Ten Thousand a-Year Volume I Part 38

"If thou wert a shepherd, Master Higgs," replied d.i.c.kons, "and wert to be asked by ten or a dozen wolves to let them in among thy flock of sheep, they saying how quiet and kind they would be to 'em--would'st let 'em in, or keep 'em out?--eh?"

"Ay, ay--that be it--'tis as true as gospel!" said the clerk.

"So you a'n't to have that old sycamore down, after all, Master d.i.c.kons?" inquired Tonson, after a pause in the conversation.

"No; Miss hath carried the day against the squire and Mr. Waters; and there stands the old tree, and it hath to be looked to better than ever it were afore!"

"Why hath Miss taken such a fancy to it? 'Tis an old crazy thing!"

"If thou hadst been there when she did beg, as I may say, its life,"

replied d.i.c.kons, with a little energy--"and hadst seen her, and heard her voice, that be as smooth as cream, thou would'st never have forgotten it, I can tell thee!"

"There isn't a more beautiful lady i' t' county, I reckon, than the squire's sister?" inquired the s.e.xton.

"No, nor in all England: if there be, I'll lay down twenty pounds!"

"And where's to be found a young lady that do go about i' t' village like she?--She were wi' Phbe Williams t'other night, all through the snow, and i' t' dark."

"If I'd only laid hands on that chap!" interrupted the young farmer, her rescuer.

"I wonder she do not choose some one to be married to, up in London,"

said the landlord.

"She'll be having some delicate high quality chap, I reckon, one o'

these fine days," said Hazel.

"She will be a dainty dish, truly, for whomever G.o.d gives her to," quoth d.i.c.kons.

"Ay, she will," said more than one, in an earnest tone.

"Now, to my mind," said Tonson, "saving your presence, Master d.i.c.kons, I know not but young Madam be more to my taste; she be in a manner somewhat fuller--plumper-like, and her skin be _so_ white, and her hair as black as a raven's."

"There's not another two such women to be found in the whole world,"

said d.i.c.kons, authoritatively. Here Hector suddenly rose up, and went to the door, where he stood snuffing in an inquisitive manner.

"Now, what do that dog hear, I wonder?" quoth Pumpkin, curiously, stooping forward.

"Blind Bess," replied Tonson, winking his eye, and laughing. Presently there was a sharp rapping at the door; which the landlord opened, and let in one of the servants from the Hall, his clothes white with snow, his face nearly as white, with manifest agitation.

"Why, man, what's the matter?" inquired d.i.c.kons, startled by the man's appearance. "Art frightened at anything?"

"Oh, Lord! oh, Lord!" he commenced.

"What is it, man? Art drunk?--or mad?--or frightened? Take a drop o'

drink," said Tonson. But the man refused it.

"Oh, Lord!--There's woful work at the Hall!"

"What's the matter?" cried all at once, rising and standing round the new-comer.

"If thou be'st drunk, John," said d.i.c.kons, sternly, "there's a way of sobering thee--mind that."

"Oh, Master d.i.c.kons, I don't know what's come to me, for grief and fright! The squire, they do say, and all of us, are to be turned out o'

Yatton!"

"_What!_" exclaimed all in a breath.

"There's some one else lays claim to it. We must all go! Oh, Lud! oh, Lud!" No one spoke for a while; and consternation was written on every face.

"Sit thee down here, John," said d.i.c.kons at length, "and let us hear what thou hast to say--or thou wilt have us all be going up in a body to the Hall."

Having forced on him part of a gla.s.s of ale, he began,--"There hath been plainly mischief brewing, _somewhere_, this many days, as I could tell by the troubled face o' t' squire; but he kept it to himself. Lawyer Parkinson and another have been latterly coming in chaises from London; and last night the squire got a letter that seems to have finished all.

Such trouble there were last night wi' t' squire, and young Madam and Miss! And to-day the parson came, and were a long while alone with old Madam, who hath since had a stroke, or a fit, or something of that like, (the doctors have been there all day from Grilston,) and likewise young Madam hath taken to her bed, and is ill. Oh, Lud! oh, Lud! Such work there be going on!"

"And what of the squire and Miss?" inquired some one, after all had maintained a long silence.

"Oh, 't would break your heart to see them," said the man, dolefully: "they be both pale as death: he so dreadful sorrowful, but quiet, like, and she now and then wringing her hands, and both of them going from the bedroom of old Madam to young Madam's. Nay, an' there had been half a dozen deaths i' t' house, it could not be worse. Neither the squire or Miss hath touched food the whole day!"

There was, in truth, not a dry eye in the room, nor one whose voice did not seem somewhat obstructed with his emotions.

"Who _told_ thee all this about the squire's losing the estate?"

inquired d.i.c.kons, with mingled trepidation and sternness.

"We heard of it but an hour or so agone. Mr. Parkinson (it seems by the squire's orders) told Mr. Waters, and he told it to us; saying as how it was useless to keep such a thing secret, and that we might as well all know the occasion of so much trouble."

"Who's to ha' it then, instead of the squire?" at length inquired Tonson, in a voice half choked with rage and grief.

"Lord only knows at present. But whoever 'tis, there isn't one of us sarvents but will go with the squire and his--if it be even to prison, _that_ I can tell ye!"

"I'm Squire _Aubrey's_ gamekeeper," quoth Tonson, his eye kindling as his countenance darkened, "and no one's else! It shall go hard if any one else here hath a game"--

"But if there's law in the land, sure the justice must be wi'

t' squire--he and his family have had it so long?" said one of the farmers.

"I'll tell you what, masters," said Pumpkin, mysteriously, "I shall be somewhat better pleased when Jonas here hath got that old creature Bess safe underground!"

"Blind Bess?" exclaimed Tonson, with a very serious, not to say disturbed, countenance. "I wonder--sure! sure! _that_ ould witch can have had no hand in all this---- eh?"----

"Poor old soul, not she! There be no such things as witches now-a-days," exclaimed Jonas. "Not she, I warrant me! She hath been ever befriended by the squire's family. _She_ do it!"

"The sooner we get that old woman underground, for all that, the better, say I!" quoth Tonson, significantly.

"The parson hath a choice sermon on 'The Flying away of Riches,'" said Higgs, in a quaint, sad manner; "'tis to be hoped that he'll preach from it next Sunday!"----

Soon after this, the little party dispersed, each oppressed with greater grief and amazement than he had ever known before. Bad news flies swiftly--and that which had just come from the Hall, within a very few hours of its having been told at the Aubrey Arms, had spread grief and consternation among high and low for many miles round Yatton.