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round about Wyvern -- for you're a good lass, and I'll make a woman of you; and I'd like to break them young rascals' necks -- they never deserved a shilling o' mine; so gie's your hand, lass, and the bargain's made."

      So the Squire strode a step or two nearer, extending his huge bony hand, and Alice, aghast, stared with wide open eyes fixed on him, and exclaiming faintly, "Oh, sir! -- oh, Mr. Fairfield!"

      "Oh! to be sure, and oh, Squire Fairfield!" chuckled he, mimicking the young lady, as he drew near; "ye need not be shy, nor scared by me, little Alice; I like you too well to hurt the tip o' your little finger, look ye -- and you'll sleep on't, and tell me all to-morrow morning."

      And he laid his mighty hands, that had lifted wrestlers from the earth, and hurled boxers headlong in his day, tremulously on her two little shoulders. "And ye'll say good-night, and gi'e me a buss; good-night to ye, lass, and we'll talk again in the morning, and ye'll say naught, mind, to the boys, d----n 'em, till all's settled -- ye smooth-cheeked, bright-eyed, cherry-lipped little" ----

      And here the ancient Squire boisterously "bussed" the young lady, as he had threatened, and two or three times again, till scrubbed by the white stubble of his chin, she broke away, with her cheeks flaming, and still more alarmed, reached the door.

      "Say good-night, won't ye, hey?" bawled the Squire, still in a chuckle and shoving the chairs out of his way as he stumbled after her.

      "Good-night, sir," cried she, and made her escape through the door, and under the arch that opened from the hall, and up the stairs toward her room, calling as unconcernedly as she could, but with tremulous eagerness to her old servant, "Dulcibella, are you there?" and immensely relieved when she heard her kindly old voice, and saw the light of her candle.

      "I say -- hallo -- why wench, what the devil's come over ye?" halloed the voice of the old man from the foot of the stairs. "That's the trick of you rogues all -- ye run away to draw us after; well, it won't do -- another time. I say, good-night, ye wild bird."

      "Thank you, sir -- good night, sir -- good night, sir," repeated the voice of Alice, higher and higher up the stairs, and he heard her door shut.

      He stood with a flushed face, and a sardonic grin for a while, looking up the stairs, with his big bony hand on the banister, and wondering how young he was; and he laughed and muttered pleasantly, and resolved it should all be settled between them next evening; and so again he looked at his watch, and found that she had not gone, after all, earlier than usual, and went back to his fire, and rang the bell, and got a second 'night-cap,' as he called his flagon of punch.

      Tom remarked how straight the Squire stood that night, with his back to the fire, eyeing him as he entered from the corners of his eyes, with a grin, and a wicked wag of his head.

      "A dull dog, Tom. Who's a-goin' to hang ye? D--n ye, look brighter, or I'll stir ye up with the poker. Never shake your head, man; ye may brew yourself a tankard o' this, and ye'll find you're younger than ye think for, and some of the wenches will be throwing a sheep's eye at you -- who knows?"

      Tom did not quite know what to make of this fierce lighting up of gaiety and benevolence. An inquisitive glance he fixed stealthily on his master, and thanked him dubiously -- for he was habitually afraid of him; and as he walked away through the passages, he sometimes thought the letter that came that afternoon might have told of the death of old Lady Drayton, or some other relief of the estate; and sometimes his suspicions were nearer to the truth, for in drowsy houses like Wyvern, where events are few, all theses of conversation are valuable and speculation is active, and you may be sure that what was talked of in the town, was no mystery in the servants' hall, though more gossipped over than believed.

      Men who are kings in very small dominions are whimsical, as well as imperious--eccentricity is the companion of seclusion -- and the Squire had a jealous custom, in his house, which was among the oddities of his despotism; it was simply this: the staircase up which Alice Maybell flew, that night, to old Dulcibella and her room, is that which ascends the northern wing of the house. A strong door in the short passage leading to it from the hall, shuts it off from the rest of the building on that level.

      For this young lady then, while she was still a child, Squire Fairfield had easily made an Oriental seclusion in his household, by locking, with his own hand, that door every night, and securing more permanently the doors which, on other levels, afforded access to the same wing.

      He had a slight opinion of the other sex, and an evil one of his own, and would have no Romeo and Juliet tragedies. As he locked this door after Miss Alice Maybell's "good-night," he would sometimes wag his head shrewdly and wink to himself in the lonely oak hall, as he dropped the key into his deep coat pocket -- "safe bind, safe find," "better sure than sorry," and other wise saws seconding the precaution.

      So this night he recollected the key, as usual, which in the early morning, when he drank his glass of beer at his room-door, he handed to old Mrs. Durdin, who turned it in the lock, and restored access for the day.

      This custom was too ancient -- reaching back beyond her earliest memory -- to suggest the idea of an affront, and so it was acquiesced in and never troubled Miss Maybell; the lock was not tampered with, the door was never passed, although the Squire, versed in old saws, was simple to rely on that security against a power that laughs at locksmiths.

      Chapter VII.

      The Squire's Eldest Son Comes Home

       Table of Contents

      Thus was old Squire Fairfield unexpectedly transformed, and much to the horror of pretty Alice Maybell, appeared in the character of a lover, grim, ungainly, and without the least chance of that brighter transformation which ultimately more than reconciles "beauty" to her conjugal relations with the "beast."

      Grotesque and even ghastly it would have seemed at any time. But now it was positively dismaying, and poor troubled little Alice Maybell, on reaching her room, sat down on the side of her bed, and to the horror and bewilderment of old Dulcibella, wept bitterly and long.

      The harmless gabble of the old nurse, who placed herself by her side, patting her all the time upon the shoulder, was as the sound of a humming in the woods in summer time, or the crooning of a brook. Though her ear was hardly conscious of it, perhaps it soothed her.

      Next day there was a little stir at Wyvern, for Charles -- or as he was oftener called, Captain Fairfield -- arrived. This "elderly young gentleman," as Lady Wyndale called him, led a listless life there. He did not much affect rustic amusements; he fished now and then, but cared little for shooting, and less for hunting. His time hung heavy on his hands, and he did not well know what to do with himself. He smoked and strolled about a good deal, and rode into Wyvern and talked with the townspeople. But the country plainly bored him, and not the less that his sojourn had been in London, and the contrast made matters worse. Alice Maybell had a headache that morning, and not caring to meet the Squire earlier than was inevitable, chose to say so.

      The Captain, who, travelling by the mail, had arrived at eight o'clock, took his place at the breakfast-table at nine, and received for welcome a gruff nod from the Squire, and the tacit permission to grasp the knuckles which he grudgingly extended to him to shake.

      In that little drama in which the old Squire chose now to figure, his son Charles was confoundedly in the way.

      "Well, and what were you doin' in Lunnon all this time?" grumbled Squire Harry when he had finished his rasher and his cup of coffee, after a long, hard look at Charles, who, in happy unconsciousness, crunched his toast, and read the county paper.

      "I beg your pardon, sir, I didn't hear -- you were saying?" said Charles, looking up and lowering the paper.

      "Hoo -- yes -- I was saying, I don't think you went all the way to Lunnon to say your prayers in St. Paul's; you've bin losing money in those hells and places; when your pocket's full away you go and leave it wi' them town blackguards, and back you come as empty as a broken sack to live on me, and so on. Come, now, how much rent do you take by the year from that place