IIo "THE CAVALIER'S PETS."
man-fleeing before the enemies he has despised. He had to
move here and there in various irksome disguises-to seek
help from friends ill able to afford it-to elude the vigilance of
wide-awake, sometimes vindictive foes-to endure no scant
measure of pains and penalties. But, through all, he never
abandoned the poor pets with which he had rashly cumbered
himself.
 Occasionally, when he was so well up in the world as to
represent a pedlar, with his pack on his back, vending his
wares from one country house to another, or from town to
town, he would display the little animals openly, and freely
admit they had belonged to a gentleman in trouble. Then if
some grave father or mother, brother or friend, so far relaxed
in their lofty scorn of all toys as to propose to chaffer for the
dogs in behalf of a doted-on grandson or a tender-hearted
maiden, the reputed pedlar would excuse himself in a flow of
specious words, explaining, with a double meaning in the
assertion, that he was only conveying the dogs for their right-
ful owner, and had no warrant to dispose of them.
 At other times, when Master Neville was playing the
beggar, asking alms from door to door, he had cunningly to
conceal Roy and Reine, lest he should become liable to the
suspicion of having stolen them.
 The dogs and their master shared and fared alike, and
though they had good days and bad days, it soon befell that
Roy and Reine, who had been reared on dainties, and who had
at first turned up their noses in disgust, like petted children,
at plain food, and rather gone without a meal than deigned
to touch it, were fain, like Master Neville, to eat heartily
and thankfully of homely scraps. Though all three were often