Charles, born 1831.
Densil was an only son. His father, a handsome, careless, good-humoured, but weak and superstitious man, was entirely in the hands of the priests, who during his life were undisputed masters of Ravenshoe. Lady Alicia was, as I have said, a daughter of Lord Ascot, a Staunton, as staunchly a Protestant a house as any in England. She, however, managed to fall in love with the handsome young Popish Squire, and to elope with him, changing not only her name, but, to the dismay of her family, her faith also, and becoming, pervert-like, more actively bigoted than her easy-going husband. She brought little or no money into the family; and, from her portrait, appears to have been exceedingly pretty, and monstrously silly.
To this strong-minded couple was born, two years after their marriage, a son who was called Densil.
This young gentleman seems to have got on much like other young gentlemen till the age of twenty-one, when it was determined by the higher powers in conclave assembled that he should go to London, and see the world; and so, having been cautioned duly how to avoid the flesh and the devil, to see the world he went. In a short time intelligence came to the confessor of the family, and through him to the father and mother, that Densil was seeing the world with a vengeance; that he was the constant companion of the Right Honourable Viscount Saltire, the great dandy of the Radical Atheist set, with whom no man might play picquet and live; that he had been upset in a tilbury with Mademoiselle Vaurien of Drury-lane at Kensington turnpike; that he had fought the French émigré, a Comte de Hautenbas, apropos of the Vaurien aforementioned—in short, that he was going on at a deuce of a rate: and so a hurried council was called to deliberate what was to be done.
"He will lose his immortal soul," said the priest.
"He will dissipate his property," said his mother.
"He will go to the devil," said his father.
So Father Clifford, good man, was despatched to London, with post horses, and ordered to bring back the lost sheep vi et armis. Accordingly, at ten o'clock one night, Densil's lad was astounded by having to admit Father Clifford, who demanded immediately to be led to his master.
Now this was awkward, for James well knew what was going on upstairs; but he knew also what would happen, sooner or later, to a Ravenshoe servant who trifled with a priest, and so he led the way.
The lost sheep which the good father had come to find was not exactly sober this evening, and certainly not in a very good temper. He was playing écarté with a singularly handsome, though supercilious-looking man, dressed in the height of fashion, who, judging from the heap of gold beside him, had been winning heavily. The priest trembled and crossed himself—this man was the terrible, handsome, wicked, witty, Atheistical, radical Lord Saltire, whose tongue no woman could withstand, and whose pistol no man dared face; who was currently believed to have sold himself to the deuce, or, indeed, as some said, to be the deuce himself.