woman, little Alice. There's not one to compare wi' ye; of all the lasses that comes to Wyvern Church ye bear the bell, ye do, ye bear the bell; ye know it. Don't ye? Come, say lass; don't ye know there's none to compare wi' ye?"
"Thank you, sir. It's very good of you to think so -- you're always so kind," said pretty Alice, looking very earnestly up in his face, her large tearful eyes wider than usual, and wondering, and, perhaps, hoping for what might come next.
"I'll be kinder, maybe; never ye mind; ye like Wyvern, lass -- the old house; well, it's snug, it is. It's a good old English house; none o' your thin brick walls and Greek pillars, and scrape o' rotten plaster, like my Lord Wrybroke's sprawling house, they think so fine--but they don't think it, only they say so, and they lie, just to flatter the peer; d---- them. They go to London and learn courtiers' ways there; that wasn't so when I was a boy; a good old gentleman that kept house and hounds here was more, by a long score, than half a dozen fine Lunnon lords; and you're handsomer, Alice, and a deal better, and a better lady, too, than the best o' them painted, fine ladies, that's too nice to eat good beef or mutton, and can't call a cabbage a cabbage, I'm told, and would turn up their eyes, like a duck in thunder, if a body told 'em to put on their pattens, and walk out, as my mother used, to look over the poultry. But what was that you were saying -- I forget?"
"I don't think, sir -- I don't remember -- was I saying anything? I -- I don't recollect," said Alice, who knew that she had contributed nothing to the talk.
"And you like Wyvern," pursued the old man, with a gruff sort of kindness, "well, you're right; it's not bin a bad home for ye, and ye'd grieve to leave it. Ay -- you're right, there's no place like it -- there's no air like it, and ye love Wyvern, and ye shan't leave it, Alice."
Alice Maybell looked hard at him; she was frightened, and also agitated. She grew suddenly pale, but the Squire not observing this, continued--
"That is, unless ye be the greatest fool in the country's side. You'd miss Wyvern, and the old woods, and glens, and spinnies, and, mayhap, ye'd miss the old man a bit too -- not so old as they give out though, and 'tisn't always the old dog gives in first -- mind ye -- nor the young un that's the best dog, neither. I don't care that stick for my sons -- no more than they for me -- that's reason. They're no comfort to me, nor never was. They'd be devilish glad I was carried out o' Wyvern Hall feet foremost."
"Oh, sir, you can't think --"
"Hold your little fool's tongue; I'm wiser than you. If it warn't for you, child, I don't see much my life would be good for. You don't wish me dead, like those cubs. Hold your tongue, lass. I see some one's bin frightenin' you; but I'm not going to die for a bit. Don't you take on; gie us your hand."
And he took it, and held it fast in his massive grasp.
"Ye've been cryin', ye fool. Them fellows bin sayin' I'm breakin' up. It's a d--d lie. I've a mind to send them about their business. I'd do it as ready as put a horse over a three-foot wall; but I've twelve years' life in me yet. I'm good for fourteen years, if I live as long as my father did. He took his time about it, and no one heard me grumble, and I'll take mine. Don't ye be a fool; I tell you there's no one goin' to die here, that I know of. There's gentle blood in your veins, and you're a kind lass, and I'll take care o' you -- mind, I'll do it, and I'll talk to you again."
And so saying, he gave her hand a parting shake, and let it drop, and rising, he turned away, and strode stiffly from the garden. He was not often so voluble; and now the whole of this talk seemed to Alice Maybell a riddle. He could not be thinking of marrying; but was he thinking of leaving her the house and a provision for her life!
Chapter VI.
The Old Squire Unlike Himself
He talked very little that night in the old-fashioned drawing-room, where Alice played his favourite old airs for him on the piano, which he still called the "harpsichord." He sat sometimes dozing, sometimes listening to her music, in the great chair by the fire. He ruminated, perhaps, but he did not open the subject, whatever it might be, which he had hinted at.
But before ten o'clock came, he got up and stood with his back to the fire. Is there any age at which folly has quite done with us, and we cease from building castles in the air?
"My wife was a tartar," said he rather abruptly, "and she was always telling me I'd marry again before she was cold in her grave, and I made answer, 'I've had enough of that market, I thank you; one wife in a life is one too many.' But she wasn't like you -- no more than chalk to cheese -- a head devil she was. Play me the 'Week before Easter' again, lass."
And the young lady thrice over played that pretty but vulgar old air; and when she paused the gaunt old Squire chanted the refrain from the hearth-rug, somewhat quaveringly and discordantly.
"You should have heard Tom Snedly sing that round a bowl of punch. My sons, a pair o' dull dogs -- we were pleasanter fellows then -- I don't care if they was at the bottom of the Lunnon canal. Gi'e us the 'Lincolnshire Poacher,' lass. Pippin-squeezing rascals -- and never loved me. I sometimes think I don't know what the world's a comin' to. I'd be a younger lad by a score o' years, if neighbours were as I remember 'em."
At that moment entered old Tom Ward, who, like his master, had seen younger, if not better days, bearing something hot in a silver tankard on a little tray. Tom looked at the Squire. The Squire pointed to the little table by the hearth-rug, and pulled out his great gold watch, and found it was time for his "night-cap."
Tom was skilled in the brew that pleased his master, and stood with his shrewd gray eye on him, till he had swallowed his first glass, then the Squire nodded gruffly, and he knew all was right, and was relieved, for every one stood in awe of old Fairfield.
Tom was gone, and the Squire drank a second glass, slowly, and then a third, and stood up again with his back to the fire and filled his glass with the last precious drops of his cordial, and placed it on the chimney-piece, and looked steadfastly on the girl, whose eyes looked sad on the notes, while her slender fingers played those hilarious airs which Squire Fairfield delighted to listen to.
"Down in the mouth, lass -- hey?" said the Squire with a suddenness that made the unconscious girl start.
When she looked up he was standing grinning upon her, from the hearth-rug, with his glass in his fingers, and his face flushed.
"You girls, when you like a lad, you're always in the dumps -- ain't ye? -- mopin' and moultin' like a sick bird, till the fellow comes out wi' his mind, and then all's right, flutter and song and new feathers, and -- come, what do you think o' me, lass?"
She looked at him dumbly, with a colourless and frightened face. She saw no object in the room but the tall figure of the old man, flushed with punch, and leering with a horrid jollity, straight before her like a vivid magic-lantern figure in the dark. He was grinning and wagging his head with exulting encouragement.
Had Squire Fairfield, as men have done, all on a sudden grown insane; and was that leering mask, the furrows and contortions of which, and its glittering eyes, were fixing themselves horribly on her brain, a familiar face transformed by madness?
"Come, lass, do ye like me?" demanded the phantom.
"Well, you're tongue-tied, ye little fool -- shame-faced, and all that, I see," he resumed after a little pause. "But you shall answer -- ye must; you do -- you like old Wyvern, the old Squire. You'd feel strange in another place -- ye would, and a younger fellow would not be a tithe so kind as me -- and I like ye well, chick-a-biddy, chick-a-biddy -- ye'll be my little queen, and I'll keep ye brave satins and ribbons, and laces, and lawn; and I'll gi'e ye the jewellery -- d'ye hear? -- necklaces, and ear-rings, and bodkins, and all the rest, for your own, mind; for the Captain nor Jack shall never hang them on wife o' theirs, mind ye -- and ye'll be the grandest lady has ever bin in Wyvern this hundred years -- and ye'll have nothing to do but sit all day in the window, or ride in the coach, and order your maids about; and I'll leave you every acre and stick and stone, and silver spoon, that's in