CHAPTER XXXVI.
EPILOGUE.
It is scarcely necessary to observe that the deciphering of Mr.
Fortescue's notes and the writing of his memoirs were not done in a day.
There were gaps to be filled up, obscure passages to be elucidated, and parts of several chapters and the whole of the last were written to his dictation, so that the summer came and went, and another hunting-season was "in view," before my work, in its present shape, was completed.

I would fain have made it more complete by giving a fuller account of Mr.
Fortescue's adventures (some of which must have been very remarkable) between his first return from South America and his appearance at Matching Green, and I should doubtless have been able to do so (for he had promised to continue and amplify his narrative during the winter, as also to give me the recipe of his elixir), had not our intercourse been abruptly terminated by one of the strangest events in my experience and, I should think, in his.
But, before going further, I would just observe that Mr.Fortescue's cynicism, which, when I first knew him, had rather repelled me, was only skin-deep.

Though he held human life rather cheaper than I quite liked, he was a kind and liberal master and a generous giver.

His largesses were often princely and invariably anonymous, for he detested everything that savored of ostentation and parade.

On the other hand, he had no more tolerance for mendicants in broadcloth than for beggars in rags, and to those who asked he gave nothing.