Cashel Byron's Profession

He was himself remarkably changed. He was dressed in a pea-jacket,

which evidently did not belong to him, for it hardly reached his

middle, and the sleeves were so short that his forearms were half

bare, showing that he wore nothing beneath this borrowed garment.

Below it he had on white knee-breeches, with green stains of bruised

grass on them. The breeches were made with a broad ilap in front,

under which, and passing round his waist, was a scarf of crimson

silk. From his knees to his socks, the edges of which had fallen

over his laced boots, his legs were visible, naked, and muscular. On

his face was a mask of sweat, dust, and blood, partly rubbed away in

places by a sponge, the borders of its passage marked by black

streaks. Underneath his left eye was a mound of bluish flesh nearly

as large as a walnut. The jaw below it, and the opposite cheek, were

severely bruised, and his lip was cut through at one corner. He had

no hat; his close-cropped hair was disordered, and his ears were as

though they had been rubbed with coarse sand-paper.

Lydia looked at him for some seconds, and he at her, speechless.

Then she tried to speak, failed, and sunk into her chair.

"I didn't know there was any one here," he said, in a hoarse,

panting whisper. "The police are after me. I have fought for an

hour, and run over a mile, and I'm dead beat--I can go no farther.

Let me hide in the back room, and tell them you haven't seen any

one, will you?"

"What have you done?" she said, conquering her weakness with an

effort, and standing up.

"Nothing," he replied, groaning occasionally as he recovered breath.

"Business, that's all."

"Why are the police pursuing you? Why are you in such a dreadful

condition?"

Cashel seemed alarmed at this. There was a mirror in the lid of a

paper-case on the table. lie took it up and looked at himself

anxiously, but was at once relieved by what he saw. "I'm all right,"

he said. "I'm not marked. That mouse"--he pointed gayly to the lump

under his eye-"will run away to-morrow. I am pretty tidy,

considering. But it's bellows to mend with me at present. Whoosh! My

heart is as big as a bullock's after that run."

"You ask me to shelter you," said Lydia, sternly. "What have you

done? Have you committed murder?"

"No!" exclaimed Cashel, trying to open his eyes widely in his

astonishment, but only succeeding with one, as the other was

gradually closing. "I tell you I have been fighting; and it's

illegal. You don't want to see me in prison, do you? Confound him,"

he added, reverting to her question with sudden wrath; "a

steam-hammer wouldn't kill him. You might as well hit a sack of

nails. And all my money, my time, my training, and my day's trouble

gone for nothing! It's enough to make a man cry."