you this -- and that you would admit me."
And she handed her, through the iron bars of the window, a little oval picture in a shagreen case, hardly bigger than a pennypiece.
The old lady turned it to the light and looked hard at it, saying, "Ay -- ay -- my old eyes -- they won't see as they used to -- but it is so -- the old missus -- yes -- it's all right, Miss," and she viewed the young lady with some curiosity, but her tones were much more respectful as she handed her back the miniature.
"I'll open the door, please 'm."
And almost instantly Miss Maybell heard the bolts withdrawn.
"Would you please to walk in -- my lady? I can only bring ye into the kitchen. The apples is in the parlour, and the big room's full o' straw -- and the rest o' them is locked up. It'll be Master I know who ye'll be looking arter?"
The young lady blushed deeply -- the question was hardly shaped in the most delicate way.
"There was a woman in a barooche, I think they call it, asking was any one here, and asking very sharp after Master, and I told her he wasn't here this many a day, nor like to be -- and 'twas that made me a bit shy o' you; you'll understand, just for a bit."
"And is he -- is your master?" -- and she looked round the interior of the house.
"No, he b'aint come; but here's a letter -- what's your name?" she added abruptly, with a sudden access of suspicion.
"Miss Maybell," answered she.
"Yes -- well -- you'll excuse me, Miss, but I was told to be sharp, and wide-awake, you see. Will you come into the kitchen?"
And without awaiting her answer the old woman led the way into the kitchen -- a melancholy chamber, with two narrow windows, darkened by the trees not far off, that overshadowed the house.
A crooked little cur dog, with protruding ribs, and an air of starvation, flew furiously at Miss Maybell, as she entered, and was rolled over on his back by a lusty kick from the old woman's shoe; and a cat sitting before the fire, bounced under the table to escape the chances of battle.
A little bit of fire smouldered in a corner of the grate. An oak stool, a deal chair, and a battered balloon-backed one, imported from better company, in a crazed and faded state, had grown weaker in the joints, and more ragged and dirty in its antique finery in its present fallen fortunes. There was some cracked delf on the dresser, and something was stewing in a tall saucepan, covered with a broken plate, and to this the old woman directed her attention first, stirring its contents, and peering into it for a while; and when she had replaced it carefully, she took the letter from her pocket, and gave it to Miss Maybell, who read it standing near the window.
As she read this letter, which was a short one, the young lady looked angry, with bright eyes and a brilliant flush, then pale, and then the tears started to her eyes, and turning quite away from the old woman, and still holding up the letter as if reading it, she wept in silence.
The old woman, if she saw this, evinced no sympathy, but continued to fidget about, muttering to herself, shoving her miserable furniture this way or that, arranging her crockery on the dresser, visiting the saucepan that sat patiently on the embers, and sometimes kicking the dog, with an unwomanly curse, when he growled. Drying her eyes, the young lady took her departure, and with a heavy heart left this dismal abode; but with the instinct of propitiation, strong in the unhappy, and with the melancholy hope of even buying a momentary sympathy, she placed some money in the dark hard hand of the crone, who made her a courtesy and a thankless "thankee, Miss," on the step, as her eye counted over the silver with a greedy ogle, that lay on her lean palm.
"Nothing for nothing." On the whole a somewhat mercenary type of creation is the human. The post-boy reminded the young lady, as she came to the chaise-door, that she might as well gratify him, there and then, with the two pounds which she had promised. And this done, she took her place beside old Dulcibella, who had dropped into a reverie near akin to a doze, and so, without adventure they retraced their way, and once more passing under the shadow of Gryce's mill, entered on their direct journey to Wyvern.
The sun was near the western horizon, and threw the melancholy tints of sunset over a landscape, undulating and wooded, that spread before them, as they entered the short, broad avenue that leads through two files of noble old trees, to the gray front of many-chimneyed Wyvern.
Chapter IV.
The Old Squire and Alice Maybell
Wyvern is a very pretty old house. It is built of a light gray stone, in the later Tudor style. A portion of it is overgrown with thick ivy. It stands not far away from the high road, among grand old trees, and is one of the most interesting features in a richly wooded landscape, that rises into little hills, and, breaking into rocky and forest-darkened glens, and sometimes into dimpling hollows, where the cattle pasture beside pleasant brooks, presents one of the prettiest countries to be found in England.
The old squire, Henry Fairfield, has seen his summer and his autumn days out. It is winter with him now.
He is not a pleasant picture of an English squire, but such, nevertheless, as the old portraits on the walls of Wyvern here and there testify, the family of Fairfield have occasionally turned out.
He is not cheery nor kindly. Bleak, dark, and austere as a northern winter, is the age of that gaunt old man.
He is too proud to grumble, and never asked any one for sympathy. But it is plain that he parts with his strength and his pleasures bitterly. Of course, seeing the old churchyard, down in the hollow at the left, as he stands of an evening on the steps, thoughts will strike him. He does not acquiesce in death. He resents the order of things. But he keeps his repinings to himself, and retaliates his mortification on the people about him.
Though his hair is snowy, and his shoulders stooped, there is that in his length of bone and his stature that accords with the tradition of his early prowess and activity.
He has long been a widower -- fully thirty years. He has two sons, and no daughter. Two sons whom he does not much trust -- neither of them young -- Charles and Henry.
By no means young are they. The elder, now forty-three, the younger only a year or two less. Charles has led a wandering life, and tried a good many things. He had been fond of play, and other expensive follies. He had sobered, however, people thought, and it might be his mission, notwithstanding his wild and wasteful young days, to pay off the debts of the estate.
Henry, the younger son, a shrewd dealer in horses, liked being king of his company, condescended to strong ale, made love to the bar-maid at the "George," in the little town of Wyvern, and affected the conversation of dog-fanciers, horse-jockeys, wrestlers, and similar celebrities.
The old Squire was not much considered, and less beloved, by his sons. The gaunt old man was, however, more feared by these matured scions than their pride would have easily allowed. The fears of childhood survive its pleasures. Something of the ghostly terrors of the nursery haunt us through life, and the tyrant of early days maintains a strange and unavowed ascendancy over the imagination, long after his real power to inflict pain or privation has quite come to an end.
As this tall, grim, handsome old man moves about the room, as he stands, or sits down, or turns eastward at the Creed in church -- as he marches slowly toppling along the terrace, with his gold-headed cane in his hand, surveying the long familiar scenes which will soon bloom and brown no more for him -- with sullen eyes, thinking his solitary thoughts -- as in the long summer evenings he dozes in the great chair by the fire, which even in the dog-days smoulders in the drawing-room grate -- looking like a gigantic effigy of winter -- a pair of large and soft gray eyes follow, or steal towards him -- removed when observed -- but ever and anon returning. People have remarked this, and talked it over, and laughed and shook their heads, and built odd speculations upon it.
Alice Maybell had grown up from orphan childhood under the roof of Wyvern. The