The Complete Wyvern Mystery (All 3 Volumes in One Edition). Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

ye'll not take ye'r leave, sir, till I choose, and ye shall stay," yelled the old Squire, placing himself between the Captain and the steps. "And I'd like to know why ye shouldn't hear her called what she is -- a ---- and a ---- ."

      "Because she's my wife, sir," retorted Charles Fairfield, whitening with fury.

      "She is, is she?" said the old man, after a long gaping pause. "Then ye'r a worse scoundrel, ye black-hearted swindler, than I took you for -- and ye'll take that --"

      And trembling with fury, he whirled his heavy cane in the air. But before it could descend, Charles Fairfield caught the hand that held it.

      "None o' that -- none o' that, sir," he said with grim menace, as the old man with both hands and furious purpose sought to wrest the cane free.

      "Do you want me to do it?"

      The gripe of old Squire Harry was still powerful, and it required an exertion of the younger man's entire strength to wring the walking-stick from his grasp.

      Over the terrace balustrade it flew whirling, and old Squire Harry in the struggle lost his feet, and fell heavily on the flags.

      There was blood already on his temple and white furrowed cheek, and he looked stunned. The young man's blood was up -- the wicked blood of the Fairfields -- but he hesitated, stopped, and turned.

      The old Squire had got to his feet again, and was holding giddily by the balustrade. His hat still lay on the ground, his cane was gone. The proud old Squire was a tower dismantled. To be met and foiled so easily in a feat of strength -- to have gone down at the first tussle with the "youngster," whom he despised as a "milksop" and a "Miss Molly," was to the old Hercules, who still bragged of his early prowess, and was once the lord of the wrestling ring for five and twenty miles round, perhaps for the moment the maddest drop in the cup of his humiliation.

      Squire Harry with his trembling hand clutched on the stone balustrade, his tall figure swaying a little, had drawn himself up and held his head high and defiantly. There was a little quiver in his white old features, a wild smile in his eyes, and on his thin, hard lips, showing the teeth that time had left him; and the blood that patched his white hair trickled down over his temple.

      Charles Fairfield was agitated, and felt that he could have burst into tears--that it would have been a relief to fall on his knees before him for pardon. But the iron pride of the Fairfields repulsed this better emotion. He did, however, approach hurriedly, with an excited and troubled countenance, and he said hastily--

      "I'm awfully sorry, but it wasn't my fault; you know it wasn't. No Fairfield ever stood to be struck yet; I only took the stick, sir. D--n it, if it had been my mother I could not have done it more gently. I could not help your tripping. I couldn't; and I'm awfully sorry, by ----, and you won't remember it against me? Say you won't. It's the last time you'll ever see me in life, and there's no use in parting at worse odds than we need; and -- and -- won't you shake hands, sir?"

      "I say, son Charlie, ye've spilled my blood," said the old man. "May God damn ye for it; and if ever ye come into Wyvern after this, while there's breath in my body I'll shoot ye like a poacher."

      And with this paternal speech, Squire Harry turned his back and tottered stately and grimly into the house.

      Chapter X.

      The Drive Over Cressley Common by Moonlight

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      The old Squire of Wyvern wandered from room to room, and stood in this window and that. An hour after the scene on the terrace, he was trembling still and flushed, with his teeth grimly set, sniffing, and with a stifling weight at his heart.

      Night came, and the drawing-room was lighted up, and the Squire rang the bell, and sent for old Mrs. Durdin.

      That dapper old woman, with a neat little cap on, stood prim in the doorway and curtsied. She knew, of course, pretty well what the Squire was going to tell her, and waited in some alarm to learn in what tone he would make his communication.

      "Well," said the Squire, sternly, holding his head very high, "Miss Alice is gone. I sent for you to tell ye, as y're housekeeper here. She's gone; she's left Wyvern."

      "She'll be coming again, sir, soon?" said the old woman after a pause.

      "No, not she -- no," said the Squire.

      "Not returnin' to Wyvern, sir?"

      "While there's breath in my body she'll never darken these doors."

      "Sorry she should a' displeased you, sir," said the good-natured little woman with a curtsey.

      "Displease ye! Who said she displeased me? It ain't the turning of a pennypiece to me -- me, by ----. Ha, ha! that's funny."

      "And -- what do you wish done with the bed and the furniture, sir? Shall I leave it still in the room, please?"

      "Out o' window wi't -- pitch it after her; let the work'us people send up and cart it off for the poor-house, where she should 'a bin, if I hadn't a bin the biggest fool in the parish."

      "I'll have it took down and moved, sir," said the old woman, interpreting more moderately; "and the same with Mrs. Crane's room; Dulcibella, she's gone too?"

      "Ha, ha! well for her -- plotting old witch. I'll have her ducked in the pond if she's found here; and never you name them, one or t'other more, unless you want to go yourself. I'm fifty pounds better. I didn't know how to manage or look after her -- they're all alike. If I chose it I could send a warrant after her for the clothes on her back; but let her be. Away wi' her -- a good riddance; and get her who may, I give him joy o' her."

      The Squire was glad to see Tom Ward that night, and had a second tankard of punch.

      "Old servant, Tom; I believe the old folk's the best after all," said he. "It's a d--d changed world, Tom. Things were otherwise in our time; no matter, I'll pay 'em off yet."

      And old Harry Fairfield fell asleep in his chair, and after an hour wakened up with a dream of little Ally's music still in his ears.

      "Play it again, child, play it again," he said, and listened--to silence and looked about the empty room, and the sudden pain came again, with a dreadful yearning mixed with his anger.

      The Squire cursed her for a devil, a wild-cat, a viper, and he walked round the room with his hands clenched in his coat pockets, and the proud old man was crying. With straining and squeezing the tears oozed and trickled from his wrinkled eyelids down his rugged cheeks.

      "I don't care a d--n, I hate her; I don't know what it's for, I be such a fool; I'm glad she's gone, and I pray God the sneak she's gone wi' may break her heart, and break his own d--d neck after, over Carwell scaurs."

      The old man took his candle and from old habit, in the hall, was closing the door of the staircase that led up to her room.

      "Ay, ay," said he, bitterly, recollecting himself, "the stable-door when the nag's stole. I don't care if the old house was blown down to-night -- I wish it was. She was a kind little thing before that d--d fellow -- what could she see in him -- good for nothing -- old as I am, I'd pitch him over my head like a stook o' barley. Here was a plot, she was a good little thing, but see how she was drew into it, d--n her, they're all so false. I'll find out who was in it, I will; I'll find it all out. There's Tom Sherwood, he's one. I'll pitch 'em all out, neck and crop, out o' Wyvern doors. I'd rather fill my house wi' rats than the two-legged vermin. Let 'em pack away to Carwell and starve with that big pippin-squeezing ninny. I hope in God's justice he'll never live to put his foot in Wyvern. I could shoot myself, I think, but for that. She might a waited till the old man died, at any rate; I was kind to her -- a fool -- a fool."

      And the tall figure of the old man, candle in hand, stalked slowly from the dim hall and vanished up the other staircase.

      While this was going on at Wyvern, nearly forty miles away, under