It is a long story. To explain how it happened we must go back for a
page or two, almost to the point from whence we started in the last
chapter.

For somewhat more than a twelvemonth after Mr. Oxenham's departure,
young Amyas had gone on quietly enough, according to promise, with the
exception of certain occasional outbursts of fierceness common to all
young male animals, and especially to boys of any strength of character.
His scholarship, indeed, progressed no better than before; but his home
education went on healthily enough; and he was fast becoming, young as
he was, a right good archer, and rider, and swordsman (after the old
school of buckler practice), when his father, having gone down on
business to the Exeter Assizes, caught (as was too common in those days)
the gaol-fever from the prisoners; sickened in the very court; and died
within a week.

And now Mrs. Leigh was left to God and her own soul, with this young
lion-cub in leash, to tame and train for this life and the life to
come. She had loved her husband fervently and holily. He had been often
peevish, often melancholy; for he was a disappointed man, with an estate
impoverished by his father's folly, and his own youthful ambition, which
had led him up to Court, and made him waste his heart and his purse in
following a vain shadow. He was one of those men, moreover, who possess
almost every gift except the gift of the power to use them; and though
a scholar, a courtier, and a soldier, he had found himself, when he was
past forty, without settled employment or aim in life, by reason of
a certain shyness, pride, or delicate honor (call it which you will),
which had always kept him from playing a winning game in that very world
after whose prizes he hankered to the last, and on which he revenged
himself by continual grumbling. At last, by his good luck, he met with