and S e afeld rowed up in their - A pair oar to bathe at the weir. mel ancholy brooded on the stream in spite of all the dancing of myriads of sti n beams, in spite of the glad voices of younger boys sporting in and out o f the water at U pper Hope and at “ ” ia Athens, names eloquent of the ture and of the past . It was their last 6 a ? M A S TE R OF F ORTU N E . row together, for the summer half was a lmost at an end , and Carteret, at least, was bound to leave, since a week ago he had accepted , with rebellious feel i - ngs , the fact of his nineteenth birth d a y . He had been feeling very old of late, nursing the grim belief, which must be accepted with other uncom promising facts, that youth and school e d a n ed together, and that the life of man must be very poor fun in compari son . The triumphs o fboyhood he had chosen to take with a cert ain fas tidious air , as if he held that they were over valued by other fellows ; but there w as no question that they were at least far more worthy of effort than the judg s hips or generalships, the stars or garters of later life . The joy of the morning was gone for him , though it played on the river and on the wet blade of his oar, as he feathered it in the sun , rowing with a lissome boyish n ess, which he thought to have left b ehind him for ever. Perhaps the :A M A S TER OF FORTU N E . stroke, behind whom Carteret rowed so easily, made him feel the more S eafeld manly, for was slighter and lighter, and more wholly and gladly the boy . Carteret could pull him round with ease, and had been forced to moderate his strength in the late races . They had been held the pretti on est pair the river, and the steering of bow had been exceptionally fine . And now they had come to their last row together, to their last bathe at the familiar place . The river came tumbling over the w at weir, with its summer aters all play and foaming ; and it was there , moved by the genius of the place , hanging by his left shoulder to the old punt moored out in the tumultuous a stream , that thme silent C rteret spoke words which a azed his friend . he I shall miss you most awfully , said . S e afeld h , who was hanging by bot hands from the punt , raised his eye T E 8 ed MASTER OF FOR UN . brows with wonder. He had never heard such an expression of feeling from the friend who was looking down on him , frowning a little . The bright young face , which lay like a flower on the surface of the water, seemed to the more serious lad the very S pirit of the youth and joy which he must now forego . If poets and novelists and writers of a myriad Vales had made these feelings on leaving school trite and contemptible to his youthful scorn , yet there the feelings were, for c all his s orn , and had parted his closed lips, so that he heard himself say clearly above the music of the tumbling waters those words, so sentimental , so absurd , — I shall miss you awfully awfully . What will you do without me to look after you ? said the boy from the surface of the stream , looking up , smiling, delighted . “ O ! h, you said the other, with sudden measureless contempt ; and he A T E e MASTER OF FOR U N . 9 placed his open hand on the smiling face and pushed it under water. And now it was time to be going and to be done with the joy of the u river. The two boys came dripping p o ut of the water, and dried and clad themselves with their zephyrs and r flannel, and so got carefully into thei and dainty boat, slid level and easy, moving like one down the enchanted stream . When S eafeld had stepped from the boat on to the rafts and was making - for the changing room , the waterman , ’ who held bow s outrigger, said bluntly to Carteret , whose eyes were following “ ’ r his friend , If you d had a stronge ’ stroke , you d have won the pulling. R ! as o d ot said Carteret , he t uche the man ’ s shoulder in stepping from his his place . But , as he followed h friend indoors, he said to himself, wit t a curt recognition of his own folly, tha he would rather have been beaten with e afe l S d than have won with another. t o E 0A MASTER OF FORTU N . What an ass I am ! ” he added to “ himself ; I shall be always chucking good things for some whim or other. mIt was a ! moment of rare enlighten ent ; and yet , perhaps, the story of all he his youth may show if, after , w as so foolish in freeing himself of r some things held good . There a e many more foolish beasts than the ass. CHAPT ER II . I T w as a pleasant day in spring, yet charming by her late coming and ca price . She mocked and tempted as she fled to the willows and touched their twigs to buds. Willow copses - o n were there and little woods, hangers of the hillsides, and the hills were low and of gentle slope and the valley wide and green . It was one of those scenes E of which our ngland is prodigal, not seeking admiration, not proclaiming a her beauty, but ch rming, tender, caressing, to be remembered with cool joy by exiles under burning suns . It was the day and the scene of a - little steeple chase meeting , which was 1 2 d MASTER OF FORTUNE. O held by a college of xford, a very quiet meeting, since it was not only in defiance of the college rules but of the a known wishes of the dons, which was more serious matter. And yet it was remarkably free from the less at t rac - tive features of the race course . There - were no professional betting men, no rancorous clamor, no crowd from Lon don . Only around the course were - wagonettes of neighboring gentle folk , O a local coach , some whilom xford sportsmen renewing their youth, and a mere handful of present und ergradu ates, who had come to see their fellows t e in the new dignity of silk , the new A sponsibility of racing. mere hand ful these, for in each generation of Oxford undergraduates there are fewer who hunt or keep horses, and this meeting was promoted and patronized by but one set of one college . But , if those who were to ride and their friends were few in number, they a were vastly important . If they were 1 cA MASTER OF FORTUNE. 3 s mall set , they took themselves with ‘ s uflicie nt seriousness ; and they re e garded the rest of their coll ge, and yet more the rest of their university, as smugs of various degree , but in a mass smugs, a fine comprehensive term for the other fellows . They were a fair sample of the rising hope of the n w al e plutocracy , all rich for boys, most all with assured prospects of future wealth , some of historic names, a but all , whatever their parents, with ff b a natural contempt , ino ensive ec use a for they had never thought bout it , those who could not afford to live n h as they lived . If they looked o t e mass of undergraduates with a con t e mt uous c a p arelessness, they reg rded each other with care . It , was the time of the full tyranny of dress ; and the an t he colors d breeches of the riders, overcoats and gaiters of their suppor r and te s, displayed a rigid correctness, s betrayed a careful tudy, which con t rast e d comically with the guileless 1 4 J MASTER OF FORTUNE. knowingness of their fresh faces . They looked l ike plotting infants ; they were too conscious of their garments and their walk ; they were unnaturally serious . Only now and then the rigidity of the performance, and the solemnity due to that deep- seated reverence for sport which Britons of ff their class must feel , or a ect to feel, was broken by an explosion of laughter, ff an outbreak of juvenile cha , a friendly blow or shove . If those who rode were open to the criticism of more map u t re sportsmen , they had at least that gift of boyhood, of the boyhood which haunted them and made them nervous n t i their manliness, that ar less grace ’ which makes boys cricket , rowing, football or riding more pleasant to the eye than the more accurate exercises of older persons . Among these boys, for, after all , boys they were , the tall est and the strongest , the oldest in mind and body was Alan Carteret . Cart eret had spent two years at 1 6 vi S OF F N MA TER ORTU E.