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 V.I 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 ^ No (me can set less store than the writer on 
 
 ■4- the slender thread by which the desultory 
 
 a: 
 
 ,f scenes contained in these volumes are strung 
 
 "^ 
 
 S together. In justice to himself, however, and 
 
 %| his gentle readers, he is desirous of not being 
 f^ accused of failing in that which, in fact, he 
 never contemplated accompKshing. His ob- 
 ject has not been to attempt the part of a 
 monitor, by searching the annals of crime and 
 vice, or the long list of the victims of passion 
 and immorality, and thereby developing cha- 
 racters perhaps more baneful in being held up 
 as examples, than if they had been permitted 
 to sink into forgetftdness. The aim has been 
 simply to depicture, with the faithfulness which 
 ■; ., a long experience may have rendered capable, 
 those invigorating scenes connected with our 
 
 VN
 
 U ^PREFACE. 
 
 national sports, universally indulged in by all 
 classes of society in some way or other. 
 
 Health, manly strength, buoyancy of spirits, 
 courage, generosity, hospitality, and, indeed^ 
 most of the best feelings and impulses of our 
 nature, attend these recreations; and so long 
 as they continue to be springs and sources pro- 
 ductive of good, so long may the gentlemen 
 of England render them the distingTiishing 
 feature of their country. 
 
 If, however, the writer has not " pointed a 
 moral to adorn his tale," he thinks he may 
 safely claim this negative virtue — that should 
 no one close the book a wiser or a better man, 
 still no one can close it and be the worse. 
 
 J. M. 
 
 October 28th, 1845.
 
 THE OLD HALL; 
 
 OB, 
 
 OUR HEARTH MJ) HOMESTEAD. 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 " It faded on the crowing of the cock. 
 Some say, that ever 'gainst the season comes 
 Wherein our Saviour's birth is celebrated. 
 This bird of dawning singeth all night long ; 
 And then, they say, no spirit dares stir abroad ; 
 The nights are wholesome : then no planets strike, 
 No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm, 
 So hallow'd and so gracious is the time." 
 
 A RIGHT merry time is Christmas 1 Then the 
 jnisietoe hangs from the beam, and red-berried 
 holly is stuck in nook and cranny, and yule logs 
 blaze on the hearth, and hearts are light and 
 
 VOL. I. B
 
 ^ THE OLD HALL. 
 
 eyes arc bright, and all things tend to mirth 
 and jollity. The " roast beef of old England" 
 smokes on the spit, and plum-puddings of 
 gigantic calibre steam in roaring, hissing boilers ; 
 and huge butts of ripe old ale are tapped, and 
 bowls of sweet-smelling punch are brewed ; and 
 laughing, rollicking hospitality throws his door 
 back upon its hinge, and welcomes the crowd 
 with hearty grasps and glowing greetings. A 
 right merry time is Christmas ! Then quaint 
 ballads, songs, and ditties are rummaged from 
 the store of memory, and the old croon to them- 
 selves the rhymes they learned in lisping in- 
 fancy. Ay, and they snap their fingers to the 
 tune, and cut a step or two, and laugh as they 
 are reminded of fun and froKc long since passed 
 away. Egad ! it warms their lazy blood, too, 
 and makes it skip, for the nonce, nimbly through 
 their veins to see plump, rosy-cheeked lasses, 
 dragged beneath the Druidical branch, and 
 kisses loud and long smacked upon their cherry 
 lips, willing for the office, and yet reluctantly
 
 THE OLD HALL. 3 
 
 consenting. A right merry time is Christmas ! 
 Books and satchels are consigned to dusty 
 shelves, and the spider may spin his film, 'mid 
 classic lore, without endangering the mesh 
 withal, or risk of life or limb. " Hurrah for 
 home ! the good, dear old home ! " Such is the 
 cry from youthful tongues, echoed from young, 
 glad hearts, and in it is the joyous music of the 
 loving and beloved. 
 
 Home ! Yes, " while yet a nook is left 
 where English minds and manners may be 
 found, hearts shall be constrained to love it." 
 Home ! let it be never so humble, still finds a 
 whispered echo in the humblest heart. Like as 
 the tear of the penitent gains the readiest road 
 to Heaven, and is there treasured as the most 
 grateful ofiering ; so the thought of home forms 
 the priceless oflfering to the shrine of mortal 
 adoration. The good and the happy — those on 
 whom the hand of misfortune has so lightly 
 rested that the gaunt and lank necessities and 
 cares of others sound but as tales to fan their 
 
 B 2
 
 4 THE OLD HALL. 
 
 sympathy — ever turn to the remembrance of 
 " the old house at home/' with smiles ancl 
 thoughts of merry, gladsome tales of Christ- 
 mas revels, and of harvest homes, and the 
 wedding-days of village lad and lassie ; and, 
 should the thought be mingled with regret that 
 the scenes and actors in them may have passed, 
 and passed away for ever, still it is blended 
 ■with the recalling of those hours when joy 
 floated above joy, and life was, indeed, but a 
 laughing holyday. 
 
 In a wide and lofty room — it had once been 
 a banquet hall for steel-clad knights and barons 
 — with huge black rafters stretching across the 
 roof, and its walls flanked with polished panels 
 of oak, a motley company of merry folks were 
 assembled. A pile of faggots blazed in the 
 yawning chasm of the hearth, and threw a fit- 
 ful gleam of light to the fai'thest corner of the 
 room, while a lamp of antique handicraft flared 
 brightly from the centre of the middle beam, 
 and made the holly, ivy, and mistletoe, scat-
 
 THE OLD HALL. O 
 
 tered in profusion around, look as fresh and 
 green as the leaf of the hawthorn in early- 
 spring. Upon a broad and long table, placed 
 against the wall opposite the chimney comer, 
 and whose surface was glossy alone from the 
 friction of time, flagons of foaming ale, and 
 bowls filled with potent odoriferous mixtures, 
 bearing various titles, and yet each claiming an 
 equal degree of merit, and deep jorums of 
 grog, and jugs of cider, were placed in. long- 
 continued rows. It was a fine sight, a very- 
 fine sight, indeed, to look at that merry crew 
 toasting, and pledging, and draining their cups, 
 and exchanging sentiments, and doing anything 
 and everything for " an excuse for the glass." 
 Then with what spirit the reel and country- 
 dance were joined in again ; and, if the capers 
 were not from light fantastic toes, still they 
 were from as light-hearted a set as ever shuffled 
 upon toe or heel. And the village fiddler, too 
 — a sadly dissipated fellow is that village fid- 
 dler ; he is to be found at every wedding, revel.
 
 6 THE OLD HALL. 
 
 and merry-making, and the bright pink tip of 
 his nose betrays the fondness he entertains for 
 drinks stronger than are dipped from moss-co- 
 vered buckets, or caught from rippling brooks 
 — adds fresh rosin to his bow, and scrapes with 
 such enlivened power to his elbow, that sparks 
 of fire, as well as notes of inspiration, seem to 
 fly from the strings, until the very chairs, set- 
 tles, and tables, join in the jig. 
 
 Ay, Christmas was not forgotten or neglected 
 at the Range — as the Manor-house was called — 
 nor had it been within the recollection of the 
 oldest living, and, as they would say, their 
 fathers said the like thing when they were little 
 children, and, for any proof to the contrary, 
 such had been the tale for generations now 
 mingled and mingling with the dust. 
 
 " Old friends, old books, old wine, old cus- 
 toms, and old wood to burn," was the standiog 
 toast at the Range ; and, as the Squire used to 
 rise with his beaming, ruddy face, and clear 
 glistening eyes, to give his favourite zest to the
 
 THE OLD HALL. 7 
 
 bumper, seldom, if ever, was there seen a 
 finer " old English gentleman." His hair, 
 thinly sprinkled upon his brow, was so white 
 that the slight shake of powder blended with 
 it, in no way heightened its bleached hue ; and 
 the scrupulous care with which the small pig- 
 tail gathered into shape, and evenly bound with 
 black riband, formed the very heau-ideal of 
 one of those now obsolete appurtenances to a 
 man of fashion. The cambric neckcloth, too, 
 was folded and tied without a wrinkle ; and, 
 if it bore a somewhat stiff appearance, and of 
 necessity led the observer to think of the con- 
 sistency of starch, still its very formality gave 
 an air which a flabby, ill-conditional cravat 
 never yet had coupled with it. Then there 
 was the long buff waistcoat, of almost inter- 
 minable length, and the wide-skirted blue coat, 
 with buttons of the very brightest polish, and 
 the drab " shorts," which, when the gaiter was 
 off, exhibited the very model, of calf and ankle 
 encased in fine ribbed-silk stockings. Such was
 
 8 THE OLD HALL. 
 
 the costume of the Squire of the Range, and 
 such had been — ^if those rows of chubby-faced 
 portraits in the corridor were authentic evidence 
 — the outward semblance of many a former 
 proprietor. It is true, that by far the greater 
 number of them were in n;iore antique costumes. 
 Flowing wigs, lace, ruffles, velvet, long waists, 
 short waists, there were in abundance ; but the 
 fresher paintings in the collection were so much 
 like the present occupier, that they would have 
 passed exceedingly well for pictures taken of 
 him at various stages of his life. 
 
 And what an old place the Range was ! Great 
 gable ends jutted out here and there, bound and 
 laid in with oak ; and irons bars were screwed 
 and riveted together, at equal distances, through- 
 out the massive walls, as if in defiance of the 
 crumbling hand of time, and the ravages of 
 tempests and the storms of ages. A dried fosse 
 surrounded the building, on the banks of which 
 many a garden flower grew, and tall elms now 
 towered from the very bed ; convincing proof
 
 THE OLD HALL. » 
 
 that it must have been a long time ago since it 
 had been applied for the purposes of defence, 
 although the barbed head of an arrow deeply- 
 buried in the oaken sill of a casement, and which 
 now presented a convenient ledge for a swal- 
 low to build her nest upon, gave token of the 
 troublesome times which had passed since the 
 erection of the ancient house. In the centre 
 was a stone porch, and from a deep groove cut 
 in the coping-stone, and the rusty sockets of a 
 shot-bolt, it was clear that a portcullis had once 
 been suspended above it as further means of 
 protection. Thick, sturdy limbs of i^y clung 
 in every direction about the walls and stretched 
 themselves far and wide, even to the roof and 
 about the tall and crooked chimneys, which 
 were so twined and twisted in their form that 
 even the smoke appeared to struggle with diffi- 
 culty through them. But it did come in great, 
 thick, black masses ; for it would, indeed, have 
 been a subject for wonderment if the chimneys 
 of the Range ceased to disgorge their sooty 
 
 B 3
 
 10 THE OLD HALL. 
 
 vomit when winter drew friends together at its 
 fireside. Then, surrounding the mossy and 
 gray building, giant oaks reared and stretched 
 their stalwart limbs ; and if a few of the trunks 
 of capacious girth had been scooped by age and 
 now aiForded hollow homes for a few cozy owls 
 to pass their leisure hours in, yet they bore as 
 fresh and as green leaves, and flapped and fanned 
 them in the summer wind as cheerily, and defied 
 the angry winter blast as bravely, as their more 
 sound and solid companions. Clumps, too, of 
 thick dark firs were dotted here and there about 
 the broad and extensive park adjoining; and 
 the ringdove cooed at morn and eve among the 
 branches without disturbing the antlered stag 
 crouched in his lair at the roots. 
 
 As had been his custom at each succeeding 
 Christmas, the Squire assembled his friends, 
 neighbours, tenants, servants, and dependants 
 together in the great hall, and they were now 
 in the very zenith of their revel. The night — 
 and a bright moonlight and frosty one it was —
 
 THE OLD HALL. 11 
 
 had been well dipped into, and yet the laugh 
 was as loud and the joke as spirited as at a much 
 earlier hour. On went the dance and round 
 passed the glass, and the song echoed among the 
 dusty cobwebbed rafters until they rang again. 
 
 '' That's right, my lads and lasses," cried the 
 Squire, as he sat in a quaintly-carved arm chair, 
 a delighted spectator of the scene. " That's 
 right," he repeated ; and seeing the hilarity of 
 the company increase with the cheer, he rubbed 
 his hands together briskly, and drained a bum- 
 per with a silent hope that every one present 
 might be there when Christmas came again. 
 
 *^ Come, come, Harry Lawrence," said a 
 companion, close to the Squire's right hand, 
 and giving him a friendly nudge with his elbow, 
 *^what a boy you are, to toss off a glass by 
 yourself, to be sure. If at a loss, could'nt ye 
 have hob-an'-nobbed with me ? " 
 
 And then the Squire tried to assume a parti- 
 cularly knowing look, and chuckled an inward 
 laugh to himself, and after two or three very
 
 12 THE OLD HALL. 
 
 effective shakes of the head, observed, that 
 " He knew what was what ; and if twice three 
 didnH make six, three times two did^ 
 
 Oh, yes ! the Squire was quite a wag in his 
 way. 
 
 The party addressing him thus familiarly was 
 a little man, who appeared to have been de- 
 signed to personify Laughter. Every feature 
 that he possessed, either directly or sympathe- 
 tically, was in a constant state of grinning ; and 
 for this peculiar office — as in all others designed 
 by Nature's faultless chisel — he was especially 
 well adapted. His head was quite bereft of 
 hair, save a thin scanty ridge sprouting round 
 the back part of it, not dissimilar in hue and 
 texture to a stripe of gray rabbit's skin. His 
 face was as round as a pippin, and quite as red 
 as a fresh -blown poppy ; and it was remarked 
 that the shades never varied, except when a 
 keen, nipping wind had been pelting it for some 
 hours, and then it deepened to the purple co- 
 lour of a very ripe mulberry. His mouth, from
 
 THE OLD HALL. 13 
 
 continued stretching and being unintermittingly 
 screwed up at the angles, was large, and fully 
 developed from exercise, rather than from the 
 natural size of that most useful organ, and the 
 feature immediately surmounting it was the fun- 
 niest little shapeless snub of a nose that ever 
 was abused by snuff or any other yillanous com- 
 pound. Some said that his eyes were blue, 
 others, black, and others maintained they were 
 brown, green, hazel ; and all sorts of opinions 
 were asserted upon this knotty point ; but, since 
 they were never seen, from being buried and 
 hidden from mortal gaze in the overwhelming 
 mound of cheek, which all but closed over 
 them, it must remain a mystery never to be 
 solved. In figure he bore a striking resemblance 
 to a beer barrel raised on a couple of hat-pegs ; 
 his body was so pecuHarly tubby and circular. 
 In truth, he was a man, taking him all in all, 
 not likely to be met with in the by-paths of the 
 world with the same frequency that blackberries 
 may be found upon the hedgerows in yellow
 
 14 THE OLD HALL. 
 
 autumn. But, if his outward bearing was 
 strange and rare to behold, well would it be 
 for the happiness of earthly mortals that the 
 inward man and secret germs of his kind, good, 
 benevolent, and cheerful little heart, were as 
 common in the human breast as daisies pied in 
 the meadows in spring. Then would envy, and 
 slander, and all uncharitableness become rare 
 entries in that huge volume — the records of 
 our sins, and sighs, and tears, change to loving- 
 laughter joy and unalloyed happiness ; but it is 
 not to be so. There are few, very few John 
 Hardys in this part and parcel of the solar 
 system, whatever there may be in the remain- 
 ing divisions. 
 
 And yet, John Hardy was a mysterious man, 
 with ail his admitted worth and proverbial good- 
 ness. He had been the Squire's college chum ; 
 and accepting an invitation to pay him a visit, 
 above thirty years ago, he remained from that 
 day to the present, without the remotest idea of 
 changing his quarters. It should be stated.
 
 THE OLD HALL. 15 
 
 however, that if, from the hour of his entering 
 the manor-house to this, he had ventured to 
 express an intention of quitting them, the pro- 
 babihtyis, that the Squire might have feared 
 that his brain began to wander, and at once 
 have applied positive coercion, by locking him 
 up in the wine or the coal-cellar. Be this as it 
 may, John Hardy never caused him the un- 
 pleasant necessity of such a measure against the 
 freedom of his person. A welcome bade him 
 come ; and the respective inclinations of the 
 host and his own, formed the bird-lime of his 
 stay. There was nothing mysterious in this ; 
 but certain other matters, trifling in themselves, 
 and yet of weight in the scale of social ex- 
 istence, were special puzzles to the brains of his 
 acquaintance. Allusions to " a little freehold," 
 and " a small sum in the funds," with " a few 
 ground- rents," often were subjects of discus- 
 sion ; for no one could learn where the property 
 was situate, or in what particular secui'ities the 
 money was invested. But the riddle of the
 
 16 THE OLD HALL. 
 
 greatest magnitude consisted in John's not un- 
 frequent reference to " his place in Town ! ! " 
 It was a sweeping form of speaking of a local 
 habitation ; but such was the way of his describ- 
 ing this indefinite residence. Not a creature 
 could discover whether it was situate in a park, 
 street, square, crescent, lane, or alley; for this 
 " place in Town" was never more particularly 
 described ; and when closely questioned as to its 
 particular situation by any one who could take 
 upon himself the liberty, John would invariably 
 dive his fingers among the depths of his neck- 
 cloth, and, casting a fixed look at the ceiling 
 immediately above his head, reply that " he 
 had private reasons for withholding the re- 
 quired information." Then, perhaps, the 
 Squire would rejoin by telling John that " he 
 was a sly dog, and he shouldn't wonder if 
 there was a lady in the case." But if there was 
 she must have been by no means an in- 
 timate acquaintance ; as they had not met dur- 
 ing John's visit to the manor-house, and that
 
 THE OLD HALL. 17 
 
 was five years ago this very Christmas. That 
 John Hardy possessed an income, from some 
 source or other, there can be no doubt, or how 
 could he have been so generous in his distribu- 
 tions of rewards and prizes ? But that he had 
 " a place in Town" is very questionable. Then 
 what could have beeu his motive for the pomp 
 and circumstance relating to this establishment ? 
 Well ! perchance it might be a little pardonable 
 latent vanity that led him to wish it might not 
 be supposed that he had no other home than 
 that afforded him by his kind old fiiend. "WTie- 
 ther this was the cause is merely conjecture ; 
 but upon the surface there appeared to be no 
 other. However, it signifies something less 
 than a spKt hair in the balance of events past 
 or to come : there was John Hardy, loved by 
 the high, revered by the humble, and a talis- 
 man that inspired every heart that knew him. 
 " God bless him ! " was the universal benedic- 
 tion when his name was mentioned, and nimi- 
 hers, indeed, had weighty reasons thus to pray.
 
 18 THE OLD HALL. 
 
 His costume was singular, from never vary- 
 ing in shape or colour. Bottle-green was the 
 constant shade at all times, and at all seasons ; 
 and trousers, waistcoat, and coat, were clearly- 
 fabricated from the same piece of cloth. In 
 the cut there was nothing peculiar, except the 
 general impression, created by the outward 
 show of the respective garments, that each had 
 been severely cabbaged by the artificer. They 
 were all too short, at all points, and exhibited 
 his circular identity, here and there, to almost 
 a painful tax upon the gravity of the observer. 
 However, John recked little about being 
 laughed at, and could join in the roar against 
 himself as well as anybody not so immediately 
 concerned. 
 
 "We are getting into the small hours," 
 whispered he to the Squire. " I think I heard 
 the clock strike one ten minutes since." 
 
 "Tush, tush, John! it can't be so late as 
 that." 
 
 " But it is," rejoined he, extracting a thick.
 
 THE OLD HALL. 19 
 
 round watch with, difficulty from his fob, as cor- 
 roborating evidence to his assertion, and hold- 
 ing its dial up for general inspection. 
 
 " Put up that watch directly/' returned the 
 Squire. ^^ Upon my word, John, I'm quite 
 astonished at ye. Who ever heard of a man 
 measuring the hours upon a night like this, 
 particulaily before one half the toasts have been 
 drunk, or the wassail cup sipped from?" 
 
 "Not half the toasts?" repeated John, in 
 surprise. 
 
 " Certainly not," replied the Squii-e. 
 
 " Then, all I have to say is," added John, 
 in a tone and manner of Christian resignation, 
 " that we shall be in the superlative condition 
 of inebriety. That's the only remark I have to 
 make upon the subject, Harry." 
 
 " Very good," added the Squire. " Then 
 I'm sure we shall not hear of any objections to 
 my proposal. Charge your glasses to the brim, 
 every one of ye." 
 
 The mandate was obeyed -svith alacrity, and
 
 20 THE OLD HALL. 
 
 then the Squire rose from his seat, and standing 
 with a full goblet in his hand, gave, in a loud, 
 clear, hearty voice, " Our hearth and home- 
 stead : may friends ever surround the one, 
 and plenty to give them be within a ring-fence 
 of the other." 
 
 A brave echoing cheer burst from strong, 
 stentorian lungs, as the Squire's original senti- 
 ment was given; and far away, in the clear 
 frosty air, it was carried, startling many a 
 rook on his lofty perch, and making him caw 
 hoarsely at the cause of his disturbance. 
 Soon, however, it died into silence, and then 
 he buried his head beneath his broad jetty 
 wing, and settled himself again to slum- 
 ber. 
 
 Scarcely had the echo of the " hurrah" ceased 
 to vibrate from all points of the compass, when 
 a part of the middle window in the hall, in the 
 form of a small door of about eighteen inches 
 square, was tliroAvn rudely open from the out- 
 side, and, simultaneously, a cracked, jarring
 
 THE OLD HALL. 21 
 
 voice cried out, " Ho, ho ! ye're o'er noisy in 
 your glee !" 
 
 " Why, what voice is that ?" said the Squire, 
 shading his eyes with his hands, and endeavour- 
 ing to obtain a clear glance at the speaker ; but 
 the strong light in the room prevented his see- 
 ing him plainly, as he stood in the dark shade 
 of the window. 
 
 " It's that ugly, mischievous imp of Satan, 
 Mike Crouch, I think," replied John Hardy, 
 in a whisper scarcely audible at the distance of 
 his arm's length; but it was heard distinctly 
 enough by Mike. 
 
 *' Yes, yes," he replied, " it's me, and my 
 service to ye." 
 
 " How the devil could he hear what I said ?" 
 inquired John, in a voice scarcely above his 
 breath. 
 
 " By my ears. Sir, by my ears," returned 
 Mike, thrusting his head farther into the room, 
 and leaning his chin upon his crossed arms. 
 
 *' By Heaven ! " tJioitght John Hardy, for
 
 22 THE OLD HALL. 
 
 he didn't speak a word ; " he must be the 
 devil." 
 
 " Don't be uncharitable with your neigh- 
 bours, Mr. Hardy," rejoined Mike. " You've 
 heard what is said about evil-speaking, lying, 
 and slandering ; now, you know, evil words 
 proceed from evil thoughts. Think of that. 
 Sir, think of that." 
 
 " The devil can cite Scripture for his 
 purpose," again was John Hardy's mute com- 
 munication with his thoughts. 
 
 " So he can ; no one can gainsay it," replied 
 the imperturbable Mike, as if the words had 
 been expressed in language plain and com- 
 prehensible to the dullest ear. 
 
 John Hardy closed his eyes, clasped his 
 tongue between his teeth, and endeavoured not 
 to think. 
 
 Mike's face was now clearly visible, from his 
 thrusting it forward ; and it must be admitted, 
 that a more ill-favoured countenance was never 
 seen. There was no brow to his huge square
 
 THE OLD HALL. 23 
 
 head — for square it was as any dice that 
 was ever shaken in a hazard-box — but two 
 thick, black lines of hair surmounted his small, 
 twinkling gray eyes, and acted as an index to 
 where the forehead — by dint of exercising 
 strong imaginative powers — might be supposed 
 to be. His nasal organ in no way resembled 
 the general order of noses : it was as much like 
 an overgrown toe, a bunion, a wart, or a wen, 
 as a nose; and but for two circular and dis- 
 tended apertures, which were substituted for 
 nostrils, it could not have been correctly 
 classed in the category of prominent features in 
 the human face divine. His mouth occupied 
 so much of the allotted space for his features, 
 collectively and respectively, that, when his 
 lower jaw was dropped, it might be correctly 
 stated, that the half of his head was separated 
 from the other. And Heaven knows how 
 frequently an exhibition of his long, even, 
 and white teeth had set little children scamper- 
 ing from their play, to hide and nestle, with
 
 24: THE OLD HALL. 
 
 palpitating hearts, in their mothers' laps 
 and bosoms. Mike was a dreadful, and a 
 dreaded object; and when his long, spider-legs 
 were seen striding towards them, in the form of 
 an animated pair of fire-tongs, away theywould 
 scud, like frightened rabbits to their burrows. 
 Body he had none ; or so very small was his 
 " corporate extension," that it did not prevent 
 the appearance of his hips being in close con- 
 junction with his shoulders ; and to these were 
 fixed the longest and most muscular arms that 
 mortal ever possessed. The feats of strength 
 related of Mike are quite beyond credence; 
 but he has been known to run a weight up a 
 hill, that the strongest horse would strain his 
 bones and sinews in vain to do ; and the finest 
 wrestler in the county he once lifted from the 
 ground with one hand, and hurled him out of 
 the ring with the case that he would have 
 pitched a puny kitten. 
 
 It was the popular belief that Mike held an 
 appointment in the immediate gift and patron-
 
 THE OLD HALL. 2S 
 
 age of the devil, and this slanderous creed 
 was strengthened by his being the unlawful 
 offspring of a poor harmless idiot woman, long 
 since at peace, and freed from the jibes and 
 jeers of scoffing insolence, and now slumbering 
 beneath a moss-grown, daisy-speckled grave, 
 not a jot more brainless than the dust of the 
 ambitious and the great, festering and rotting 
 in the mockery of their pride. But Mike 
 evinced none of his mother's demented weak- 
 ness : he was quick, shrewd, and as full of 
 mischief as a monkey from the hour that he 
 could bite a crust, and that was within a few 
 days after his birth ; for he was more forward 
 and capable than any other child that was ever 
 seen by the wondering gossips who attended 
 him in the earliest stage of his existence. From 
 the hourthat he could lisp a syllable, he was 
 treated alike by every living creature that 
 he approached. All avoided him : not even a 
 dog but slunk grumbling away when Mike 
 crossed the threshold ; but this, far from giving 
 VOL. I. c
 
 26 THE OLD HALL. 
 
 offence, used to cause him to roar with laugh- 
 ter ; and the more he was dreaded, the greater 
 pleasure it seeined to give him. His laugh, 
 however, was anything but a mirthful sound. 
 It jarred harshly and discordantly on the ear, 
 and chilled the blood of those upon whom it fell. 
 Whenever and wherever he appeared, which 
 he usually did in the same sudden and abrupt 
 manner that he introduced his visage at the 
 hall- window, it was supposed that misfortune 
 of some kind or other was close at hand. 
 Mike's ugly face was always considered the 
 shadow of the coming event, and it certainly 
 proved to be an o'er correct criterion, in too 
 many instances of approaching evil. 
 
 '^ Well, Mike ! " exclaimed the Squire when 
 he saw who it was, " although not an invited 
 guest, you're welcome one. Come in, my good 
 lad, and have a glass of hot punch." 
 
 " Thank ye. Sir," replied Mike with a grin ; 
 " but I'm afeard I shall make one too many 
 among ye."
 
 THE OLD HALL. 27 
 
 " No, no, you'll not/' rejoined the Squire. 
 " At least/' continued he, correcting himseK 
 from a hint given by John Hardy's treading 
 rather heavily on a tender corn, '' at least not 
 for the time it will take you to empty a glass 
 and pocket half-a-crown. Go round ; you will 
 find the back door on the latch, Mike."- 
 
 *' You're very good, Sir," returned Mike, 
 stretching down his long arms, and, sliding 
 head foremost on to the floor, he gave a vault 
 backwards upon reaching it with his hands, 
 and fell lightly and nimbly upon the soles of 
 his feet. ^' But like a rat," continued he, 
 showing every tooth in his gigantic cavern of 
 a mouth, " I can creep my body through any 
 hole that I can pass my head." 
 
 It was great diversion for Mike to see 
 the sensation this feat of agility occasioned. 
 Everybody endeavoured to assume composure 
 and indifference at his dreaded presence : but 
 at the same time theu' confusion was too ap- 
 parent for concealment. There was no longer
 
 20 THE OLD HALL. 
 
 a mingling of noisy tongues and loud boister- 
 ous peals of mirth ; all were silent, thought- 
 ful, and uneasy, and stolen glances were ex- 
 changed expressive of the feelings that dictated 
 them. 
 
 " There," said the Squire, who was the only 
 one present in no way discomforted by the 
 close proximity of Mike, " scoop a bumper 
 from that bowl, and pledge my health." 
 
 " I humbly beg your pardon, Sir," replied 
 Mike, with a respectful bow ; '^ but I don't like 
 mixed liquors, and by your leave I'll take a 
 sip of something raw and pure." 
 
 " As you please," rejoined the Squire. 
 " You'll find what you want on the table." 
 
 With this, Mike gurgled a full half-pint 
 glass from a bottle of fiery cogniac, and 
 holding it above his head, cried out, " Here's 
 to your Jiouse-ioarming , Squire Lawrence," 
 and he poured the stinging dram, without 
 let or stop, down his throat, and gave a 
 loud shrill whistle at the finish, by way of
 
 THE OLD HALL. 29 
 
 testing his powers of swallowing rebellious li- 
 quors. 
 
 " It would have choked any mortal," said 
 John Hardy to himself, but neither lip nor 
 tongue moved to measure the sentence. 
 
 '^ Ha^ ha, ha," laughed Mike, giving the 
 empty glass a flourish, and tipping it upon a 
 thumb-nail he proved there was not a drop to 
 be drained from the bottom. " Ha, ha, ha ; 
 and so you think, Mr. Hardy, that it would 
 have choked any mortal throat, do ye ?" 
 
 " How do you know what I think?" returned 
 John, almost passionately. 
 
 '' Ha, ha, ha," rejoined Mike. *' Ha, ha, 
 ha." " Come, come," added the Squire in a 
 reproving voice and manner, " remember to 
 be respectftJ, Mike;" and as he said so, he 
 threw to him a broad piece of silver. 
 
 " You're very good. Sir," replied he, 
 scraping a bow, " and there's nothing like 
 money to sharpen the memory. This," he 
 continued, spinning the coin in the air and
 
 30 THE OLD HALL. 
 
 catching it adroitly, " puts me in mind of the 
 errand I came about." 
 
 ^' And what is that?" 
 
 "Hark!" rejoined Mike without heeding 
 the question, and pointing to the roof above, 
 " There are other messengers besides me. 
 D'ye hear the rats over head?" 
 
 " What do you mean ? " said the Squire, as 
 a rushing noise was heard in the ceiling and 
 adjoining panels. 
 
 " Ah ! they're 'cute, cunning things," re- 
 plied Mike, admiringly. " I love rats better 
 than many mothers love their babies. I've 
 heard they leave the ship before it sinks, and 
 quit the tottering house before it falls, and I 
 know they're soon aware when one's on fire, 
 and long before the owner." 
 
 " On fire I "ejaculated twenty tongues, while 
 horror and sickening fright paralyzed every 
 hearer. 
 
 *' Ay," returned Mike in a cool, collected 
 manner ; " I drank to your house-warming,
 
 THE OLD HALL. 31 
 
 Mr. Lawrence ; and if ye cast a look to the 
 east end of this old rotten, worm-eaten pile 
 of black bricks and mortar at this particular 
 moment, you'll say that it was not ill-timed 
 
 if it was ill-placed. For while yeVe been " 
 
 and he gave three or four awkward capers by 
 
 way of a conclusion to the sentence 
 
 " your house has been burning." 
 
 *^ Great God!" exclaimed the Squire, and 
 the agony of his soul was portrayed in every 
 lineament of his countenance. 
 
 For a brief moment, for the veriest grain 
 and atom of time, there was such a break 
 and pause and suppression of every sound, 
 even to the beating of hearts and pulses, that 
 the fall of a pin would have rung loudly upon 
 the floor. 
 
 John Hardy's voice however, was soon 
 heard. 
 
 " If true what you say," said he, address- 
 ing Mike in a strangely altered voice, so dry 
 and husky did it sound, " it's no time to stand
 
 32 THE OLD HALL. 
 
 idling here; but if untrue," and he shook 
 his clinched fist threateningly as he spoke, 
 perhaps for the first time in his life, " you 
 shall be ducked in a horse-pond." 
 
 " Ducked in a horse-pond ! " repeated Mike. 
 " Pretty thanks, I trow, for my errand. But 
 there's no fear o' that. Master. Go, and what 
 I've said will soon be proved." 
 
 Before Mike had finished his reply to John's 
 threat, all had rushed terror-stricken from 
 the hall, and they swept through the straight 
 narrow passages and up the stairs and along 
 the galleries, and, as they approached that 
 part of the building alluded to by Mike, 
 dense volumes of smoke rolled towards them 
 in stifling masses. 
 
 " It's too true," gasped John Hardy. 
 
 A bright, lurid flame now burst through a 
 partition at the extreme end of the building, 
 and, as if by magic, the whole wall became 
 one entire blaze. 
 
 " Back, back for your lives ! " shouted the
 
 THE OLD HALL. M 
 
 Squire, driving the pressing crowd before 
 him. 
 
 " By heaven ! " ejaculated John Hardy, clasp- 
 ing his hands in despair, '^ all the Tving's on 
 fire." 
 
 " And so will the whole house be in a few 
 minutes," responded the Squire. " It's past 
 our aid or any that we can obtain. Back, 1 
 say, there. Not a soul shall remain in dan- 
 get." 
 
 " Ring the alarum," cried a voice ; " let us 
 at least have all the assistance we can get." 
 
 Off ran an eager throng to perform the office ; 
 but immediately afterwards a shout was raised 
 that " the bell-rope was gone." 
 
 " No matter," returned a voice ; '^ I'll soon 
 climb to the roof and set the old clack er ring- 
 ing." 
 
 It was Mike who made this volunteer, and 
 within a very short period afterwards the bell 
 sent forth a sound that might be heard a full 
 league away. 
 
 c 3
 
 34 THE OLD HALL. 
 
 Every hand was now turned to saving what- 
 ever was within reach and portable. Pictures 
 that had hung unmolested for an age upon 
 time-worn rusty nails were torn down and 
 hurled from the windows, among heaps of an- 
 tique chairs and tables, which no sooner 
 reached the ground than they snapped to atoms, 
 and became little less destroyed than if burnt 
 to ashes. From every casement and door piles 
 of household goods were being crammed and 
 thrown. Tapestry was torn in ribands from 
 the walls ; plate, glass, china, were all hud- 
 dled and crushed together in bruised, broken, 
 and scattered fragments. Not a finger but was 
 stretched forth to save, and yet not one but 
 added rather than diminished to the speed of 
 the ruin now devouring the Squire's old home. 
 
 It was a fearful scene. Destruction, stark 
 staring destruction, was inevitable. As well 
 might an attempt be made to quench the crater 
 of a burning mountain as to save the ancient 
 house from total demolition. And still there
 
 THE OLD HALL. 35 
 
 was a small determined band wlio made the 
 attempt. Pails, buckets, jugs, and vessels of 
 any and of every kind "were filled from the 
 pump and conveyed to all points where the 
 flames raged the fiercest, and dashed upon them 
 with unintermitting industry and persever- 
 ance. John Hardy flew from room to room, 
 and roared all kinds of instructions and di- 
 rections in the hoarsest possible voice, which 
 nobody for a moment heeded or listened to. 
 Shout rose above shout, halloo above halloo, 
 shriek above shriek, until the din increased 
 to one continued yell, which, as it was carried 
 in the distance, sounded like the mingled 
 howHng of savage beasts. 
 
 " The roof, the roof," was now the cry, and 
 through the centre of it a clear flame shot up- 
 wards for yards into the air. High and fiercely 
 it rose, and hissed and twirled and twined in 
 serpent folds, and belched forth clouds of 
 sparks, and then, as if soaring for its pui-pose, 
 down it stooped, and running swiftly along the
 
 36 THE OLD HALL. 
 
 parapets, licked the building from end to end 
 in one flaring sheet of fire. There was one spot, 
 however, still -untouched, and that was the 
 small belfry which stood on the rear of the 
 loof at one end of the house, wherein Mike 
 still remained, ringing with a force never 
 applied to that old bell, although long since 
 flawed and cracked by time. 
 
 " Come down, come down instantly ! " hal- 
 looed the Squire, seeing the imminent danger 
 he was in; but Mike took no notice of the 
 order, and continued to ply the wheel with 
 feelings of mingled delight and vengeance. 
 
 Thick, smothering volumes of smoke arose 
 and enveloped him, and still the heavy ding- 
 dong summoned amazed and wondering crowds 
 for miles around. Hot, charred, and burning 
 embers flew about his head, and fierce climbing 
 flames crept and played within a few feet of the 
 bell, and still the ding-dong never ceased. 
 Flocks of frightened and dazzled birds flew in 
 circles above the suflbcating heat, and, every
 
 THE OLD HALL. -Si 
 
 now and then, dropped powerless into the 
 blazing ruins. Ding-dong, ding-dong. Thick 
 beams, scorched to charcoal, fell from floor to 
 floor, and rent great yawning gaps as they 
 crashed to the ground. Ding-dong, ding-dong. 
 Red-hot bricks, split into fragments, and tiles 
 and rubbish, fell as thick as hail. Ding-dong, 
 ding-dong. Now a tall chimney reeled and 
 tottered, and, after staggering in vain to hold 
 its place, down, down it went, crushing in the 
 roof, and dashing away everything in its course. 
 Ding-ding, ding-dong. 
 
 All had quitted the tumbling ruins, except 
 Mike, and, instead of the tumult which but a 
 few minutes before out-Babeled Babel, were 
 collected in a closely-packed crowd, silently, 
 and not a few tearfully, watching the progress 
 of the devastating element. The Squire stood 
 a little in advance of the rest, and looked 
 calmly upon the destruction of that which was 
 scarcely less prized by him than life ; but when 
 he saw a human being in peril, and that, too,
 
 38 THE OLD HALL. 
 
 as he believed, on his account, words cannot 
 picture his distress and agony. 
 
 " Come down, come down, in the name of 
 Heaven ! " he screamed at the very pitch of 
 his voice ; and, although Mike was no object 
 of sympathy upon general occasions, the order 
 was bellowed from every tongue until it might 
 have drowned the roar of a park of artillery. 
 
 Ding-dong, ding-dong. 
 
 "D'ye hear?" again hallooed the Squire; 
 but if he did, Mike heeded not. 
 
 Ding-dong, ding-dong. 
 
 " My God ! " passionately exclaimed the 
 Squire, " he'll be roasted alive." 
 
 Ding-dong, ding-dong. 
 
 Screams, shrieks, shouts, halloos, supplica- 
 tions, and threats, were all and each disre- 
 garded by Mike. There he remained in the very 
 middle of a line of fire encircling him, and, as 
 yet, unharmed. " I don't believe fire will burn 
 him," said John Hardy, in a tone that could 
 not be heard his length from where he stood.
 
 THE OLD HALL. 39 
 
 The bell ceased. 
 
 " Fire won't burn me ; eh, Mr. Hardy ? 
 Ha, ha, ha." 
 
 Jahn's blood curdled in his veins at these 
 words, when they issued firom Mike's lips in a 
 loud and distinct tone. 
 
 " Did ye hear that ? " whispered John. 
 
 The Squire made no reply ; but kept a fixed 
 stare upon the mysterious Mike. 
 
 Black, begrimed, and sooty, he again com- 
 menced his labour at the bell, and as the light 
 flared intensely bright upon him, he looked 
 like a demon summoning the condemned. 
 
 Between terror and astonishment, all eyes 
 were bent upon Mike, and, notwithstanding 
 the confusion his dangerous position created, 
 many opinions were now expressed as to his 
 being the author or instrument of the destruc- 
 tion of the Kange. The tide of public com- 
 passion changed, and set against him. 
 
 *' I knew very well that something would 
 happen directly I saw his ugly face through the
 
 40 THE OLD HALL. 
 
 window," observed one. "Ugly, indeed! " re- 
 turned another. " He ought to have been 
 strangled at his birth." 
 
 " Tut, tut, neighbour," added a third. " We 
 can't choose our own faces, and we've no rea- 
 son to think Mike would be so wicked. Be- 
 sides, if he had fired the house, it is not very 
 likely he'd have given notice of the act him- 
 self." 
 
 " I don't know that," rejoined a fourth. " He 
 came and told me that my cow had broken her 
 back ; but there's very little doubt in my mind 
 that he drove her over the chalk-pit." 
 
 " Yes, yes," said the first speaker, " he loves 
 to be the messenger of his own mischief." 
 
 " If I thought that," replied he who was 
 disposed to be more charitable towards Mike 
 than the others, " I'd have let him want for a 
 crust and a draught of milk before now, and 
 he must have done both long ere this, if it 
 hadn't been for me." 
 
 " He'll never beg another such meal of ye,"
 
 THE OLD HALL. 41 
 
 remarked a bystander. " See, the fire has 
 reached the bell-tower, and all escape is cut 
 off." 
 
 " Get a ladder, or he must perish ! " cried 
 the Squire. 
 
 But he might as well have called for wings 
 to have flown, and snatched him from the 
 wretched death which threatened him. The 
 length of three ordinary ladders would not 
 have reached the place where Mike stood, and 
 not one was at hand for a useless attempt to be 
 made with. 
 
 Scarcely, however, were the last words from 
 the Squire's lips with a fr-antic gesture, than 
 Mike gave a loud, thrilling " whoop," and, 
 springing over the side of the parapet, he clung 
 and twined his limbs about an iron water-spout, 
 fixed in an abutment of the building, still but 
 slightly injured, and down the edge of it he 
 slipped, with the speed of an arrow dipping 
 from air to earth. 
 
 " There," said he, clasping his hands behind
 
 42 THE OLD HALL. 
 
 him, and striding towards the crowd with the 
 gait of a pair of compasses. " There/' re- 
 peated he, " that's about the only fireside I 
 ever left with regret. I had it all to myself, 
 and it will be many a long year before I forget 
 its glow." 
 
 " A murrain on ye for so speaking of it ! " 
 exclaimed a voice in the rear of the thong. 
 
 " Are you hurt, Mike ?" asked the Squire, 
 hurrying forwards to meet him. 
 
 " No, and thank ye kindly. Sir," replied 
 he. 
 
 " "Why did you remain so long there use- 
 lessly exposing yourself to danger ?" 
 
 *' An' may it please ye. Sir," returned Mike, 
 " a little danger gives a fillip to sport." 
 
 " Sport ! " angrily ejaculated the Squire. 
 
 " Ay," coolly rejoined Mike. " Sport to 
 some is often death and ruin to others; but 
 that's no reason we shouldn't enjoy it." 
 
 " Hang the villain ! " John Hardy was 
 about to exclaim; but he checked the im-
 
 THE OLD HALL. 4S 
 
 pulse just in time to prevent the sentence being 
 uttered. 
 
 " The hemp isn't sown yet, Mr. Hardy, for 
 the twisting of the cord," said Mike, with a 
 grin. 
 
 At this moment the ground on which they 
 stood quivered again, as the remainder of the 
 roof fell in with a terrific crash, and then a 
 thick cloud of dust, ashes, and smoke, arose 
 and completely obscured the burning pile ; 
 and when it had been wafted away, nothing 
 remained to view of the Eange, but the ske- 
 leton of the outward walls — a sightless ruin. 
 
 " I say, my masters," observed Mike, as he 
 pointed to the smouldering heap, '* ye'll never 
 hold your revel there again. Xo, no. The 
 fiddle, the song, and the dance will not cheer 
 and warm your hearts in the old manor-house 
 when Christmas comes again. Ye'll think of 
 that, no matter where ye may be, I ween." 
 
 Sobs were now heard firom various parts of 
 the crowd of sorrowing spectators.
 
 44 THE OLD HALL. 
 
 " Ay, ye can weep," continued Mike, " and 
 so could I if I had the like cause. But then, 
 d'ye see, Mike Crouch never had any. No, 
 I often laugh ; but a tear — by the Lord ! I 
 should like to know where tears are pumped 
 from ?" and then, stretching his hands upon the 
 ground, he threw himself over and over, after 
 the fashion of a hoop in motion, and in this 
 way trundled himself rapidly out of sight.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 " True, 1 talk of dreams, 
 Which are the children of an idle brain, 
 Begot of nothing but vain fantasy ; 
 Which is as thin of substance as the air, 
 And more inconstant than the wind, who woos 
 Even now the frozen bosom of the north, 
 And, being anger'd, puffs away from thence. 
 Turning bis face to the dew-dropping south." 
 
 A wATCHFur, cock, who had been blinking 
 and winking, in his dosy uncertain sleep, for 
 a glimpse of pale light now threatening to 
 tinge the dark border of the East, caught 
 the maiden blush of the fi'esh young morn ; 
 and, shaking off the dull effects of slumber, 
 heralded the coming day with a bold challenge 
 of his prowess. Drowsy rooks were awakened
 
 46 THE OLD HALL. 
 
 by his shrill clarion note ; and, ere it had been 
 thrown back by a neighbouring rival, loud 
 and quick in his reply to the defiance, things 
 of the day began to flutter from bough and 
 twig, and sheltered retreats, in thatched- 
 roofed eaves, and hollow, crumbling trees, 
 and ivy-twined walls, and from beds delved 
 in massive hay- stacks, and from all kinds of 
 warm sheltering nooks, where the cold and 
 nipping winter's wind could find no entrance. 
 
 It is of little importance, and signifies less 
 in the linking of events than the thinnest film 
 of the smallest spider's web in the specific 
 gravity of the globe, whether the waking 
 sounds of earth, collectively or respectively, 
 caused the closed eyes of John Hardy to be- 
 come unsealed and stark-staring open as ab- 
 ruptly and suddenly as if a spring had been 
 pressed upon their fastenings. Sufiicient be 
 it for us to know that there he lay, deeply 
 wedged between a double ridge of soft eider- 
 down, with a mountain of blankets drawn even
 
 THE OLD HALL. 4< 
 
 to his chin, and a fat dropsical pillow swelling 
 beneath the weight of his head, indistinctly 
 conscious of possessing a closer affinity to life 
 than to death's half-brother. Rather below his 
 eyebrows, a white cotton night-cap was pulled ; 
 and this , perhaps, somewhat impeded his slow 
 perception of surrounding matter and mate- 
 rial; for, although his organs of vision were 
 stretched to the utmost limit of their capacity, 
 still they appeared like ice on the surface of 
 a muddy pool, and as yet but poorly sensible 
 to their offices. TVTiether John's brow was 
 clouded by his nightcap, or that his brain 
 continued dark and foggy, from the honest 
 draughts he had drained to the Squire's oft- 
 repeated toasts and sentiments, cannot be as- 
 certained to the nicety that the subject merits ; 
 but that he was in a chaos of bewilderment 
 no one could doubt, who caught but the faintest 
 and most fugitive glance of his upturned and 
 partly exposed countenance. There was no 
 puckering of lips and of cheeks from inward
 
 48 THE OLD HALL. 
 
 mirth, as of old, when waking from his pro- 
 found and unbroken rest. The sunset of his 
 light and merry dreams was generally in 
 smiles; but now they had sunk 'mid sighs 
 and wrinkles. 
 
 Slowly, very slowly, John raised a hand 
 from the depths and intricacies of the bed- 
 clothes, and, in a state between doubt and 
 fear, drew off the covering to his head, and 
 held it, for close inspection, before his eyes. 
 After bestowing a more minute examination 
 upon the object than it would seem to' warrant, 
 from any peculiar quality or virtue it possessed, 
 he dropped it upon the quilt, and, raising 
 himself in solemn silence upon an elbow, 
 jerked back the thick hangings of the bed. 
 Now, like the hot glowing summer's sun, 
 bursting through the vapourish mist, and lift- 
 ing it from tree and flower, the truth began 
 to dart its rays through John's mui'ky brain, 
 and to leave its ideal imageries stripped of all 
 their fantasy. The nightcap was circumstantial
 
 THE OLD HALL. 49 
 
 evidence ; but the bottle-green suit, suspended 
 upon the back of a chair — scarcely green in 
 the pale light of morning — proved the con- 
 clusive link in the chain of evidence, and 
 effectually dispelled any shade of scepticism 
 that might yet be flitting in the mind of John 
 Hai'dy. 
 
 " Thank Heaven !" exclaimed he, energeti- 
 cally, '^ thank Heaven, there are my breeches!" 
 and, leaping from the bed, he commenced a 
 species of dance round and about the floor, 
 which comprised the innocent and healthy re- 
 creation of playing leapfrog with every move- 
 able in the apartment. Yes, there was John 
 Hardy, in a garment strangely deficient — as, 
 indeed, all his garments were — in the ordinary 
 proportions of one coming under the denomi- 
 nation of a shirt, skipping over the backs of 
 chairs, hopping at a bound upon the table, and 
 springing dangerously again upon the ground, 
 at a fearful risk of broken limbs, bruises, and 
 contusions. 
 
 VOL. I. D
 
 50 THE OLD HALL. 
 
 " It was a dream !" he ejaculated, stopping 
 in the act of jumping over his slippers ; " a 
 horrid, wretched dream !" and, as if the idle 
 fancy of his feverish sleep became sensible to 
 sight, John threw himself into a sparring atti- 
 tude, and fixing a steady look at the corner 
 of the room, he gradually neared that which 
 he seemed to see ; and, coming within hitting 
 distance, he flung his clinched fists out, with 
 the swiftness and precision of a champion of 
 the ring, into the thin and unresisting air. 
 
 After indulging in several rounds, John be- 
 came exceedingly refreshed and comfortable 
 in his mind, although the vigour of the exercise 
 quickly reduced the quantity of breath in store 
 in his body. 
 
 '^ There," said he, " I've done with you; 
 and when I've anything more to do with 
 dreams, I hope that I may not sleep again for 
 a month." 
 
 And was it all, then, nothing more than a 
 dream ? The truth must be confessed. Up to
 
 THE OLD HALL. 51 
 
 the moment of Mike's imagined appearance 
 at the window, John's head was not so fumi- 
 gated by punch, and other rebellious liquors, 
 but that, by dint of great exertion, he com- 
 prehended the distinction between standing 
 on his heels and his head. An ill-timed and 
 unfortunate attempt, however, to join in a 
 boisterous reel, completely upset the remain- 
 ing drains of this desirable perception; and, 
 in accordance with the Squire's directions, 
 John was lifted from his fallen state, and car- 
 ried to the repose of his dormitory. Here 
 he quickly yielded to the lulling influence of 
 sleep ; but, although he snored most sonorously, 
 his heated brain was busy in unreal vagaries ; 
 and among them, it set in a blaze, and con- 
 signed to destruction, the old manor-house. 
 Plain and palpable the scene of confusion and 
 ruin tx) the fabric appeared; and, if it had 
 been true, as it seemed to be, not a circum- 
 stance connected with it could have been more 
 vivid. Not but there was some truth mingled 
 
 D 2 
 
 UBRARt 
 
 imivERsnY Of warn
 
 52 THE OLD HALL. 
 
 with the creation of his fancy. There was a 
 Mike Crouch, and he was precisely of the un- 
 gainly figure and bearing represented in the 
 dream. Children, too, were afraid of him, 
 from a delight he took in making ugly faces 
 at them, and people of a larger growth in no 
 way courted his society. Still he was anything 
 but the supernatural being represented in John 
 Hardy's imagination! and although he would 
 occasionally practise a common and dangerous 
 proceeding of thinking for his neighbours, he 
 possessed no extraordinary means of antici- 
 pating their thoughts. No one could exactly 
 tell the means and appliances that Mike had 
 for obtaining a livelihood; but they were so 
 far independent as never to require him to 
 work or to beg. Whether his slight respect 
 for the acknowledged laws concerning the 
 rights of property in any way contributed to 
 his support, is a matter to be left between 
 him and his conscience ; as, if he had broken 
 them either from ignorance or design, hitherto
 
 THE OLD HALL. 53 
 
 he possessed the very great advantage of hav- 
 ing never been found out. It must be ad- 
 mitted, for even Mike's best friend — and that 
 was John Hardy — reluctantly confessed, he 
 was a vagabond. Occupation requiring the 
 mildest form of labour, even to scare birds 
 from trespassing in the corn-fields — and for 
 that Mike was especially well adapted — he 
 would decline. But, to slot a deer, or to ball 
 a fox, or prick a hare, or seal an otter, he 
 would scour the country round for miles ; and 
 let it be never so far, he was unwearied by 
 the unprofitable task. At least it would seem 
 a bootless one, to merely track the " where- 
 about" of these denizens of the wild; and 
 that was all Mike's end appeared to be, when 
 watched by the suspicious eyes of jealous 
 game-keepers. Appearances, however, are 
 sometimes telegraphs for deception; and they 
 were so in this instance, for his discovery 
 generally gained him a premium for the in- 
 formation he rendered others. To the im-
 
 54 THE OLD HALL. 
 
 patient sportsman, and the poacher, he proved 
 a most valuable accessory; and so keen was 
 his relish of enjoyment in giving them intelli- 
 gence, that seldom a day passed but he sought 
 the means of procuring it. Now, although 
 John Hardy could not be designated a poacher 
 — for he took out a properly stamped certificate^ 
 and never infringed the law of trespass — yet 
 his mode of filling his bag was far from being 
 a sportsman-like one. Accompanied by Mike, 
 who invariably directed his movements in the 
 field, he had a slaughtering habit of blazing 
 away at the partridges while on the ground, 
 by poking his gun through the hedges; and 
 if a hare was found upon her form, she was 
 never warned to quit it, as a preliminary to 
 driving an ounce and a half of number six 
 through her head. As soon as Mike's well- 
 directed finger betrayed the spot where puss 
 was crouched, bang ! r-r-r ! roared John's noisy 
 piece, and over she rolled, struggling in the 
 convulsions of death, even in her seat. In
 
 THE OLD HALL. 55 
 
 short, John Hardy was a pot-hunter. No 
 matter how the game was killed, so long as 
 it was bagged ; and the easier and readier the 
 facility offered for the attainment of this ob- 
 ject, the greater satisfaction it afforded him. 
 In spite of the Squire's rating, he persisted in 
 following up this rule; and it might be, the 
 difficulty he found in attempting the legitimate 
 order of pursuit, made him observe no excep- 
 tion in it. Thus, John Hardy and his able 
 assistant continued the even tenor of their 
 way, much to the discomfiture of the winged 
 and fleet-limbed tribe. 
 
 Checking his almost frantic delight at the 
 discovery of the delusion, John slipped him- 
 self into the bottle-green, and, after plunging 
 his throbbing temples into a basin of water, 
 cold as a sharp frost could render it in such a 
 protected situation, and drinking a prodigious 
 draught, by way of an internal cooler, he 
 threw open the latticed casement of his bed 
 room window, and inhaled the fresh, stinging
 
 56 THE OLD HALL. 
 
 air, as it rushed in, with greater pleasure than 
 he ever swallowed a bumper of wine. 
 
 How glad and hearty John's rubicund visage 
 looked, as he stretched it out of the window, 
 and regarded the familiar scene before him i 
 There were the towering old trees, with every 
 limb and twig powdered over with the hoar 
 irost, and the grass glistened with myriads of 
 sparkling diamonds, like an endless succession 
 of fairy lights. A brook, in the distance, that 
 babbled and murmured over its pebble bed 
 in the spring and summer time, was now fast 
 locked in the iron grasp of winter ; and the 
 moor-hen and gay-feathered teal had to seek 
 their scanty fare among the frozen sedges, 
 instead of diving below its rippling surface. 
 The large and thick hawthorn bush, speckled 
 with scarlet berries, and which always caught 
 the first gleams of the sun, began to shed roll- 
 ing drops from every briar, and fell pattering 
 upon the dried and withered leaves beneath. 
 A robin, perched upon a topmost twig, was.
 
 THE OLD HALL. 57 
 
 whistling his winter song, and a hungry mavis 
 gathered his early breakfast from the plenty 
 spread for his repast, when the worm remained 
 in her earthy home. 
 
 " Egad !" exclaimed John Hardy, rubbing 
 his hands together briskly, "what a bright, 
 bracing morning it is ! I feel that I could play 
 leap-frog with the poplars !" 
 
 At this moment, a figure became visible from 
 behind a screen of laurels at the eastern cor- 
 ner of the house, and the long, narrow shadow 
 thrown before, preceded by some half-score 
 yards the body from which it was cast. 
 
 " What, Mike ! is that you so early ?" in- 
 quired John Hardy. 
 
 " And your servant. Sir," replied Mike : " it 
 is." 
 
 " Is there any thing particular, then ?" re- 
 joiued John, suppressing his voice to a scarcely 
 audible tone. 
 
 Mike stretched his hands and long arms into 
 the fathomless pockets of his trousers (for, like 
 
 d3
 
 58 THE OLD HALL. 
 
 some parts of the ocean, they had no bottom), 
 tipped the battered remains of an extremely- 
 shabby hat upon the end of his nose, and gave 
 a slow and measured nod of inexpressible sig- 
 nificance. 
 
 " Is it a covey under a hedge ?" said John, 
 in a hoarse whisper. 
 
 Mike's head conveyed a negative. 
 
 " A hare in her form ?" 
 
 The negative was repeated. 
 
 " Have ye harboured an outlying deer ?" 
 
 Again Mike expressed a silent " No ;" and, 
 lifting a finger, beckoned his examiner to come 
 closer, previous to his making the communica- 
 tion. 
 
 In a few minutes — ^for it took some minutes 
 to unbar and unbolt the heavy entrance to the 
 Range — John Hardy, muffled up in a red 
 woollen comforter, which threatened to choke 
 him, and a long camlet cloak, causing him to 
 trip at every second step, stood within confer- 
 ring distance.
 
 THE OLD HALL. 59 
 
 *^ "Well ! and what is it, Mike ?'' said he. 
 
 '^ I beg your pardon. Sir," replied Mike ; 
 '' but — " and then he checked himself ab- 
 ruptly, and gave a vacant look into the air 
 immediately above his head. 
 
 This was excedingly mysterious; and John 
 expressed his astonishment by elevating his eye- 
 brows, and adding the monosyllable, " What ?" 
 
 " You'll not be offended, Sir ?" 
 
 " I know of no cause, Mike," replied John 
 Hardy, "and I hope there's none for me to 
 learn." 
 
 " It wasn't altogether my fault," rejoined 
 Mike, by way of a preface. 
 
 " That you must leave for me to judge. We 
 are not to decide upon our deeds or our mis- 
 deeds." 
 
 " E-ight or wrong, hit or miss," returned 
 Mike, recklessly, " here goes. But I feai-," 
 added he, with a sigh, " that I've been and 
 done it." 
 
 "Done what?"
 
 60 THE OLD HALL. 
 
 " Myself, Sir," replied Mike, giving him- 
 self a melodramatic thump upon the bosom. 
 " Yes, Mr. Hardy, I fear that I've hashed my- 
 self very brown 1" 
 
 " Speak plainly," responded John. *' Don't 
 deal with me in riddles." 
 
 " I wHl, Sir," added Mike. '' Then, what I 
 mean to say is, I'm cut grass !" 
 
 " You've been pilfering," said John, shaking 
 his head in an admonitory manner, " and been 
 found out." 
 
 " I may have been collecting a few stray 
 articles, Mr. Hardy," replied Mike, who in- 
 variably designated his appropriation of other 
 persons' goods and chattels by this mild de- 
 scription, " but I'm not the fool to be caught 
 round a corner. No, Sir ; that's not the ad- 
 dled e^^ in my nest !" 
 
 '^ Then, what is?" 
 
 Mike sighed, and thus began the relation of 
 his wo : — 
 
 *' A bad name, Mr. Hardy, often prevents a
 
 THE OLD HALL. 61 
 
 poor fellow from getting a good meal of victuals, 
 and it may be on account of this that I've often 
 felt so precious hungry. Thanks be to you, 
 Sir, however, I've been able many a time to 
 take my stomach by surprise, and astonish it 
 with a lining that considerably strengthened its 
 sinking weakness. Indeed, Sir^ I'll make the 
 confession, that I've looked upon you, of late, 
 as a cold joint in the cupboard — a circumstance 
 that might be cut and come again at. This was 
 my hope ; this my belief till late last night ; 
 but now I feel, Mr. Hardy" — Mike almost 
 blubbered — '^ it's all my eye and Betty Mar- 
 tin!" 
 
 *' What have you been doing, then, to for- 
 feit my occasional assistance ?" said John. 
 
 " I'LL tell the truth," replied Mike, after a 
 short pause, as if speculating upon the expe- 
 diency of alleging the opposite. '' I'll tell the 
 truth, Mr. Hardy, although it's like tugging my 
 teeth out whenever I try. TVTiile cooUng my 
 heels in the village, just after the mail passed
 
 62 THE OLD HALL. 
 
 through, and thinking how hard it was that I 
 never was asked to harvest-homes or winter 
 frolics, in the same way that other Christians 
 were, and not a halfpenny in my pouch to get 
 a whifF of tobacco, by way of a plaster to the 
 sore, a woman, muffled up so that I couldn't 
 see her face, and by her voice I knew to be a 
 stranger, asked me if I knew a gentleman of 
 yoiu' name. 
 
 " * Yes,' said I, ^ I do ; and a very nice kind 
 of gentleman he is. It's a pity there a'n't a 
 few more of the same kind in this neighbour- 
 hood.' 
 
 *'^Ah, that it is!' she replied; and it 
 sounded as if she meant what she said. 
 
 "'Have you any particular business with 
 Mr. Hardy?" asked I, by way of squeezing 
 her sponge. 
 
 " ' I've a basket here for him,' said she, 
 bringing a tidy large hamper from under a 
 shawl ; ' and I wish it delivered to him as 
 quickly as possible.'
 
 THE OLD HALL. 63 
 
 " With this I offered to carry it, and, after 
 pocketing a shilling for the job, she placed the 
 basket in my arms, saying, 'Be sure and 
 keep the lid up, and don't jolt it/ 
 
 " ' Is it glass V I inquired. 
 
 " * Not exactly,' replied she -, ' but it re- 
 quires quite as much care, and the more you 
 take of it, the greater may be your reward 
 some day.' 
 
 " *" Am I to deliver any message with it?' 
 said I. 
 
 " ' No,' she returned, walking quickly away; 
 and I thought I heard a sound soon afterwards, 
 as if she was trying to hide a considerable 
 flood of tears ; but that might be only my 
 fancy. 
 
 *' The load was not a heavy one, and I 
 was running with it down here, when a wicked 
 thought jumped into my head that it was a 
 Christmas present from some one of your 
 jfriends, Mr. Hardy ; and, knowing how you 
 deserved to be treated, I couldn't help suspect-
 
 §4 THE OLD HALL. 
 
 ing there might be much more than you 
 wanted." 
 
 Mike hesitated to proceed. 
 
 " Go on," said John ; " I shall not feel 
 offended if you adhere to the truth, whatever 
 you did." 
 
 "It's cheerful to hear you say so. Sir," 
 resumed Mike. " Thinking," continued he, 
 " that it might be a nice fat turkey, two or 
 three capons, some sausages, with two or 
 three odds and ends of the same kind, I con- 
 sidered it would be no great loss if I cabbaged 
 a supper or so out of the lot, particularly if 
 you didn't miss it. It was very wrong. Sir, 
 to think of serving your property in such a 
 way, but a hungry dog shows very little re- 
 spect to fat or lean." 
 
 '' And so, I suppose," interrupted John, 
 with a smile, although he flattered himself 
 that he was looking majestically stern, and 
 unprecedentedly savage ; " and so, I suppose," 
 repeated he, " that you helped yourself?"
 
 THE OLD HALL. 65 
 
 " Not in tlie way you may chance to think. 
 Sir," returned Mike. " Being unable to 
 withstand the temptation/' he continued, " I 
 hastened home with the load, instead of 
 keeping the straight path to you ; and, no 
 sooner there, than I out with my knife, and 
 cut the cord laced round the top of the ham- 
 per." 
 
 " It was very wrong, Mike," said John, 
 with as much gravity as he could assume. 
 " Really, it was very wrong." 
 
 '' I know it was, Mr. Hardy," replied Mike, 
 " and I feel it, as the parson says we should 
 feel our sins — in'ards. However, what's un- 
 done cannot be done in many cases; and so 
 I found it with the basket. Prepare your 
 eyes. Sir, prepare your eyes, Sir," repeated 
 he ; " for they may be more inclined to fly 
 out of your head than mine were, and if so, 
 spectacles will be of no use straddling across 
 your nose for the time to come. What do 
 you suppose, Mr. Hardy," continued Mike,
 
 66 THE OLD HALL. 
 
 in a slow, measured tone, which conveyed 
 much more than his words, " met my sight at 
 the bottom of that hamper?" 
 
 *^ Heaven knows !" ejaculated John. 
 " And so do I, Sir," rejoined Mike ; " and 
 dropping his voice to a husky whisper, he 
 added — •" it was a sleeping baby." 
 
 " A what?" shouted John Hardy, while 
 the colour forsook his cheeks as suddenly as 
 if it had been wiped out with the facility 
 that the trace of rouge is expunged with a 
 damp cloth — " A what ! " hallooed he. 
 
 '' A baby," returned Mike. " Perhaps," 
 continued he, " not quite a yearling." 
 
 The intelligence staggered John Hardy, 
 and completely overwhelmed him. He could 
 do nothing but open and shut his eyes, as if 
 they smarted intensely from the contents of 
 a snuiF-box being jerked into them, and his 
 tongue cleaved to the roof of his mouth, mute 
 with astonishment. 
 
 " It's true," resumed Mike. " There lay
 
 THE OLD HALL. 67 
 
 a fat, chubby babe on a Kttle handful of straw,, 
 as fast asleep as a dormouse in winter." 
 
 " And — and — and what did you do with 
 it, Mike ? " inquired John, with feelings little 
 less enviable than a bilious person at sea ex 
 tremely qualmish. 
 
 " I'll not act, said I to myself, in delivering 
 this package as if I didn't know what was 
 in it," replied Mike ; " but I'll go and tell 
 Mr. Hardy what has happened, and do like 
 some of the unfortunate chaps do at quarter- 
 sessions, by throwing myself upon the mercy 
 of the Court. WeU, Sir, I lifted the baby 
 as tenderly as I could by the nape of the neck, 
 and shoved it into my bed, which was no sooner 
 done than it set up such a squeal that all but 
 deafened me. After, however, a little tender- 
 ness, and a few soft words, such as mothers use, 
 mixed with a slight flavour of damns for the 
 trouble, and letting it have an old stocking to 
 suck, for want of better nourishment, it be- 
 came pretty quiet, and grumbled itself again to
 
 68 THE OLD HALL. 
 
 sleep. After that, I ran down to the Range 
 for the purpose of seeing you. Sir, and " 
 
 Mike broke short off in his narrative. 
 
 John gave a sickly nod of encouragement for 
 him to proceed. 
 
 " I did see you, Mr. Hardy," continued he, 
 emphatically ; " but not in a mood to listen." 
 
 "What was I doing?" asked John, with 
 potent misivings upon the policy of his ques- 
 tion. 
 
 " Stretching yourself upon the floor of the 
 servants' hall," replied Mike, struggling to 
 conceal a laugh. 
 
 " Go on," said John Hardy, in the tone 
 of one considering himself a martyr to circum- 
 stances. " Tell me what followed, Mike." 
 
 *^ I kept my own counsel," responded Mike, 
 " and returned home, intending to seek you 
 as early as I could this morning, to in- 
 form you of the business before anybody was 
 stirring. 
 
 " That was careful and wise of ye, Mike,"
 
 THE OLD HALL. 69 
 
 added Jolin. " But what became of the — the 
 infant?" 
 
 " It nestled in my arms, Sir/' replied Mike, 
 " and if I hadn't lain upon it now and then 
 accidentally, I don't think it would have cried 
 much. As it was, my beginning in the nurs- 
 ing line didn't prove so pleasant that I want to 
 have a second bout of it." 
 
 " Is it a girl or a boy ?" asked John. 
 
 " I can't say, Mr. Hardy," responded Mike; 
 " for I'm not over curious in such matters." 
 
 " "Was there no letter in the basket ?" 
 
 " None that I could find," returned Mike. 
 *' There was a card tied round the neck of 
 the child, and there was some writing upon 
 it ; but as I can't read, of course I don't know 
 what it means." 
 
 "Come, then," added John, "we'U go to 
 your cabin, Mike, and endeavour to unriddle 
 this mystery." 
 
 Mike had been his own architect and builder 
 in the erection of his edifice, which comprised
 
 70 THE OLD HALL. 
 
 one room of no particular shape, and designed 
 to hold not more than one person at a time, ex- 
 cept squeezing and crushing were resorted to. 
 This mansion in miniature, which Mike desig- 
 nated his " kennel," was situate on the bor- 
 der of an extensive common belonging to the 
 Squire, and which, from the thick patches of 
 gorse mingled the dwarf blackberry bush, and 
 tall, withered, and rank grass growing here and 
 there, afforded a secure covert for the fox and 
 the badger, the owl and the night-hawk, and 
 other wanderers in the stilly night, whom Mike 
 was fond of listening to when brooding before 
 the dying embers of his lone fireside. The 
 walls of his house were composed of dried furze 
 and clay, and the roof was rudely thatched with 
 bulrushes and sedges from a neighbouring slimy 
 and stagnant pool. Door there was none ; but 
 a thick faggot, which could be removed at plea- 
 sure, performed the office, and a stake thrust 
 through the centre, so as to catch the two 
 posts marking the entrance, made a very good
 
 THE OLD HALL. 71 
 
 substitute in the shape of an effective barri- 
 cade. 
 
 The internal arrangements of Mike's esta- 
 blishment were of the most primitive order. A 
 round log of wood, of about three feet in height, 
 was the only seat that he had to air himself 
 before the fire on; while a square piece of 
 board, placed at will across his knees, or on the 
 floor, took the place of a more legitimate table, 
 when Mike, fortunately, had any use for one. 
 The only other articles of household furniture 
 consisted of a tea-kettle, which had been picked 
 from the obscurity of a ditch, having, in the 
 estimation of its late owner, become quite past 
 tinkering, and a bed, composed of a bundle 
 of straw, stitched up in a ragged piece of can- 
 vass. The covering to this unique couch, 
 whereon Mike courted " the honey heavy 
 dew of slumber," was composed of dried but 
 untanned skins of badgers, which, although 
 warm, and nearly impenetrable to cold, sent 
 forth a strong and somewhat offensive smell.
 
 7f 
 
 THE OLD HALL. 
 
 All in all, ^^the kennel" was an establish- 
 ment remarkable for originality of design in the 
 economy of its details and the strict observ- 
 ance with which they were carried out. 
 
 ^^ I left him asleep," said Mike, in a whisper, 
 as he drew the faggot from the entrance. 
 
 "Him, eh?" 
 
 " Well, Sir !" expostulated Mike. " It must 
 be either a him or a her, and it's the toss up 
 of a halfpenny which it is." 
 
 " That's true, Mike," returned John, with a 
 sage shake of the head ; " that's very true." 
 
 Upon entering the limited apartment, John 
 perceived the object of their discourse muffled 
 in the unodoriferous coverlet, stretched on 
 Mike's humble pallet, and in the full enjoyment 
 of a peaceful sleep. A bright ray of sunshine 
 had struggled through a crevice in the wall, and 
 streaked itself upon the child's closed eyes ; and 
 this, perhaps, had caused it to raise a dimpled 
 hand across its brow as a shade to the dazzling 
 light. Long and dark lashes fringed its eyelids.
 
 THE OLD HALL. 
 
 7S 
 
 and a thin line was drawn in an arch above them 
 as if marked by a pencil. A smile — and a smile 
 only that infants wear when very happy — 
 played upon its lip, pouting as if stung by some 
 envious bee, and light flaxen and silky locks 
 crisped themselves round and about its head. 
 Beauty in all things is a powerful though 
 silent advocate; but in nothing is it more so 
 than in infancy; and if ever this pleader to 
 human sympathies wore a more captivating 
 garb than was her wont, when luring the better 
 feelings of our nature to good and praiseworthy 
 purposes, then, indeed, she never was arrayed 
 in more pleasing form than in this sleeping child. 
 
 *' Upon my word," said John Hardy, stooping 
 over the little unconscious slumberer, " it's a 
 nice, plump, rosy-cheeked fellow ;" and as he 
 ^poke he bent his lips downwards and imprinted 
 a kiss which, for its warmth and heartiness, 
 sounded any thing but coming from the lips of 
 a stranger. 
 
 " What does this say ?" continued John, 
 
 VOL. I. E
 
 74 THE OLD HALL. 
 
 taking his spectacles from his pocket; and 
 placing them on a convenient ledge on his nose, 
 he commenced reading the superscription upon 
 a large square card suspended about the neck 
 of his charge. " Humph ! it's difficult to make 
 out," said John, endeavouring to obtain a proper 
 focus. " ^ Be' — what ? — oh ! * Be a father to 
 THE FATHEREESS.' Upon my life !" exclaimed 
 he, arriving at a conclusion of the sentence so 
 illegibly scrawled, and looking over his glasses, 
 " this is no joke. The fatherless no doubt must 
 be in want of a father ; but really I ought not 
 to be called upon to make good the deficiency, 
 eh, Mike?" 
 
 " Certainly not, Mr. Hardy," replied Mike, 
 making a dive with his hands into his bottom- 
 less pockets, and giving sundry nods of ap- 
 proval to this sentiment of his patron. " Cer- 
 tainly not. Sir," repeated he. 
 
 '' What's to be done then ?" 
 
 " We can set it aside," rejoined Mike, cool 
 as a cucumber in the dewy morn.
 
 THE OLD HALL. T6 
 
 *' Set it aside !" repeated John. " What do 
 you mean ?" 
 
 " Oh ?" returned Mike, stretching out a leg, 
 and regarding its unfair proportions with a 
 glance approaching to vanity : '^ you don't know 
 what setting aside hinfants is, Mr Hardy ?" and 
 then he smiled, as if in compassion for his 
 patron's innocence. 
 
 " No, Mike, I do not." 
 
 " You're aware what people do when they've 
 more kittens than they want, Sir ?" added Mike. 
 
 John gave a silent assent. 
 
 "Well, Sir! that's it— that's setting kids 
 aside." 
 
 " Great heavens !" exclaimed John, "what — 
 drowning them ?" 
 
 " It doesn't follow as a matter of course that 
 they must be dr owned, ^^ replied Mike. " Dif- 
 ferent folks have different opinions and different 
 methods of doing business." 
 
 John looked at the collected Mike most 
 sternly at the conclusion of this sentence ; and, 
 
 E 2
 
 76 THE OLD HALL. 
 
 had it not been for his attention being suddenly- 
 called to the waking child, he might have said 
 something correspondent with his grave ex- 
 pression. 
 
 Our affections are often influenced by the 
 veriest trifles. A look, a smile, a weU-timed 
 word, have won and put a seal upon many a 
 heart. No sooner were the eyes of the child 
 opened and fixed on John's, than he felt — to 
 use his own graphic description — completely 
 done for. 
 
 "You little rogue," said he, squeezing its 
 cheeks considerably out of their natural shape, 
 *' you sha'n't be set aside. No, no, no. Who- 
 ever you may be, and wherever you may be 
 from, I'U take care of that ;" and never doubt 
 John kept his word.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 " Promising is the very air o' the time." 
 
 It was worse than useless for John to argue, 
 reason, expostulate, cajole, or threaten, when 
 bantered — and when was there a day that he 
 was not? — about the contents of the hamper. 
 The Squire roared with glee at this inex- 
 haustible subject, and insisted upon expressing 
 his belief that John was a closer relative to the 
 boy — for a boy he turned out to be — than he 
 was fain to admit. " Yes, yes," he would say, 
 "the saddle's put on the right horse. This 
 accounts for the ' place in town,' and all that 
 smoke is blown away. Oh, John, I little 
 thought that you were a gay deceiver !"
 
 78 THE OLD HALL. 
 
 Then John eloquently and emphatically 
 denied the soft impeachment, and asserted that 
 there was no more cause for the accusation than 
 if a dead goose had been consigned to him 
 instead of a fat baby. He gained, however, 
 nothing by this defence ; and finding the diffi- 
 culty unsurpassable of being able to^ prove the 
 negative, he at length abandoned the attempt, 
 and submitted in a kind of miserable resigna- 
 tion to the squibs that were so plentifully fired 
 at his expense. 
 
 " I can't help it," John Hardy sighed, " I 
 can't help it, if you'll not believe a man upon 
 his honour ;" and then he placed a hand in a 
 mo^t effective manner upon his waistcoat, and 
 pressed it energetically. 
 
 Whether the Squire gave credence to John's 
 negation within himself, is a question that might 
 be answered with safety in the affirmative ; but 
 for the mirth which the pretence in disbeliev- 
 ing it excited, he continued to express a total 
 want of faith in the declaration of innocence.
 
 THE OLD HALL. 79 
 
 " Why was the child sent to you if you had 
 no hand in the matter ?" asked he, as they sat 
 sipping their wine some six months after the 
 occurrence. 
 
 " How should I know, Harry ?" replied John, 
 slightly ruffled with the subject under discus- 
 sion. " It was an accident — a sort of come-by- 
 chance, I suppose." 
 
 "But why fix upon you in preference to 
 anybody else ?" 
 
 " Now, there you are baiting me again ?" 
 ejaculated John. " I wish you'd drop the 
 affair, I have told you before," continued he, 
 slapping his crossed dexter leg, " and I tell ye 
 again, Harry, that I know nothing more of the 
 boy than the man in the moon. I can't t^ll how 
 he came — " 
 
 " Yes you can," interrupted the Squire : " it 
 was in a hamper, you recollect, brought by 
 Mike Crouch." 
 
 "Neither can I say who from," resumed 
 John, without noticing the interruption
 
 80 THE OLD HALL. 
 
 " Has he recovered from the measles ? " 
 asked the Squire, breaking oiF at a tangent. 
 
 " Yes, thank God ! " replied John, regain- 
 ing a look of pleasure. " I was at Dame Wood- 
 ley's cottage this morning, and I found him as 
 merry as a singing bird." 
 
 " Does the old woman still think him an 
 angel wafted from heaven in a basket?" 
 
 ." Yes," returned John, laughing ; " his 
 nurse sticks to the creed of such being the 
 mode of his coming to me." 
 
 '' Well," added the Squire, " it's an ori- 
 ginal method, certainly." 
 
 " I have ordered him to be christened to- 
 morrow," observed John. 
 
 *' Who are to be the sponsors ? " asked the 
 Squire. 
 
 " Dame Woodley and Mike," replied John. 
 " It was a particular desire of Mike to become 
 his god-father." 
 
 " Ha, ha, ha," laughed the Squire. " I 
 fear that Mike is sadly deficient in those
 
 THE OLD HALL. 81 
 
 duties which he undertakes to see per- 
 formed." 
 
 Time never slackens his speed ; on he goes, 
 without let, check, or stop. The seasons round, 
 night and day he wings his flight, as though 
 he had an end to gain ; and yet to Time there 
 is no end. So years flee away, and ages roll, 
 and the to-morrows, from infancy to age, aie 
 but the echoes of our yesterdays. 
 
 It was a bright and beautiful morning in 
 early spring. Daisies pied and buttercups were 
 thickly scattered over the meadows, and sweeter 
 flowers drew with their fragrant breath the 
 honey-bee from its hive, now sadly deficient in 
 the thrifty store leased for the winter gone. 
 That joyous herald of nature's coming charms, 
 the careless butterfly, vain of its fresh-fledged 
 plumes, flitted from bud to blossom, and dipped 
 into many a varied cup, and rifled the depths 
 of the pale cowslip and the daflbdil, and kissed 
 the lip of every opening flower in his path. 
 Frugal .ants issued from their homes, delved in 
 
 E 3
 
 S2 THE OLD HALL, 
 
 the dry and dusty earth, and hastened to tasks 
 of industry while the sun was up and shining 
 brightly. Happy, light-hearted birds, trilled 
 ringing songs from every bush and bough ; 
 and not a creature, not a thing, but looked 
 gay " as a younker prancing to his love." 
 
 By the verge of a narrow stream, in whose 
 bed patches of dark-green sedges reared them- 
 selves to sigh and rustle in the breeze, Mike 
 Crouch — somewhat older by a few fleeting 
 years, but yet unchanged in custom or manner 
 — strolled at day-break. With measured tread 
 he walked along the bank, and every now and 
 then stopped to examine any soft oozy spot 
 that must easily yield an impression to the 
 lightest footfall. Occasionally he grasped the 
 trunk of an overhanging tree to assist him in 
 his work of close inspection, and after assuring 
 himself that the object of his search had not been 
 there to give him a hint of his whereabouts, 
 he continued to pace leisurely along, and to 
 brush the heavy dew from the greensward.
 
 THE OLD HALL. 88 
 
 " I suppose/' said Mike, soliloquizing, " that 
 Master Tom will find me out presently. I 
 wonder," continued he, " that he hasn't done 
 so ere this." 
 
 Scarcely were the words spoken, when a 
 small figure was seen bounding forwards, fol- 
 lowed by a large shaggy deerhound of the 
 purest breed. His broad deep chest, and long 
 stalwart limbs, were formed for the strength of 
 a lion ; and his courage was unquestionable, from 
 the full, flashing eye under his bristled brows. 
 
 " Oh, here he comes !" observed Mike, catch- 
 ing a glimpse of the approach of the object of 
 his thoughts. 
 
 "Ha, ha, Mike! kind, good, old Mike!" 
 cried a young voice, in the very exuberance of 
 xmchecked youthful spirits. 
 
 " Yes, yes," replied Mike, shaking a raised 
 finger of admonition, "that's the way you 
 come over me. Master Tom, when breaking 
 orders. You know very well what Mr. Hardy 
 said about coming out so early as this."
 
 84 THE OLD HALL. 
 
 " Never mind/* rejoined the boy, who might 
 have seen some eight or ten summers ; " never 
 mind what he says, Mike. I love to be with 
 you all day long." 
 
 "But you must mind what he says," re- 
 turned Mike, sternly ; " and as for being with 
 me all day long, you should like the company 
 of your books much better." 
 
 " I can't, Mike," added Master Tom, pout- 
 ingly. " I can't like books. I hate them all, 
 every one." 
 
 " Exactly so," said Mike, diving his hands 
 into his still bottomless pockets, and bearing 
 in his ill-favoured face the expression of a 
 martyr. " Exactly so," repeated he, " and 
 then I get blamed for such notions. Only 
 yesterday, after our ramble for birds' eggs, 
 Mr. Hardy told me that I was spoiling of ye, 
 and making ye as great a vagabond as my- 
 self." 
 
 " Don't be angry," replied the boy, placing 
 ^W hand upon the head of the dog, and look-
 
 
 THE OLD HALL. 85 
 
 ing at Mike supplicatingly. " Safeguard and 
 ^werare never happy except with you, and 
 when I would remain at home, he won't let 
 me." 
 
 " What do you mean ?" asked Mike with a 
 smile. 
 
 " He looks into my face, and licks my 
 hands, and goes to the door and whines," 
 rejoined Master Tom, in his plea of justifi- 
 cation, " and at last I feel that I must do as he 
 wants me." 
 
 " A very pretty sort of a sermon that is !" 
 returned Mike. " And so you obey a dog 
 instead of Mr. Hardy, who, as Dame Woodley 
 says, if ever a saint wore double-milled bottle- 
 green superfine cloth, is decidedly one of the 
 tip- top order. I should to know whether you 
 can expect to go up'ards ?" and the speaker 
 pointed with indubitable signification to the 
 blue and ethereal vault of heaven. 
 
 " I never heard you preach before," added 
 Master Tom, with an air of discontent.
 
 86 THE OLD HALL. 
 
 ^' I hope, then, you'll profit by the first hear- 
 ing," said Mike, " and remember that you must 
 try to please your benefactor before Safeguard." 
 
 " What is a benefactor?" inquired the boy. 
 
 " A chap that gives one wittles and drink 
 for nothing," responded Mike. " That's what 
 I call a prime sort of a benefactor, and no 
 mistake about his pedigree." 
 
 " I'll try and do as you tell me," said the 
 boy, *' for I suppose Mr. Har Jy is what you 
 call my benefactor." 
 
 " I should just think," replied Mike delibe- 
 rately, while he endeavoured to thrust his 
 fingers through some exceedingly coarse and 
 matted hair, sticking out from under his 
 damaged and battered hat: "I should just 
 think," repeated he, " that Mr. Hardy is the 
 cream of your milk. Master Tom ; and it's 
 your duty, which you should like as your play, 
 and perhaps a little better, to make that old 
 gentleman as comfortable, by your behaviour, 
 as a treacle posset does a damp stomach."
 
 THE OLD HALL. 87 
 
 " I will, then, Mike, I will, indeed," re- 
 joined Master Tom, evidently affected by- 
 Mike's homily. 
 
 " In that case," added Mike, " I shall, out 
 of school hours, and at such times and seasons 
 that you're not more profitably occupied, be 
 glad to teach ye fishing, or any other pas- 
 time o' the sort ; but for the future we mustn't 
 be seen so much together. Master Tom." 
 
 " What are you looking for ?" asked the 
 boy, as his companion regarded a raised lump 
 of black mud not far from the edge of the 
 stresim, and on which a few osiers sprouted. 
 
 " When I've found what I'm after," replied 
 Mike, " I'll show ye." 
 
 " TeU me now," rejoined the boy. 
 
 " By a bishop's 'v\-ig," swore Mike, " women 
 and children are as full of curiosity as sound 
 nuts are full of kernels. Humph !" continued 
 he, striding without much regard to the wet- 
 ting of his feet, into the water, and looking 
 with intense interest at some indentures in the
 
 88 THE OLD HALL. 
 
 mud ; " then he's down the stream, as I ex- 
 pected ?" 
 
 " Who is down the stream ?" inquired his 
 companion. 
 
 " An otter, Master Tom," replied Mike ; 
 '*and if I may judge by his seals, as large a 
 varmint as ever cracked the spine of a trout." 
 
 " Let's find him, Mike," rejoined the boy, 
 clapping his hands with delight. " What fun 
 we had with the last we speared ?" 
 
 " Well !" exclaimed Mike, examining Mas- 
 ter Tom with a slow gaze, from his booted 
 heel to the curls dancing about his forehead, 
 "I am rasped! What had you to do with 
 the spearing of him, I should like to know ?" 
 
 *^ I did my best to help ye," returned his 
 companion, " and got out of my depth twice 
 in keeping him from a drain." 
 
 " That's true enough," added Mike, clap 
 ping the boy between his shoulders; "that's 
 true enough," repeated he ; " and if you'll 
 keep a mute tongue between your teeth, we'll
 
 THE OLD HALL. 89 
 
 have a bit of sport all to ourselves this morn- 
 ing." 
 
 " Shall I go home for the dogs ?" asked the boy. 
 
 " No, no," replied Mike. We've dogs 
 enough if we find him. Safeguard's a team 
 in himself, and is always ready for anything 
 from a cockroach to an elephant." 
 
 Cautiously Mike dragged do\\Ti the stream, 
 and every now and then cheered the hound to 
 hit off the scent. 
 
 " Wind him. Safeguard ; drag on him !" 
 cried he, as the hound eagerly sniffed among 
 the rushes, and evinced the eagerness to obey 
 the order, by plunging among the flags and 
 weeds, and scattering the black mire in 
 showers around, as he splashed through the 
 stream, from one side to the other. The 
 crafty moor-hen, scared from her sedgy re- 
 treat, flapped her wing and rose with a shi'ill 
 call, to find a more secure refuge from the 
 trespassers on her home. Rats stole, with 
 creeping steps, along the edge of the water.
 
 90 THE OLD HALL. 
 
 and sprung into holes delved deeply in the 
 clay, and then, when their disturbers no 
 longer left a sound of their footfall, peered 
 again from their burrows, with sharp, cautions 
 glances, and again sought their early breakfast. 
 An old heron, who had been standing as 
 motionless as the green moss-grown stone hard 
 by, against which the current had broken for 
 countless years in murmuring discontent, left 
 h^r task of gorging the finny tribe, and, 
 stretching her broad pinions, soared high from 
 the ground, and cleaved her flight towards a 
 thick, dark wood, looming through the mist 
 still hanging upon the hill and rolling through 
 the valley. 
 
 *^ Hoik, Safeguard," cried Mike, as the 
 hound became more busy in his hunt, and 
 the seals more numerous, at every stride that 
 he took. *^ He's not far from here," continued 
 he, picking up a fine trout, partly eaten, and 
 the scales yet slimy and fresh. " Hoik, Safe- 
 guard, wind him ; drag on him, good hound !"
 
 THE OLD HALL. 91 
 
 Mike had scarcely given the cheer to Safe- 
 guard's energies, when, with a spring that 
 might have rivalled an antelope clearing a 
 mountain torrent, the hound dashed under the 
 upturned roots of a fallen elder tree stretching 
 across the stream. 
 
 ** Go for'ard, shouted Mike to his companion ; 
 
 " go for'ard ; he's down, as sure as ; look 
 
 there he is," continued he, with flushed cheek 
 and flashing eyes, as he pointed to some thin 
 air-bubles rising to the surface of the water. 
 D'ye see him vent ? " 
 
 With a loud, ringing halloo, his young com- 
 panion ran along the bank, while Mike re- 
 mained where he stood, in case the other might 
 make a double in his dive. 
 
 " Cry out if you see him," said Mike, with 
 stentorian lungs. 
 
 " Here, here ! " shouted the boy. " He's 
 here, Mike." 
 
 " For'ard, Safeguard ! " cried Mike, lifting 
 the eager hound from the centre of the stream.
 
 \f% THE OLD HALL. 
 
 where he plunged and lashed it into a frothy 
 foam. " For'ard, for'ard," and away the dog 
 flew to the call ; and, catching a glimpse of the 
 otter as he rose from a long dip from^ the depths 
 where the green rush springs, he leaped into the 
 water just where his prey appeared, and sent 
 the spray hissing for yards away. Again the 
 otter sought security in dipping below, and Safe- 
 guard's willing jaws were baulked of their prey. 
 
 " We'll press him to the shallows if we can," 
 said Mike, tearing a stout cudgel from a bough ; 
 " we must pull him down." 
 
 " Oh Mike ! " replied Master Tom, while 
 his eyes dilated, and his cheeks crimsoned with 
 excitement, " Oh Mike ! " repeated he, "if we 
 can but kill him." 
 
 " If we drive him through Crank's hole," re- 
 joined Mike, " he's ours to a certainty. Get 
 a stick, or some stones, and fling them at him, 
 whenever you've the chance ; for if he turns 
 to the deep water, he's lost." 
 
 With alacrity Master Tom armed himself
 
 THE OLD HALL. 
 
 9S 
 
 with tlie missiles, and, imitating the example 
 set by the accomplished Mike, he hurled them 
 with equally good intent, if not with such dii-e 
 effect, as his more able companion. 
 
 The intervals now became much shorter be- 
 tween the otter's showing his whiskered jaws 
 above the surface and his disappearance beneath. 
 Safeguard's energies were such as to give him 
 but little time to inflate his exhausted lungs, 
 and he found the pursuit so hot, that scarcely 
 was the opportunity afforded him to breathe, 
 than down he had to go again, in order to 
 save himself from the close tug of his watchful 
 enemy. 
 
 "What a big un!" exclaimed Mike, as the 
 otter, for the first time, showed the length 
 of his body and swam swiftly along on the 
 surface, in spite of well-directed cudgels and 
 stones ^ying around and about him, and 
 the yells of Mike and Master Tom, and the 
 fierce struggles of Safeguard to gain upon him. 
 ** He's the largest," continued he, " that I ever
 
 94 THE OLD HALL. 
 
 saw, and that's saying a great deal for one 
 among so many." 
 
 The hound, finding that he was no match 
 for the otter in speed while skimming away in 
 this fashion, broke from the water, and racing 
 along the bank, dashed again at his prey, 
 upon gaining its head, and down the poaching 
 thief was forced, sorely against his will, to 
 drive a hundred bubbles upwards, sparkling 
 and bursting as they rose. 
 
 '' He can't live !" shouted Mike. " He 
 can't live." 
 
 In a spot much wider than the stream 
 generally was, and clear from rush and weed, 
 the otter rose lightly as a cork; but to the 
 astonishment of Mike, with his head towards 
 the hound, and perfectly motionless. With 
 pricked ears and starting eye-balls, Safeguard 
 stretched his limbs and struck gallantly out ; 
 and, as he neared his victim, he snapped his 
 long white fangs, as if in anticipation of the 
 pleasure of fixing them deeply in his loins.
 
 THE OLD HALL. 95 
 
 " Look out, Tommy !" said Mike, jumping 
 into the water behind the hound, " I know 
 what he is after. He'll double back to the 
 deep, if we don't have a care, and then we shall 
 lose him." 
 
 " What shall I do ?" asked his companion ; 
 " just say, Mike, good, kind, old Mike !" 
 
 '^ Your best to keep him for'ards," replied 
 Mike; " all ye can — everything," continued 
 he; " but nothing in particular." 
 
 Beating the water with his stick, and making 
 as much noise as he was capable of, he flattered 
 himself with the pleasing hope that the object 
 of pursuit might be kept back; but all his 
 exertions were in vain. No sooner did Safe- 
 guard approach the otter within some half- 
 dozen feet, than, like a flash of light, he 
 streaked downwards under the very body of 
 his enemy, and darted in the now clouded and 
 muddy stream past the unconscious person of 
 the saturated Mike. 
 
 " I think," cried he, " that he's gone up."
 
 96 THE OLD HALL. 
 
 '^ Yes, there he is," added Master Tom, 
 pointing to a thick clump of rushes, among 
 which he caught a glimpse of the otter as he 
 rose again for air. 
 
 " Run, run !" hallooed Mike. " Get before 
 him on the ford, Tom ! Never mind wetting 
 your feet ! " 
 
 Away ran the boy ; but, heedless of the 
 shallow to which Mike alluded, he jumped into 
 the river in a truly dangerous depth, for one so 
 short of stature ; and down he sunk like a peb- 
 ble, leaving nothing to give note of his immer- 
 sion, but the straw hat — a recent thatch to his 
 nut-brown curls — dancing on the disturbed and 
 waving water. Buoyantly, however, he rose ; 
 and, as the drowning catch at straws, he 
 grasped at some withered sedges just within his 
 reach. 
 
 '* Hold on ! " shouted Mike, seeing the peril- 
 ous situation of his companion, and flying to 
 his rescue. " Hold on, Tom, in the name 
 of— »
 
 THE OLD HALL. 97 
 
 Abruptly was Mike's exclamation broken off, 
 by Master Tom's suddenly becoming again 
 lost to view. The few weak rushes in his hand 
 broke, one by one, and then under he dipped, 
 like a thing of much greater weight. 
 
 " He'll be drowned ! " gasped Mike ; '' for 
 I can't swim any more than a brickbat," he 
 continued, clasping his hands, and meditating 
 a reckless jump into the stream. Up came the 
 object of his solicitude, as if some charitable 
 spirit, dwelling beneath the rippling stream, 
 had lent her aid to eject him from it. Clinging 
 to a prickly bramble, overhanging the water, 
 Mike threw himself forwards, and, catching 
 Master Tom by a heel, drew him out with 
 little less ceremony than he might have ob- 
 served to a half-di'owned puppy. 
 
 " Can ye speak ?" said he, placing him upon 
 the bank, and bending over the apparently in- 
 animate body with more interest, perhaps, than 
 he had yet entertained for anything quick or 
 dead ; " can ye speak. Tommy ?" 
 
 VOL, I. F
 
 98 THE OLD HALL. 
 
 After two or three sighs and sobs, the boy- 
 regained something like consciousness; and 
 although his cheeks were blanched and his lips 
 wore an ashy hue, he smiled, and answered 
 faintly, " Yes, Mike, I shall be better pre- 
 sently. Don't " 
 
 " Don't what ? " rejoined Mike, placing an 
 arm under his head, and raising it ; " don't 
 what. Tommy?" 
 
 " Don't wait for me," added his companion. 
 ^' Stick to the otter, Mike, and kill him, if 
 you can." 
 
 *' You're a game little chicken, that you 
 are," returned the attentive Mike ; '* but I 
 must wait for ye, Tommy." 
 
 " No, no," said the boy. " Go on : I'll 
 follow you presently." 
 
 At this moment Safeguard was seen sweep- 
 ing through the water, breast high, and dash- 
 ing the spray in showers about and above 
 him. 
 
 " He's pressed him upon a shallow," said
 
 THE OLD HALL. 99 
 
 Mike, entliusiasticallY, " and with the help of 
 a mouse he'd kill him." 
 
 " Let's give it him, then," replied the boy, 
 staggering to his feet. " Let's give it him, 
 Alike." 
 
 ''Can ye stand?" 
 
 '' And run, too, in a minute," added his 
 companion, with a bold spirit of his young 
 nature thrilling through the blood, quickly and 
 warm, and making him feel equal to more, much 
 more, than he was capable of 
 
 '' There's steel for ye ! " exclaimed Mike, 
 giving the boy a hug of admiration. " Come 
 along, then," he continued ; " but mind and 
 don't get into one o' them holes again." 
 
 Making the best of their way to where Safe- 
 guard was exerting his energies to pull down his 
 victim, they soon joined the chase again ; and the 
 ardour of it dissipated all the chilling influence 
 which the accident to Master Tom occasioned. 
 
 Life is as precious to the spider, as to that 
 superior and forked animal, ambitious and 
 
 F 2
 
 lOvO THE OLD HALL. 
 
 soaring man. The meanes^t creature clings to 
 it with the last throe : and the otter proved to 
 be no exception to this so general a rule. With 
 every art and manoeuvre he endeavoured to 
 baffle his pursuing and relentless enemy. At 
 one time he tried to skim from the danger, and 
 boldly gave to view the whole length of his 
 body, from the tip of his whiskered snout to 
 the end of his sleek and taper tail. Then, 
 finding his speed to be of no avail, down he 
 went, and sought among the rushes' roots a 
 harbour of protection. With the caution of 
 age and hardly-earned experience, he rose in 
 the thickest patch that he could discover, trust- 
 ing that the screen might hide him from the 
 vigilance of his pursuers ; but scarcely had he 
 time to take one sob of air to his spent lungs, 
 than they were aware of his cunning device, 
 and again he had to take to flight. To the 
 shore he struck, and upon the soft and oozing 
 mud he ran at his best and topping speed ; but 
 here he was foiled in less time, and with greater
 
 THE OLD HALL. 101 
 
 ease than in the stream. "\Mierever he went, 
 and whatever he did, produced no difference 
 in the result ; Death was in his wake ; and as 
 he strove, with desperate resolve, to biuy 
 himself under the cramped and twisted roots of 
 a pollard, washed, for many winters and sum- 
 mers, imtil scarcely a grain of mould remained 
 to be crumbled from them. Safeguard's fangs 
 were fixed deeply in his loins, and, giving one 
 last gripe in the dew- lapped jowl of the hound, 
 he yielded his immaterial spirit to mingle with 
 the thin air and invisible elements through 
 which the moon-beams stream unimpeded. 
 
 '* Oh, Mike !" ejaculated his companion, as 
 the greedy monster was di'opped Hfeless from 
 Safeguard's jaws. " Oh, Mike !" repeated he, 
 triumphantly, " what will dear old Hardy say?" 
 
 " Ay," replied a voice ; " let him answer 
 that himseK." 
 
 Upon looking up. Master Tom was some- 
 what astonished at the presence of a third 
 person.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 " A hungry, lean-faced villain ; 
 A mere anatomy, a mountebank ; 
 A thread-bare juggler, and fortune-teller : 
 A needy, hollow-eyed, sharp-looking wretch ; 
 A living dead man : this pernicious slave, 
 Forsooth, took on him as a conjurer." 
 
 In a green lane, flanked by two high and 
 sloping banks, on which the prickly bramble 
 and sloe-bush flourished, with many a flower 
 born to bloom unseen, a man was industriously 
 engaged in the humble occupation of razor- 
 grinding. He was old, and, if his habiliments 
 and general appearance offered any evidence 
 of his means and resources, poverty-stricken in 
 the extreme. A darned, tattered, and faded 
 soldier's coat, bereft of its skirt, and which
 
 THE OLD HALL. 103 
 
 now, in its curtailed state, came under the 
 denomination of a spenser, hung upon his 
 shoulders, and seemed as much disposed to 
 drop from them as to remain in its doubtful 
 position. His legs were barely protected from 
 the glance of the passer-by in a pair of trousers 
 frayed almost to the knees, and his feet were 
 scarcely capable of forming a union with the 
 soleless and dilapidated shoes in which their 
 owner shuffled on his way. A worn and greasy 
 foraging cap placed jauntily on one side of his 
 head, almost as devoid of hair as the back of 
 his brown and bony hands, completed his un- 
 prepossessing costume ; but notwithstanding 
 its lack of attractions, there was an aii* about 
 the wearer which gave note that he had seen 
 far better days, and afforded more than a 
 probabihty that he had known how battles were 
 lost and won. His features were hard and 
 contracted, and his gray eye-brows sprouted in 
 thick wiry bristles over a pair of as bright 
 and twinkling eyes as ever glistened in human
 
 104 THE OLD HALL. 
 
 sockets. Deeply marked and wrinkled were 
 his cheeks ; but from his iron firame, still well- 
 knit with thews and sinews, it would seem that 
 hardship and suffering had more to do with 
 the stamps than the sap-consuming hand of 
 Time. 
 
 Quickly he turned the wheel of his machine, 
 and the sparks flew as he held against the stone 
 a pair of rusty and blunt scissors which he was 
 endeavouring to whet to a keen edge. Now 
 and then he stopped the bur-r-r of his work to 
 examine the effects of his progress in the task, 
 and after trying the edge of the instrument on 
 the sensitive and fleshy part of his dexter 
 thumb, he renewed his labour. 
 
 In a gleam of sunshine streaming on a patch 
 of rank grass, some three or four yards from 
 the itinerant sharpener of a diversity of do- 
 mestic tools, a bobbed tail, wiry Scotch terrier 
 squatted. It must be confessed, in the graphic 
 language of an eminent dealer in the canine 
 race, that he looked " a varmint." More
 
 THE OLD HALL. 105 
 
 refined diction would not convey an apt de- 
 scription of this constant companion of the 
 razor-grinder. Short, crisp, and staring was 
 each hackle upon his body, which in colour 
 combined the hue of a grimy brown and an 
 undecided black, not dissimilar to an impene- 
 trable London fog. His ears had been clipped 
 to a sharp point, and the ornament to Ms rear 
 docked to the only joint remaining. His front 
 legs were unproportionably less in length thau 
 his hind ones, and were so immeasurably 
 baoidy, that more than once a cat, or some 
 such object of attack, had slipped between 
 them, in doubling from his evil intentions of 
 committing grievous bodily harm. And what 
 was the creature gifted with life that he would 
 not attack ? From a bull to a butterfly he was 
 ever ready to tilt, and, indeed, run a-muck 
 at everything that he might meet. To growl 
 and snap at the fleeing legs — although slow in 
 flight withal — of an old woman, as he trudged 
 through a village, gave him special gratifi- 
 
 F S
 
 106 THE OLD HALL. 
 
 cation; and as he returned to the side of his 
 master, who conceived a secret pleasure at this 
 delinquency, equal to the apparent one of his 
 favourite, the last remains of his tail would 
 wag with a demonstration of delight inadmissi- 
 ble of doubt. Then to set a group of children 
 squalling, or to fix his fangs in the ear of a 
 truant pig, was unsurpassable diversion; and 
 whenever these legitimate objects of his plea- 
 sures were wanting, he consoled himself with 
 the less exciting occupation of barking at 
 vacancy with a power of incredible magnitude. 
 In truth, the intervals were few and far 
 between when this unexampled dog was not 
 using his best endeavours to render himself 
 as superlative a nuisance as his many accom- 
 plishments made him capable of. 
 
 Like many a wiser man — although he had 
 the character of being a 'cute body for many 
 a wide mile around — the razor-grinder enter- 
 tained a dangerous habit of holding loud 
 communion with his own thoughts. Had it
 
 THE OLD HALL. 107 
 
 not been for the watchfulness of his four-footed 
 friend, more than once these intended private 
 conferences with the inward man would have 
 betrayed the holder of them to other ears than 
 those for whom they were designed. How- 
 ever, the footfall of a grasshopper could not 
 escape the vigilance of Toby, and hitherto 
 no unfortunate result had followed. It was 
 also a custom of Toby to give a response, by 
 way of parenthesis, to these self-communica- 
 tions of his master; and, notwithstanding 
 their being unnoticed by him directly as a 
 reply, they were not without their effect. 
 
 " I don't know," observed the razor-grinder, 
 for the fiftieth time trying the edge of the 
 scissors under his immediate revision, *' I 
 don't know," repeated he, " but I think you'U 
 do." 
 
 Toby sneezed an acquiescence. 
 
 " And if I don't mistake," continued his 
 master, " when I take ye home in the cool 
 of the eveniQsr, I shall be able to sack one of
 
 108 THE OLD HALL. 
 
 the gossip's chickabiddys, and may be the one 
 that roosts next the cock." 
 
 Toby gave a strongly indicative wag with 
 his abrupt terminus, upon the policy of this 
 measure. 
 
 " Ah!" resumed his owner, giving a pat of 
 satisfaction upon his abdominal regions, " I 
 always choose the best when I've the chance 
 in all matters; but more particularly when 
 eating and drinking are concerned." 
 
 Toby threw himself upon the fiat of his 
 back, and rolled in very ecstasy at the sentiment. 
 
 "Some folk," continued the razor-grinder, 
 shaking his head with pity at the reflection, 
 " some folk are nincompoops enough to let 
 the best — the pick of the fruit as I call it — 
 slip through their fingers ; but / never do. 
 No, no : trust Peter Parkins for that." 
 
 Toby skipped nimbly to his feet upon the 
 conclusion of this sentence, and scratched an 
 ear, as if it had been tickled by the facetious- 
 ness of the remark.
 
 THE OLD HALL. 109 
 
 *' A man must be worse than a hass to stick 
 his beak into skim milk when he's the oppor- 
 tunity of moistening his chalk with cream," 
 said the soliloquizing Peter, again making 
 the sparks fly from the rough stone as he 
 whirled it swiftly round ; "and yet," recom- 
 menced he, " go where you will — hang me 
 if it isn't enough to make one's eyes sore ! 
 — ^you'll see swarms of addle -pated, half-asleep, 
 never- awake, blinking, winking, dreaming 
 fools, who never can tell until it's too late 
 — until what I may call it's digested nourish- 
 ment — which side their bread was buttered 
 on." 
 
 Toby expressed a perfect agreement in this 
 metaphysical opinion concerning the short- 
 sightedness of human kind, by giving a slow 
 and deliberate wink of approval. 
 
 " Poor beggars !" exclaimed the razor-grind- 
 er, after a long pause, and thus with pity he 
 concluded his reflections. 
 
 Scarcely were they brought to so desirable
 
 110 THE OLD HALL. 
 
 a close, when Toby announced, by a short 
 inward growl, that some one or something 
 was in the order of coming, and quickly 
 afterwards a long shadow was cast upon the 
 greensward close to the feet of Peter Parkins. 
 
 " As the old gossip said when she crossed the door, 
 * Coming events throw their shadows afore/ " 
 
 chanted Peter, in perhaps the least melodious 
 tone that elegant metre from the muse was ever 
 murdered in. 
 
 " What, Mike !" continued he, catching the 
 virgin glimpse of the substance from which 
 the shade was cast ; " what, Mike, my heart- 
 of-oak, my spurred and crowing cock ! How 
 wags your luck ?" 
 
 " Kindly, master, kindly," replied Mike, 
 at the same time repelling Toby's self-imposed 
 task of minutely inspecting his person, by 
 kicking him unceremoniously into a neighbour- 
 ing bed of thistles. 
 
 " That's very frequently the reward of an
 
 THE OLD HALL. Ill 
 
 inquiring mind," observed the philosopliical 
 razor-grinder, pointing to the discomfited and 
 floored Toby. " Only try to shell the pod of 
 circumstances, and over ye go like a rag from 
 the foot of prejudice." 
 
 " Ha, ha, ha," laughed Mike, giving a 
 full view of every tooth in his wide and dis- 
 tended jaws. " AVhat! you're still at your old 
 trade of keeling the pot o' your learning." 
 
 " Taking down the shutters of mole-eyed 
 ignorance," replied the razor-grinder^ crossing 
 his arms, and coughing like an orator at 
 fault ; " or," continued he, " in words that 
 the least gifted in common sense may under- 
 stand, putting an edge upon blunt and rusty 
 minds, has always been one of my pleasing, 
 but sadly unprofitable laboui's — at least," said 
 he, correcting himself, "in an earthly point 
 of view. What it may do when Peter Par- 
 kins's tally comes to be reckoned up hereafter, 
 and the score squared, is a matter beyond 
 the reach and itching fingers of the wisest."
 
 112 THE OLD HALL. 
 
 At the finish of Peter's religious response, 
 he cast a look upwards, which was accompanied 
 by one from Toby to the same quarter and 
 altitude; and if it lacked an equal expression 
 of piety, still there was a fair assumption of 
 the virtue, even if he had it not. 
 
 " If ever there was a spoiled parson," re- 
 joined Mike, taking a seat upon a convenient 
 ledge in the bank, and resting his elbows 
 upon his knees, and his chin upon his thumbs, 
 " if ever there was a spoiled parson," repeated 
 he, " you're the mistake." 
 
 " I've been told before," added the razor- 
 grinder, " that I was designed for the high 
 road of life, instead of the bye-path necessity 
 has forced me into." 
 
 " Most persons hang their hats upon the 
 same peg," returned Mike. We all have 
 a fancy that if our deserts brought their 
 proper change, oui' pockets would be better 
 lined." 
 
 " If my recollection serves me rightly," re-
 
 THE OLD HALL. 113 
 
 plied Peter, " those were my very words when 
 I was here last winter," 
 
 "Oh! of course," rejoined Mike, with a 
 sarcastic laugh. " Oh ! of course," repeated 
 he : "it would cut roughly against your grain 
 to let a good thing go unclaimed." 
 
 " You're a sharp boy, Mike," responded 
 the razor-grinder, " and can say a neat thing, 
 thanks to your acquaintanceship wdth me." 
 
 " Well," said Mike, rising and stretching 
 himself; " when my respect for myseK becomes 
 flabby, I'll come to you for starch." 
 
 "Ah!" ejaculated Peter; "never let the 
 opinion you hold of yourself want for buckram. 
 It's the worst act a man can do against himself, 
 Mike — mark my words — to let the gum out of 
 the notions concerning your own superiority. 
 Once begin to think yourself a leetlebit inferior 
 to your fellow-passengers, and I'll suifer my 
 head to be chopped off by a hand-saw if you 
 don't soon find yourself in the dickey." 
 
 " I believe that," replied Mike, jerking his
 
 114 THE OLD HALL. 
 
 hat on the end of his nose, and taking a stride 
 or two in a semicircle. " Yes, yes ; that's the 
 way to be shoved into the back seat, and no 
 mistake." 
 
 " I'm right glad to hear you say so," re- 
 joined the razor-grinder, pleased with Mike's 
 acquiescence. " Upon my honour — " 
 
 " Upon your what?" interrupted Mike, 
 suddenly throwing his sadly damaged hat upon 
 the extreme back part of his head, and open- 
 ing his eyes like one amazed at some astound- 
 ing sound. " Upon your what ?" 
 
 " Honour ! " added the razor-grinder, plac- 
 ing his right hand upon the left of his breast. 
 
 " Ha, ha, ha ! " roared Mike. " Ha, ha, 
 ha ! Whenever I hear a chap talk of his ho- 
 nour, I always suspect that he's hard up for 
 security ! " 
 
 " And if pinched in that respect," returned 
 Peter Parkins, " I don't think you in a situa- 
 tion to bark for triumph." 
 
 " True ; quite true," responded Mike, some-
 
 THE OLD HALL. 116 
 
 what humbled by the reminiscence of his cor- 
 responding condition. 
 
 Upon this admission, the razor-grinder felt 
 that he had gained a victory over his compa- 
 nion in the keen encounter of their tongues ; 
 and after indulging in an inward laugh, which 
 sounded not unlike the smothered cackle of a 
 frightened bam-door fowl, he placed the finished 
 scissors in his pocket, and, taking a seat upon 
 one of the handles of his portable machine, 
 seemed to be engaged, for a few moments, in 
 scrutinizing the features of his companion. 
 
 " Am I grown handsome since you last saw 
 me?" inquired Mike, almost raising a blush 
 under the steady gaze of Peter Parkins. 
 
 '^ Why, in respect of beauty," replied he, 
 '' you're just about the same. The gals are not 
 likely to tear a great deal of muslin into rags 
 about ye." 
 
 *" The gals!" hallooed Mike; and then he 
 laughed so long and loud, that even the bold 
 Toby quailed at the sound, and slunk, with
 
 116 THE OLD HALL. 
 
 the abridgment of his tail pressed close to his 
 rear, between the legs of his master 
 
 " But do you know, Peter" — continued 
 Mike, upon gaining a conclusive check upon 
 his boisterous mirth, and as he spoke he drop- 
 ped his voice to a whisper — " that / love the 
 gals, although I never could get one to, what 
 I may call, give a tat for the tit in this senti- 
 ment ; they're all so shy of me : and fly away 
 like so many sparrows at a charge of dust-shot, 
 whenever I'm in sight." 
 
 " I'm not surprised at that," replied the 
 razor-grinder. 
 
 " Because, you'd say, I'm so ill-favoured — " 
 
 " Say ugly !" interrupted Peter Parkins. " I 
 love plain English when speaking of plain sub- 
 jects." 
 
 *' And I'm a precious plain one, it would 
 seem," said Mike, dolefully ; " although when 
 I've seen my phiz — by some called a mug — in 
 a pool or a pond, I've thought worse might be 
 found in a day's march."
 
 THE OLD HALL. 117 
 
 " Oh, yes !" replied Peter, rubbing "bis bands 
 briskly. " Oh, yes ! to be sure ! There was 
 a man I met only yesterday, without a nose, 
 and squinting eyes : in a matter of comparison 
 be was worse." 
 
 Mike felt that this was a side-winded compli- 
 ment, and intended as an additional blow to his 
 vanity. 
 
 " I suppose," resumed Peter, " that since 
 you've become an admirer of petticoats, you feel 
 the value of bird-lime to catch 'em with V\ 
 
 " Perhaps I do," returned Mike, in an 
 abstracted tone ; and while he spoke, he gave 
 a short respiration, which sounded like a sigh 
 firom an unpractised bosom. 
 
 "By all the saints!" ejaculated the razor- 
 grinder. " By all the saints ! " repeated he ; 
 " you're in a bad state, Mike." 
 
 " Bade state ! " said Mike, while an unusual 
 quantity of blood appeared to be pumped into 
 his face, until it was as scarlet as a newly- 
 scraped brick. " What do you mean ?"
 
 118 THE OLD HALL. 
 
 Peter Perkins pointed a straightened finger 
 in a direct line towards his companion^ and 
 hissed these ominous words in an accompany- 
 ing ominous manner — " Mike, a crook's round 
 your neck ! " 
 
 " If there is/' replied Mike, stammering for 
 an apt answer. " If there is, it's better than a 
 halter." 
 
 " I'm not prepared to agree with that all at 
 once," rejoined the razor-grinder, with an air 
 of a man who not only valued his own opinion 
 greatly, but expected others to do so. "1 can't 
 be soused head over ears in hasty conclusions," 
 continued he : "I must be led to such results, 
 as them pippins give a flavour of, slowly and 
 by degrees." 
 
 " Da " 
 
 The intended curse was unfinished in its 
 mutter, and the recording angel of the sins of 
 men dropped the pen when about to debit 
 another item to Mike's already long account. 
 The suppression, however, was not lost upon
 
 THE OLD HALL. 119 
 
 Peter, who, noting the quick advancement of 
 his friend's choler, perceived the expediency of 
 changing the subject without delay. 
 
 " Is there any thing new in the wind that 
 fills the bubbles of your fate ? " asked the razor- 
 grinder, taking from some obscure and hidden 
 comer of his bosom an exceedingly greasy, 
 crumpled, and faded pack of cards. " I see," 
 continued he, stooping jfrom the poetical to the 
 matter-of-fact, " that you've a new pair of shoes 
 to your feet." 
 
 " There's certainly a cap-full of fresh air," 
 replied Mike, regaining the equanimity of his 
 temper. " I've a regular-built service now, 
 and yet remain my own master." 
 
 "What's that?" 
 
 " I'm earth-stopper to Squire Lawrence," 
 rejoined Mike, " with a salary of twelve shil- 
 lings a-week." 
 
 " That's a very nice kind of service," re- 
 turned Peter Parkins, drawing the air through 
 his teeth with the indication of a relish.
 
 120 THE OLD HALL. 
 
 " What a chance you must have for perqui- 
 sites ! " 
 
 Why, yes ! " said Mike, applying his fingers 
 as a comb to his combined and matted locks ; 
 " one can pick up a hare, and wire a pheasant 
 without much risk, now and then." 
 
 "The opportunities must be famous," re- 
 joined the razor-grinder in a tone of admi- 
 ration. " I only wish the chance was mine." 
 
 " I sometimes take advantage of it," returned 
 Mike ; " but I know the difference between 
 using and abusing my trust," 
 
 " Do ye?" added Peter shuffling the cards 
 through his fingers. " Then, all I've got to 
 say is, that you've learned a lesson too difficult 
 for the greater number of common understand- 
 ings." 
 
 " What are you going to do with those devil's 
 books ? " inquired Mike, as his companion be- 
 gan to place the cards in rows upon the ground. 
 
 " To show you a new branch of trade," re- 
 plied the razor-grinder ; " and the most profit-
 
 THE OLD HALL. 121 
 
 able one, take it all in all As I told ye once 
 before," continued he, '' when I got my dis- 
 charge from the army — " 
 
 " Drummed out of the regiment, you mean," 
 interrupted Mike. 
 
 " If you like the unvarnished truth better," 
 resumed Peter, not in any way moved at the 
 unpleasant refreshing of his memory. " I took 
 to asking favours of the public." 
 
 " Begging," briefly chimed in Mike. 
 
 " I see that you like plain language," re- 
 joined the razor-grinder. " But I soon found," 
 he continued, *^ this to be a shocking bad re- 
 turn for my labour. People can't bear to be 
 charitable, unless it's known to their neigh- 
 bours ; and that's the reason, you may be sure, 
 gifts to the poor are always made soft soap in 
 praising the rich. There's a small matter of 
 good done in this world, without a better return 
 being expected." 
 
 Toby had been a patient listener for some 
 time, without in any way joining in the argu- 
 
 VOL. I. G
 
 122 THE OLP HALL. 
 
 ment; but he now thought it high time to 
 participate in the discussion, for fear that his 
 non-interference might be attributed to inca- 
 pacity. He therefore opened his jaws as wide 
 as possible, and conveyed, in as positive a 
 yawn as an ill-mannered dog ever gave in any 
 grade of society, that he was excessively tired 
 with the prosy matters under consideration, and 
 that he wished them brought to a hasty con- 
 clusion. 
 
 " Finding my new profession a decided 
 failure," said Peter Parkins, without noticing 
 the slight interruption from Toby, except by a 
 just administration, tempered with mercy, of 
 his toe to the rude caviller's seat of sensitive- 
 ness, '' I took to the appropriation of general 
 effects, without being mindful of a legal or 
 equitable consideration." 
 
 " Prigging ! " pithily remarked Mike. 
 
 '' This," resumed the razor-grinder, " I soon 
 learned to be an objectionable calling, if prac- 
 tised by itself."
 
 THE OLD HALL. 123 
 
 " A month at the mill convinced you o' 
 that, I'll be bound," observed his companion. 
 
 " Yes," replied Peter ; " I found it most 
 unanswerable evidence of the preconceived 
 fallacy. However," continued he, " I quickly 
 discovered what was wanted to mix with the 
 occupation, in order to render it safer to the 
 practitioner, without a reduction of a half per 
 cent, in the profits. With the small capital that 
 I possessed, I made an investment in this simple 
 piece of mechanism : and thus I was enabled to 
 scour the country round, under the appearance 
 of an honest calling, Tvdthout being longer sub- 
 jected to the pains and penalties of the laws 
 framed for the exclusive benefit and compulsory 
 penance of vagabonds." 
 
 '' The cage and the stocks," said Mike, by 
 way of an explanatory parenthesis. 
 
 Peter Parkins gave a nod, and proceeded; 
 while Toby seemed to be settled down into a 
 doggish, surly silence. 
 
 *' Now, grinding i^ said he, emphatically, 
 
 G 2
 
 124 THE OLD HALL. 
 
 " is like most of tlie other pursuits in life ; it 
 isn't exactly all what it seems to be. There are 
 wheels within wheels, and secrets of the craft 
 not open for every peeper's eye." 
 
 '^ I think I know what they are," replied 
 Mike, with confidence. 
 
 '' You're a shrewd lad," rejoined Peter Par- 
 kins, " and perhaps may give a likely guess. 
 But to save you the trouble, I'll just tell ye. 
 Every turn, either by design or accident, that 
 can be twisted or cramped to one's own ac- 
 count, must never be lost sight of." 
 
 " And that's the reason, I suppose, you sack 
 the poultry, and pick up a silver spoon or so, 
 when you go to folk's houses for the make- 
 belief of sharpening scissors and such like 
 articles," returned Mike. 
 
 " Pre — cisely so," added Peter. " And so you 
 see," he continued, ^' that the ostensible purpose 
 in my profession is exactly similar to those 
 of a more lofty description — to appear honest, 
 and all that sort of nonsense, when roguery is
 
 THE OLD HALL. 125 
 
 the main-spring of th.e machinery after all is 
 said." 
 
 " But what has this to do with those cards 
 you're thumbing over there?" asked Mike. 
 
 " You always were impatient/' responded 
 the razor-grinder, in the most imperturbable 
 manner that can be conceived by the coolest of 
 blood, " and impatience is a very objectionable 
 quality. However, as I was about to say, I en- 
 tertain — as T think I have before said in one of 
 our former meetings — a strong affection for the 
 very best victuals — and especially good drink — 
 that can be cooked, brewed, or distilled. With 
 regard to my wardrobe," continued Peter, glanc- 
 ing carelessly at his tattered garments, " I'm 
 not particular to a shade ; but," and then the 
 speaker smiled blandly, " as to my internal lin- 
 ing, I am nice — very nice. Well ! for a supply 
 equal to the demand, I found the ready seldom 
 at hand, even with all the industry I could use." 
 
 " In the prigging and grinding line," added 
 Mike, with a nod of comprehension.
 
 126 THE OLD HALL. 
 
 " And so," said Peter Parkins, resuming 
 his subject, " I resolved to open another 
 branch of trade. For a man living above his 
 means is sure to find his circumstances in 
 the long run not dissimilar to his corns in 
 a tight shoe — the pressure will pinch him." 
 
 No doubt o' that," rejoined Mike. 
 
 And what do you think this new branch of 
 trade is?" inquired the razor-grinder. 
 
 " A rascally one, I'll be answerable," re- 
 plied his companion, with unequivocal can- 
 dour. 
 
 " Perhaps it is," rejoined Peter ; " but I tell 
 fortunes and cast nativities, as a make-up to 
 my income." 
 
 " Ha, ha, ha !" laughed Mike ; '' ha, ha 
 ha ! "What next, I should like to know ?" 
 
 Those are precisely the words my custom- 
 ers put to me," added Peter. " When I've 
 told them of a circumstance as sure to hap- 
 pen as an over-ripe apple is to fall to the 
 ground : they say," continued he, in a mimic-
 
 THE OLD HALL. 127 
 
 ing tone, " ' "WTiat next, I should like to 
 know?'" 
 
 " And you pretend to tell them ?" observed 
 Mike. 
 
 " If paid accordingly/' replied the razor- 
 grinder; *' but it quite depends upon the 
 fee." 
 
 Do you manage to pick up many crumbs 
 at this game ?" asked his companion. 
 
 '' With love-sick lads and lasses I drive a 
 roaring trade," returned Peter Parkins ; " but 
 they must be in love to bite freely ; otherwise, 
 they only nibble." 
 
 " But what you tell them is of course all" 
 — and here Mike conveyed his meaning in the 
 graphic manner of puffing an imaginary feather 
 from the ends of his fingers. 
 
 " If you'll believe me when I've no object 
 in telling a lie," replied the razor-grinder, 
 without any affectation in the seriousness of 
 his deportment, " I can, with these cards pro- 
 perly shuffled, dealt, and cut, tell many a
 
 128 THE OLD HALL. 
 
 thing which the future must bring to pass. 
 Mark me, not all the truth; but many a slip 
 and shaving of it." 
 
 "How?" said Mike. 
 
 "Ah!" exclaimed Peter Parkins, turning 
 his eye upwards, and shaking his head, " that's 
 a puzzler. How has made many a brain 
 giddy; and yet it may seem too easy for the 
 exercise of an infant. I can't tell how these 
 cards reveal some of the secrets of futurity ; 
 and yet I know that they do it." 
 
 Mike expressed his incredulity by commenc- 
 ing a loud and merry whistle. 
 
 ** Doesn't the earth turn round, and the 
 sun rise and set?" said the razor-grinder, 
 warming upon his subject. '^ Don't the wind 
 blow, and the rivers run, and the tide ebb 
 and flow ? and can you tell me how they do 
 so?" 
 
 " That's a fact," replied Mike, losing many 
 grains of his opposed belief, " and I like facts, 
 when they come home to one ;" and, as he
 
 THE OLD HALL. 129 
 
 spoke, he administered a hearty thwack upon 
 his hreast. 
 
 '' Then, by the same rule," rejoined Peter, 
 " if you — as I understand — admit these effects, 
 without knowing the why or the wherefore, 
 tell me by what logic ye can gainsay others 
 on account of their causes being hidden and 
 mysterious ?" 
 
 *' You talk like a book," returned his com- 
 panion, " and always did, since my acquaint- 
 anceship with you." 
 
 The razor-grinder felt flattered at this com- 
 pliment, and his overweening vanity was 
 fanned by perceiving that Mike was completely 
 silenced in the discussion. 
 
 " Do you now," stammered Mike, after a 
 thoughtful pause, '^ do you now think that 
 you could tell a chap what would be his lat- 
 ter end ? " 
 
 " Maybe that I could," replied Peter, with 
 a concealed laugh quivering his nether lip. 
 '^ Will ye just try, then ?" returned Mike, 
 
 G 3
 
 180 THE OLD HALL. 
 
 taking a seat on the unoccupied handle of 
 the razor -grinder's machine, and stooping for- 
 wards, he looked at the cards closely as they 
 were spread in rows upon the grass. 
 
 Peter Parkins extended the open palm of 
 a hand and said, " In the first place, that must 
 be crossed with silver." 
 
 '' I luckily can do that," replied Mike, pro- 
 ducing a bruised and battered thimble, which 
 he had picked up in one of his journeys of 
 search and discovery. 
 
 "No, no, rejoined Peter; " it must be 
 crossed with money." 
 
 " In that case, " added Mike, returning the 
 wreck of the thimble to its obscurity, " I can't 
 make the beginning." 
 
 " You're a 'cute, sharp lad," said Peter 
 Parkins ; " and, by way of a novelty, I'll be 
 generous, and tell your fortune for nothing." 
 
 At this moment the deep note of a hound 
 was heard in the distance. 
 
 " Hark !" cried Mike, springing from his seat.
 
 THE OLD HALL. 131 
 
 Again the cry was audible, and soon after- 
 wards a burst of many tongues came ringing on 
 the breeze. 
 
 '' They've found in Wotton-wood/' continued 
 Mike, and his eyes sparkled as he spoke ; 
 ^' and, if there's an open earth within a ring of 
 jSfteen miles, I hope I may be crammed into it 
 and buried alive !" 
 
 " Sit down," said the razor-grinder ; " sit 
 down, and never mind the hounds." 
 
 " Sit," ejaculated Mike, ^^ who can sit with 
 that music in his ears ?" and, without farther 
 observation, he climbed the straight, tall trunk 
 of a neighbouring fir-tree, with about the 
 speed and agility that a cat would use from 
 the hot pursuit of a worrying cur. 
 
 " Where are ye going ?" inquired Peter, 
 astonished at the nimbleness of his companion. 
 
 " To join the sport," replied Mike, again 
 sliding to the ground ; " for I see that I shall 
 be in time to get well away with them." 
 
 " When shall we see each other again?"
 
 1S2 THE OLD HALL. 
 
 asked the razor-grinder, as his companion 
 started off without the ceremony of taking 
 farewell. 
 
 " Come to the kennel at nightfall !" shouted 
 Mike. 
 
 " I will!" hallooed back Peter; and thus 
 abruptly the two friends separated.
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 " The skies, the fountains, every region near, 
 Seem'd all one mutual cry." 
 
 With his heart keeping time with his heels — 
 and both were strangely quick in their re- 
 spective actions — Mike swept through briar 
 and brake ^ and cleared fence^ rail, and ditch, 
 and raced over fallow and mead, until he 
 arrived at the outskirts of the cover through 
 which the hounds were pressing the wary fox, 
 in the ardour and spirit of their matchless 
 breed. For where was there such a pack 
 as the Squire's of the Range ? True it is, 
 that they were large and somewhat heavy in 
 proportions; but nothing would induce their
 
 184 THE OLD HALL. 
 
 owner to make the attempt of altering their 
 form and figure. " No," he would say to a 
 hint of modern improvement. " No : as I first 
 knew them — and that was before I could 
 climb into a saddle — so they shall remain. 
 My father, and his before him, were better 
 sportsmen than myself, and it would ill become 
 me to change the blood." And then, indeed, 
 if the Squire had listened with a favourable 
 ear to the suggestion, what would Job Sykes, 
 the huntsman, have said to the matter? Job 
 was a queer old fellow, and regarded every 
 opinion expressed in his hearing, about hounds 
 and hunting, as nothing less than a positive 
 insult. " As if / don't know every move con- 
 cerning 'em," he replied, to a remote intima- 
 tion that anybody might have the hardihood 
 to give him, as what he ought to do, or 
 what he ought not to do. " As if / wasn't 
 
 up to every wrinkle ! By the , I expect 
 
 we shall have a queer breed of folks presently 
 — something between bull-dogs and sucking
 
 THE OLD HALL. 135 
 
 Quakers !" Job was certainly anything but 
 a patient man, and could not brook an affront, 
 as he ever deemed it, of this nature. Thirty 
 years had matured his experience as the 
 huntsman to the Squire, and half that num- 
 ber he had passed in the noviciate state of 
 whipper-in ; for Job was now in the sere and 
 yeUow leaf of Hfe, although, forsooth, there 
 were many green branches yet on the sturdy, 
 stalwart trunk. As he had been to his pater- 
 nal progenitor, so Job's only son and heir, 
 James Sykes, more commonly and familiarly 
 called Jem, was the whip under his special 
 training and guidance. For it was Job's greatest 
 boast, that the Sykeses inherited, in regular 
 succession, the post of honour that he then so 
 ably filled; and he frequently pointed, with 
 gratified vanity, to a row of very question- 
 able portraits, hung in a line upon the wall 
 of his snug cottage, as the likenesses of his 
 departed ancestors; who aired in the saddle, 
 figuratively speaking, that he now had the
 
 136 THE OLD HALL. 
 
 pleasure of sitting in. There were two of 
 these said pictures that caused an invariable 
 rise in Job's cachinnatory powers whenever 
 his eyes fell upon them. They certainly 
 must have been strange-looking originals, if 
 the professed semblances were, in the remotest 
 degree, worthy of credit. A bunch of pow- 
 dered hair, as thick as their arms, was tied 
 at the end with a large bow of black riband, 
 and this reached to a little below the middle 
 of their spines : waistcoats of the brightest 
 scarlet reached within a narrow width of the 
 knees of their buckskin breeches ; and at this 
 point, some dozen or more stripes of riband 
 were fastened, so as to dangle and flutter, in 
 the form of streamers, nearly to their ankles : 
 above their top-boots, which were pushed as 
 low as the creased leather would permit, a gap 
 and intermediate space was left to show the 
 knitted hose; but although this gave an air 
 of negligence, yet there was a study even in 
 the carelessness : the long ends of the white
 
 THE OLD HALL. 137 
 
 cravats that were tied in narrow bands round 
 their necks were allowed to remain on the 
 outside of their waistcoats ; and, taking them 
 altogether, these prototypes of the departed 
 Sykoses alleged that the originals must have 
 been eccentric images of the human form 
 divine. There was a peculiarity, too, about 
 the present representative and head of the 
 family, in his outward man, that would lead 
 a reflective mind to think that the quaintness 
 of exterior in the Sykeses had not been buried 
 and entombed in oblivion. Job was quite " a 
 character" in his costume and general appear- 
 ance. He was never known to be without his 
 boots and spurs within the memory of the old - 
 est of his neighbours and acquaintance, except, 
 if the narrative must be in strictness of the 
 fact, by the respected and respectable Mrs. 
 Sykes, in the black and stilly hour of night. 
 No matter when or where — even on the flagged 
 aisle of the church, when Job went to confess 
 his sinful omissions and commissions, the clank
 
 138 THE OLD HALL. 
 
 of his spurs was heard ; and upon one occasion, 
 being questioned as to the motive of his thus 
 going barbed in the heel upon all occasions, 
 he proudly replied, like a knight of old, that 
 " he considered he was entitled to 'em." Not 
 that Job was a figure on which pride would 
 sit at ease. His legs were remarkably short, 
 while his body was as particularly long, al- 
 though his stature was under the ordinary one 
 of men in general. Of his features, not even 
 an enemy — if he possessed one — but would 
 admit, if in proper dread of adding to his sin- 
 ful account, that they were singularly regular ; 
 and for one whose locks were bleached by age, 
 few handsomer could be found than those in 
 the possession of Job Sykes. Not a single 
 bristle was permitted to sprout upon his ruddy 
 cheeks ; and so smoothly shaved was his chin, 
 and every part of his face whereon a hair gave 
 evidence of vegetation, that, for aught to any 
 appearance to the contrary, he might have 
 been as beardless as an unfledged younker.
 
 THE OLD HALL. 139 
 
 Good humour sparkled in his eyes ; and 
 although a spirit of determination was ex- 
 pressed in his thin and compressed lips^ yet it 
 was seldom that a smile was not engaged in the 
 struggle of separating them. And then, in 
 the garments that adorned his person, how 
 superlatively clean was each and all ! From 
 the snowy roll of cambric (the very centre and 
 essence of Mrs. Sykes's ambition), twined with 
 the greatest care about his throat, in which was 
 invariably stuck a gold horse- shoe of gigantic 
 size, to the boot polished like a mii-ror upon 
 his foot, not a thing, not a button, not a thi'ead 
 but was free from sullying diit as industry, 
 soap and water, and friction, could render 
 them. Self-opinionated Job certainly was, 
 and exceedingly sensitive upon subjects con- 
 nected with his occupation ; but, notwithstand- 
 ing this, he seldom expressed a hasty observa- 
 tion in the hearing of those who occasioned a 
 flutter in his temper by some ill-timed and un- 
 necessary remarks ; although he often, as he
 
 140 THE OLD HALL. 
 
 said, damned them heartily between his teeth. 
 Thus keeping the irate sparks of his anger 
 from flying from his tongue, his offences were 
 few and far between ; and Job not only became 
 a favourite with all who knew him, but he had 
 the greater advantage of continuing one. "With 
 the Squire, from his youth upwards, he had 
 always been more like a companion, albeit a 
 humble one, than a servant; and never, not- 
 withstanding the familiar terms in which they 
 addressed each other in the field, was respect 
 deeper than that entertained by Job towards 
 his excellent and well beloved master. 
 
 Upon Mike arriving at the verge of Wotton- 
 wood, and just as he was about mounting a 
 tree to take a hasty survey of the proceedings, 
 he was hailed by the Squire. 
 
 " Your servant. Sir," deferentially replied 
 Mike, unclasping his arms from the tree, and 
 hastening towards the spot where the Squire 
 stood mounted on a superbly-shaped and steady 
 hunter.
 
 THE OLD HALL. 141 
 
 " Are the earths closed in the Gullyhole- 
 gorse?" asked the Squire. 
 
 *' Every one o' them. Sir/' replied Mike, 
 taking off the remains of his hat ; " but/' con- 
 tinued he, turning his quick ear to the quarter 
 of the cover that the hounds were making for, 
 " he'll not point for them." 
 
 *^ D'ye hear that, John?" asked the Squire, 
 addressing his friend, who at this moment was 
 engaged in buckling tighter the girths of his 
 saddle upon a fat, round- quartered, short-leg- 
 ged, Roman-nosed, crop-eared, squabby cob. 
 
 If ever the spirit of ugliness was condensed 
 in a quadruped, it was in this pet abridgment 
 of a horse belonging to John Hardy. 
 
 John, after two or three powerful grunts, 
 and a deepening of his complexion in the 
 straining to effect his purpose, managed to 
 press the tongue of the buckle into the desired 
 place, and then offered the full front of his 
 smiling, beaming countenance to the Squire, 
 and replied, " No, Harry, I did not hear
 
 142 THE OLD HALL. 
 
 anything except the very great confusion the 
 hounds arc creating at this moment." 
 
 " Mike," rejoined the Squire, " says that 
 the fox will not point for the Gullyhole-gorse, 
 as I thought." 
 
 " Indeed ! " exclaimed John, remounting 
 with great difficulty, from a preponderance of 
 weight in the behind of his frame. '^ Indeed ! " 
 repeated he. *' Goodness gracious, you don't 
 say so ?" 
 
 " He's for Snag-common, I think," observed 
 Mike, still keeping a watchful ear to the work- 
 ing of the pack. 
 
 " Why, that's twenty-two miles from here," 
 said John Hardy. " I cannot think of riding 
 so far as that." 
 
 " He may not have the chance of getting 
 the distance," replied the Squire, laughing. 
 
 " But he may," returned John, seriously, 
 " and then where shall I be ?" 
 
 " Nowhere," added the Squire ; '' that's a 
 certainty."
 
 THE OLD HALL. 
 
 143 
 
 " Precisely so/' said John Hardy, with 
 resignation approaching to piety, " and there- 
 fore I may as well remain where I am." 
 
 " I'll be yonr pad-groom. Sir," returned 
 Mike, " and I think that I can lift ye there or 
 thereabouts." 
 
 " Ay," added the Squire, " that you can. 
 Hark!" 
 
 " Tally-ho, tally-ho ! " rang wide and far, in 
 a shrill and loud, yet musical voice, from the 
 farthest end of the cover. 
 
 *^ Dear me, if that isn't Tom's voice ! " ob- 
 served John Hardy. 
 
 " That it is," replied the Squire, tightening 
 his reins, and thrusting his feet more forwards 
 in his stirrups ; " and I'll be answerable the 
 halloo's as true as the sun." 
 
 " No fear o' that," rejoined Mike, and he 
 spoke with pride of his apt pupil in sports of 
 the flood and the field- 
 Job's horn sounded like music from well- 
 practised lips.
 
 144 THE OLD HALL. 
 
 " Come away, come away!" 
 
 " Hoik halloo, hoik halloo ! " cried the whip- 
 per-in, cracking his heavy thong ; but the 
 gallant hounds flew more to the cheer than to 
 the threat, and crashed through the furze like 
 whistling bullets. 
 
 Then, with a bunch of noble fellows. Job 
 dashed along, cap in hand, and coming to the 
 spot where sly reynard broke from the thicket, 
 he laid them on with a voice that made many a 
 heart beat quicker than was its wont. 
 
 " Hold hard," cried the Squire, as a few of 
 the young and ardent began to exhibit symp- 
 toms of impatience ; " hold hard," repeated 
 he, " let them get well at it." 
 
 " Upon my word," remarked John Hardy, 
 tugging upon his bridle rein, for Blossom, 
 the squabby cob, was one of the most pig- 
 headed, obstinate, hard-mouthed brutes that 
 ever man exhibited his equestrain accomplish- 
 ments across ; " upon my word," and John 
 spoke in trepidation, " it's very difficult to
 
 THE OLD HALL. 145 
 
 hold hard. Be quiet. Blossom. What do you 
 Tuean, sir ? " 
 
 Now, it would appear that Blossom had no 
 particular meaning as the main-spring to his 
 action, except the intention of rendering him- 
 self as decidedly annoying and disagreeable to 
 his master as possible ; for although he tugged 
 with outstretched neck, and his head buried 
 between his knees, yet he continued to back 
 himself as fast as such a reversed movement 
 would permit. 
 
 " I'll persuade him to different manners than 
 those," said Mike, going to the rear of the per- 
 verse Blossom, and administering such a thwack 
 with his cudgel upon his round quarters, that 
 it sounded like a flail coming upon the naked 
 plank of a barn-floor. 
 
 Unprepared for this species of persuasion, 
 the squabby cob flew forwards, and as nearly 
 sent John Hardy flying over his ears as well 
 could be, without absolutely accomplishing the 
 feat. John, however, by clutching his mane 
 
 VOL. I. H
 
 146 THE OLD HALL. 
 
 with one hand, and seizing hold of the pum- 
 mel with the other, managed to regain his equi- 
 librium. 
 
 *' For'ard, for'ard ! " cried Job. 
 " Hark-away, hark-away ! " responded the 
 Squire, giving his horse his head, and on he 
 stretched, with a speed that quickly made him 
 a leader of the van, now thundering in his rear. 
 Mounted on a neat and pretty white gallo- 
 way, with quill-tipp'd ears, and legs like wil- 
 low-wands, John Hardy's proUgi, Master Tom, 
 held the conspicuous position of riding side by 
 side with the huntsman. From a whim of his 
 patron that the costume was particularly con- 
 ducive to health, he was dressed like a young 
 Highlander, from Scotia's rock-ribbed, cloud- 
 capped soil ; and as he flew along in the spirit 
 and hardihood of fearless youth, with his long 
 brown curls dancing from under his close scull- 
 cap, and his throat rivalling the bleached col- 
 lar turned deeply over his shoulders, he looked 
 more like a picture from the easel of some ima-
 
 THE OLD HALL. 147 
 
 ginative painter than a creature of flesh and 
 blood. 
 
 " Do you see how they settle to it ? " said 
 Job, pointing with his whip to the pack, as they 
 rattled along in so close a body that a table- 
 cloth might have covered the whole of them. 
 
 " Yes, Job," replied Master Tom, digging 
 his heels into the flank of his pony, as they 
 neared a ditch with a yawning gape. " Hie 
 over ! " shouted he, throwing out his whip arm, 
 and clearing the obstruction with the ease that 
 a pigeon would have winged across it. 
 
 " That's the way," observed the huntsman, 
 *^ that's the way to ride straight to hounds. 
 Never flinch, swerve, or crane ; but cram them 
 at it!" 
 
 Master Tom's blood rose and flushed his al- 
 ready crimson cheek at the eulogium, and he 
 resolved, that during this day at least he would 
 dim none of the glory already won. 
 
 Like a merry peal of bells, each tongue ring- 
 ing under each, the hounds pressed the fox with 
 
 H 2
 
 148 THE OLD HALL. 
 
 every nerve and sinew strained to gain upon 
 his flight and pull him down ; while he, with 
 praiseworthy regard for life, as valuable to the 
 rat as to the emperor, raced along on the pads 
 of fear, determined that the victory should be 
 to the swift, let fate decree it for him or against 
 him. Now over the deep fallows he took his 
 pursuers a merry bat, testing tbe soundness of 
 their lungs and powers of endurance. Then 
 away he went with, increased speed over moor 
 and mead, skirting the hill-tops, and dipping 
 through the valleys, and flashing thi'ough wood 
 and copse, without a check to the chase, or 
 even a momentary puzzle as to the course he 
 had taken. 
 
 " 'Tis a burning scent," said Job. " I'll be 
 sworn there'll be bellows to mend presently." 
 
 " The Squire holds his place," replied Mas- 
 ter Tom, glancing round, as they entered a 
 large open common. 
 
 " He ! " exclaimed Job. " I should be mor- 
 tally grieved if he didn't."
 
 THE OLD HALL. 149 
 
 " Jem, too, is just behind him," returned 
 Master Tom. 
 
 " Ay," added the huntsman, with the pride 
 of a father, " Jem Sykes can be just where he 
 pleases, except," said he, qualifying the inclin- 
 ation of his son, " before me. That would be 
 out of the due course of events." 
 
 On went the hunt. Mile after mile was 
 scoured, and left far behind almost as soon as 
 gained. Fences, rails, bars, gates, banks, 
 brooks, and ditches were cleared with the ease 
 of thought by the select few, bold and daring 
 in the course they took ; but by far the greater 
 number pulled up here and there, and were 
 seen measuring the distance of the respective 
 impediments by stretching themselves in their 
 stirrups, and taking a look on the side of the 
 barriers so fruitlessly desired to be passed. 
 
 " I can't do it," remarked one, shaking his 
 head; " my horse is not up to the mark." 
 
 " If I only had my spurs on," observed an- 
 other, turning the head of his eager and will-
 
 150 THE OLD HALL. 
 
 ing animal from a leap that quailed the rider, 
 but not the horse, " I shouldn't hesitate a mo- 
 ment. As it is, I must lift hard along the 
 road, and try to nick in by an' by." 
 
 " Confound it ! " exclaimed a third, " my 
 nag here is blown already, and it would be 
 madness to proceed any farther. When I go 
 home," continued he, with well-assumed indig- 
 nation, " I shall discharge my head-groom, for 
 really he's had more than sufficient time to get 
 my stud in condition." 
 
 Thus with excuses the many were compelled 
 to say, " hold, enough ! " while the choice 
 spirits held their way with little less deviation 
 from the course than a shaft from the good yew- 
 bow of Kobin Hood of yore. 
 
 The Squire, it should be stated, did not take 
 everything as it pleased Heaven to send. There 
 had been a time that he did so ; but the day 
 was gone when rude health and sinewy strength 
 were constant attendants upon him ; and he 
 now depended more upon his judgment and
 
 THE OLD HALL. 151 
 
 knowledge of the country over which his hounds 
 scoured, than on his boldness. Not but that 
 he could and did brush many a rasper that would 
 have turned a younger and stronger man ; still 
 prudence dictated his avoiding them whenever 
 an opportunity presented itself. 
 
 "Dear me!" ejaculated John Hardy, arriv- 
 ing at the mouth of a drain, under the able 
 pilotage of Mike, and coming to a dead stand- 
 still, " how am I to get over this ?" 
 
 '' Put him at it. Sir,' ' replied his pad-groom, 
 encouragingly ; " it isn't above a couple of feet 
 or so, at most." 
 
 " I don't think it's more, certainly," rejoined 
 John ; " but I fear I shall be thrown ; Blossom 
 jolts so in his style of fencing." 
 
 " I'm sure you'U be aU right. Sir," ventured 
 Mike. 
 
 " Do you believe, religiously believe," re- 
 turned John Hardy, with marked emphasis, 
 " that I shall not find my nose grinding against 
 the grass if I make the attempt?"
 
 15^ THE OLD HALL. 
 
 " I do," was Mike's firm reply, although he 
 had secret misgivings as to its honesty. 
 
 ^^ Then assist Blossom in the trial," added 
 John. 
 
 This assistance, by the way, meant nothing 
 more nor less than a vigorous drubbing in the 
 rear from Mike's trusty staff, without an appli- 
 cation of which Blossom would do and en- 
 deavour to do nothing that he was requked. 
 
 " Hold teight. Sir," cautioned Mike, raising 
 the weapon in a posture of immediate offence. 
 
 John fixed his hands as before in Blossom's 
 luxuriant and flowing mane, and griped the 
 saddle and ribs of the squabby cob vdth his 
 knees and legs, and gluing his lips together, as 
 if in desperate purpose fixed, he was prepared 
 for the ordeal. Crack came Mike's cudgel; 
 high, very high — to an unnecessary perpen- 
 dicular. Blossom reared himself, and after 
 effectually compelling his rider to slide out of 
 the saddle upon his haunches, he gave an 
 abrupt bounce forwards, and, by the sudden
 
 THE OLD HALL. 153 
 
 counter-action, sent Jolin Hardy scrambling 
 upon the pommel. 
 
 '' All right. Sir," shouted Mike, perceiving 
 that his patron had, after a doubtful struggle, 
 regained his balance. " All right. Sir," re- 
 peated Mike ; '' give him his head." 
 
 Running fleetly (for he could have out- 
 atripped Blossom), Mike urged the self-opi- 
 nionated cob to his best speed, and, what with 
 opening of gates, lifting hurdles, tearing down 
 rails, and making gaps, he managed to get 
 John much closer to the hounds than, under 
 ordinary circumstances, he might be supposed 
 capable of being. 
 
 ^'Have you seen my friend Lawrence, 
 lately ?" inquired he, a little puffed for breath, 
 as Blossom was bumping him, with a truly 
 vindictive spirit, over a wide and rough com- 
 mon. 
 
 ^^The last time I saw him," replied Mike, 
 " was as he cleared the woodlands ; and the 
 Squire did that in style." 
 
 H 3
 
 154 THE OLD HALL. 
 
 "How SO?" 
 
 "He flew that double line of rail you see 
 there to your left. Sir," continued Mike ; " an 
 ox-fence we call it, and nobody but him, Mr. 
 Sykes, and Master Tom, had the pluck to 
 brush it." 
 
 "Did — did that boy have the hardihood to 
 jump that ?" stammered John. 
 
 " Indeed he did. Sir," returned Mike. 
 
 " Very good !" observed John, as if a resolu- 
 tion had been suddenly taken — "very good. 
 Then, all I have to say is, that the next time I 
 consent to his hunting, except I hold a leading 
 rein, I hope I may be flogged." 
 
 Mike could not refrain from tittering at this 
 determination on the part of John Hardy. 
 There was something about it which seemed 
 to please his imagination with a concealed but 
 excessive relish ; for he continued to laugh for 
 many more steps than there are seconds in 
 three minutes. 
 
 On the opposite side of the heath, there was
 
 THE OLD HALL. 155 
 
 a deep and fertile valley, flanked by two steep 
 and precipitous hills. Down this the fox had 
 dipped, and, from some artful double or inex- 
 plicable cause, the hounds were at fault. 
 Every one, however, was at work in the en- 
 deavour to hit the scent off; and, as Job re- 
 marked in the fulness of his confidence, " If 
 the varmint hadn't sunk into the earth, it 
 was a horse to a hay- seed that they found him 
 again." 
 
 " Come, come," exclaimed John, in a trium- 
 phant tone, " they're checked, I see. Egad," 
 continued he, " I love checks. They give one 
 breathing time, and all that sort of thing." 
 
 "Ay, we're up to them again, now. Sir," 
 said Mike, entertaining a visionary glimpse of 
 a half-crown for his trouble in thus rendering 
 such successful assistance. 
 
 John appeared to learn by sympathy, or by 
 some such sensitive process, the thought and 
 mental image raised in Mike's cerebrum; for 
 without a single word passing upon the subject.
 
 156 THE OLD HALL. 
 
 he dived a finger and thumb into the corner of 
 his waistcoat pocket, and extracted the coin 
 before referred to. 
 
 " There/' said he, giving Mike the money, 
 " take that, and at the end of the day you shall 
 have another." 
 
 " Many thanks," replied the beneficiary, ac- 
 cepting the reward, "and I hope to deserve 
 the promised addition. Sir, in what I may call 
 the cool of the evening." 
 
 "Well, well!" rejoined John, "I've no 
 doubt but you will." 
 
 The hounds now skirted the brow of the hill, 
 facing the spot where John Hardy stood, 
 sponging and mopping the trickling drops of 
 perspiration coursing down his rubicund, fat, 
 and chubby cheeks; and although they were 
 mute, and every note of music of their tongues 
 was stilled, yet, by the waving of their plumed 
 sterns, and the greedy way in which each drew 
 his dew -lapped jowl along, it was obvious 
 that something leased their prefined and ex-
 
 THE OLD HALL. 157 
 
 quisite senses, although of an uncertain na- 
 ture. 
 
 " Let 'em alone," said Job, viewing the 
 working of his darlings with the look of an 
 enthusiast — " let 'em alone," repeated he, 
 "they'll hit it off presently. Give 'em time, 
 and they won't want a moment more than's as 
 necessary as milk is to suckers." 
 
 Throwing up his head, a leading hound 
 announced the conviction of his forethought 
 by giving a deep, clear, and ringing cry. 
 
 "Hark, hark to Capable!" hallooed Job. 
 " Hark to Capable. Hoik, hoik !" 
 
 Then Fearless, and Yexer, and Prudence, 
 and Ruin, and Trimbush, and Valentine, flew 
 to the unerring signal, and off the whole went 
 like a flock of pigeons, again in the right track 
 of their prey. 
 
 There was not a moment to be lost; for he 
 who lost one could never retrieve it. Awav, 
 away ! and scarcely had John Hardy sufficient 
 time to take a refreshing sob of breath, when
 
 168 THE OLD HALL. 
 
 not a hound nor a horseman was in sight, and 
 even he strained an ear fruitlessly to catch the 
 faintest sound of the far-gone chase. 
 
 '^ Come, Sir," said Mike, " we must be stir- 
 ring, or we shall see no more of them." 
 
 "Bless my life!" ejaculated John Hardy, 
 " this is the worst of fox-hunting. No sooner 
 does one, by dint of great exertion, get with 
 the hounds, than off they are again, no one can 
 tell where or whither. Stir up Blossom." 
 
 Strong and vigorously Mike applied his 
 weighty and knotty stick to Blossom's hide, 
 and with the desired effect; for the squabby 
 cob entertained a mortal dread of a repetition 
 of the cause. In a surly, blundering, half 
 canter, half trot, now threatening to pitch upon 
 his nose, and then recovering himself only to 
 slide upon his houghs, Blossom reached the 
 bottom of the slope, where a hedge and a ditch 
 of very moderate dimensions opposed them- 
 selves as a barrier to his course. 
 
 " Shall we turn him over ?" asked Mike,
 
 THE OLD HALL. 159 
 
 taking hold of John's stirrup, in order to assist 
 him in dismounting. 
 
 "No," replied his patron, " I'll try it." 
 
 Mike's first syllable of expostulation died 
 upon his tongue. He saw that John Hardy 
 had determined to set his life upon a cast, and 
 was resolved to stand the hazard of the throw. 
 
 " He can't take it as a standing jump," said 
 Mike ; " you must run him at it." 
 
 " A little impetus is wanted, is it ?" returned 
 John, settling himself in his saddle ; and taking 
 Blossom some dozen yards from the leap, he, 
 assisted by Mike, drove him towards it with 
 threats, cheers, kicks, thumps, and bruises 
 and 
 
 A giddy, indistinct, vapourish, misty confu- 
 sion disturbed the placidity of John's brain, 
 not unlike the hissing and bubbling of a bottle 
 of effervescing lemonade ; and when it had 
 vanished, and clear defined consciousness be- 
 came again reseated, John Hardy found him- 
 self upon the flat of his back, scanning the
 
 160 THE OLD HALL. 
 
 ethereal and cerulean vault of heaven. "With a 
 complexion of an ashy hue he staggered to his 
 feet just in time to see Mike catch the free 
 Blossom, who had not experienced what un- 
 alloyed pleasure was until this unseating of his 
 rider. 
 
 " Are you hurt, Sir ?" inquired Mike, as se 
 riously as his smouldering mirth would permit. 
 
 "No," replied John, with an elongated 
 visage, " not much ; but we'll go home. I'm 
 quite satisfied with the sport." And with this 
 he commenced retracing his steps slowly to the 
 Range on foot, while Mike followed in the rear, 
 dragging the sluggish Blossom after him, in 
 the whole forming a somewhat spiritless and 
 mournful procession. 
 
 Who can gainsay that it is a gallant sight 
 to view a heart-stirring, soul-inspiring chase ? 
 The old and the young, the peer and the cottar, 
 all feel its influence ; and his blood must be 
 thin, indeed, who does not find a glow within 
 his veins at the musical discord.
 
 THE OLD HALL. 161 
 
 " Hark ! yes, here they come — here are the 
 Squire's hounds !" and then, despite of the sten- 
 torian lungs of the village schoolmaster, out 
 rush the rebellious crew, whooping and halloo- 
 ing like a troop of pigmy savages. The dreaded 
 cane is rattled on the desk ; " Come back !" 
 thunders the pedagogue, looking fiercely and 
 with dire indent over his spectacles perched 
 upon his nose; and yet all is in vain. Not 
 one but sets at naught and openly defies his 
 authority. Old gossips, too, with tottering 
 limbs, bestir themselves, and drop their knitting 
 needles and stop the r-r-r of the spinning- 
 wheel, to catch a glimpse of the merry passing 
 scene ; and although they shade their dim and 
 bleared eyes with hard and shrivelled hands, 
 yet, forsooth, they chuckle with inward glee, 
 and enjoy the fan with not a jot less measure 
 than those unruly school-boys there. Infants 
 in their mother's arms, struggled with out- 
 stretched limbs, and shrieked at the noise; 
 and then, when all had passed, turned with
 
 162 THE OLD HALL. 
 
 inquiring looks to their nurses. The plough- 
 boy stopped his whistle, and the shepherd 
 broke short the snatch of his quaint ballad, 
 as the first sound of the approaching chase 
 caught their ear, and when it came in view 
 began to holla themselves hoarse as the croak 
 of a jet- winged raven. 
 
 Mile after mile had been scoured, and still 
 the fox headed his enemies with unabated 
 speed, and unflagging ardour, and they with 
 equal determination followed in his wake. 
 Notwithstanding, however, reynard's desperate 
 attempt to render the distance greater between 
 his brush and the jaws of the hounds, it 
 proved to be beyond his power. Flee as 
 he did, the ring of their tongues was ever 
 in his ears. There was no time for him to 
 try any of his cunning and contrivance to 
 elude his pursuers. On he was pressed at 
 ruthless haste, and but one minute's hesitation 
 would have lost him every hope and chance 
 of escape. Through deep and dark woods
 
 THE OLD HALL. 163 
 
 he raced, trusting to find a friendly and open 
 earth, but Mike's spade and pick-axe had 
 clicked among the pebbles before the moon 
 sunk in the broad Hght of, to him, this ill- 
 fated day; and scarcely had he leisure to fly 
 from the closed entrance, than the crash of 
 the bush, twig, and underwood, announced 
 the near coming of the pack. For now their 
 ringing cry was stilled, save an occasional 
 note from a leading hound to mark the road, 
 and even this was given breathlessly. Thus 
 the pursuing and pursued sped swiftly on, 
 while the grains and atoms of the measure 
 of duration were heaped upon the shores of 
 time until the day began to sink upon the 
 quicksand where ages lie buried and swal- 
 lowed up. 
 
 " There'll be few to teU the end o' this," 
 said Job to Master Tom, who still rode by 
 the side of his stirrup, although the galloway 
 had long since felt the smart switch from his 
 rider, as a stimulant to his flagging exertions.
 
 164 THE OLD HALL. 
 
 " No one's in sight," replied his companion, 
 " except Jem." 
 
 " Of course he is," rejoined the huntsman. 
 " A Sykes is never out !" 
 
 " But he's spurring hard, I see," returned 
 Master Tom, glancing a look behind him at 
 the redoubtable whipper-in. 
 
 " Then it's a toss-up if he sees the finish," 
 added Job; ^^for when Kitty Clive wants the 
 gafts, she must be all but blown to the last sob." 
 
 " Tally-ho ! Tally ho !" shouted a voice not 
 two hundred yards ahead. 
 
 " By Dolly and the devil !" exclaimed Job ; 
 " we're close to his brush now." 
 
 To the well-known view-halloo the hounds 
 threw up their heads, and swept forwards, 
 with a sudden rush, through a strong thickset 
 hedge. 
 
 " The sooner a beaten fox is killed, the 
 better," said Job, driving his rowels deeply 
 into the flanks of his horse, and, bursting 
 through the bullfinch like a flash of light, he
 
 THE OLD HALL. 165 
 
 headed the hounds^ and lifted them forwards 
 with all the speed their long and fleet gallop 
 had left in them. 
 
 " Tally-ho ! Tally ho !" cried he, taking off 
 his cap, and pointing to reynard, as he was 
 creeping, rather than running, under a stone 
 wall, with his brush draggled upon the ground, 
 and his tongue hanging from his jaws, dead- 
 beaten from exhaustion. The hounds viewed 
 him in a moment, and each raced with his fel- 
 low to be the first in pulling him down. 
 
 " Who-whoop !" hallooed Job, exultingly, 
 as Prudence dragged the fox backwards, in a 
 faint and last attempt, in his clinging struggle 
 for life, to gain the top of the wall ; and then a 
 score of eager jaws and greedy stomachs com- 
 pleted the work of death and annihilation. 
 
 "By the saints!" ejaculated Job, handing 
 the brush to Master Tom, who almost wept for 
 joy as he received the trophy. " By the saints ! '* 
 repeated he ; " you won it ! and I'll say it now, 
 although considerably spent for wind, that you'd
 
 166 THE OLD HALL. 
 
 make many a fellow, longer in the leg, and 
 fuller in the tooth, feel as if he'd been split up 
 the back, and all the starch of conceit taken 
 out of him : that's my opinion," concluded 
 Job. 
 
 With this flattering compliment. Master Tom 
 turned his pony's head towards the Range, not 
 less proud than a hero crowned with laurel.
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 " Now it is the time of night." 
 
 In the dark^ deep shades of evening, the bat 
 now flitted, and the lazy toad crept, croaking 
 loudly to his mate. The glow-worm's lamp 
 burned brightly from the moss, and the cricket 
 was heard chirping fi:om the hedge and 
 thicket. Drumming through the air, the beetle 
 hummed heavily along, and the screech of the 
 owl drove many a mouse, trembling and afeard, 
 back into its hole scooped in the old barn floor. 
 Creatures who love the light had gone to rest, 
 while those who live and revel in night's 
 murky darkness, were now in the zenith of 
 their pleasures.
 
 168 THE OLD HALL. 
 
 Before the smouldering embers of a half- 
 consumed faggot, Mike Crouch sat on his log, 
 occupied, by way of pastime, in spinning, 
 alternately, a couple of half-crowns from the 
 nail of his dexter thumb. The broad pieces 
 rung musically in the air, as their possessor 
 jerked them up, and he seemed to be so com- 
 pletely absorbed in the task, that he paid no 
 attention to a slight rustle which was made at 
 the entrance of the kennel. 
 
 '^ Ho there !" cried a voice ; " there's neither 
 handle nor latch to this door : how do you 
 swing it upon its hinge ?" 
 
 " I'll show ye, Peter," replied Mike, rising 
 from his seat, and with a single kick he sent 
 the faggot, taking the place of a more legitimate 
 door, spinning from the opening. 
 
 "That's the way, is it ?" rejoined the razor- 
 grinder, compelled to bow as he entered, ac- 
 companied by Toby. " Am I later than you 
 expected ?" continued he. 
 
 "'.No," replied Mike, pointing to a log for
 
 THE OLD HALL. 169 
 
 his guest to be seated, while he replaced the 
 fagot, so as to exclude the mist and chilling 
 air. '• No," repeated he ; "I thought you 
 would be here just as the toads began to croak : 
 it's about your time." 
 
 " Ha, ha !" laughed Peter, squatting hinsell 
 upon the log, while Toby stretched himself at 
 ftdl length between his master's legs ; " these 
 are my time-keepers, are they?" 
 
 " I've fancied so in your visits to me, " re- 
 turned Mike. 
 
 " Well," added the razor-grinder, " it's an 
 hour when a great many eyes are shut, and 
 one's movements not so likely to be noticed." 
 
 " That's true," said Mike^ kneeling before 
 the hearth and puffing the smoking sticks into 
 a cheerftd blaze ; "and I'm glad you've come 
 at this hour, for I wouldn't have it known in 
 these parts that you were here to-night." 
 
 " Why ?" briefly inquired Peter. 
 
 " As I told ye in the morning," replied Mike, 
 " I hold service now under the Squire, and al- 
 
 VOL. I. 1
 
 170 THE OLD HALL. 
 
 though it's suspected that I'm the biggest rogue 
 in this neighbourhood, no one can prove that I 
 am. 
 
 Mike paused to blow the fire. 
 
 '^ Go on," said Peter Parkins, while Toby 
 slightly raised his head from between his paws 
 to listen to the reason. 
 
 "Now, it's not only believed," resumed 
 Mike, " but every body knows you to be a 
 rogue." 
 
 "There's not much ground left for a different 
 conjecture," responded the razor-grinder, tak- 
 ing from his bosom a short black pipe, and 
 cramming the bowl full of tobacco, which he 
 carried, for convenience, in the crown of his 
 hat ; " and," continued he, " I'm not in the 
 least ambitious of being considered in a differ- 
 ent light." 
 
 " Nor should I," returned Mike, " except 
 for my own ends to gain. But you see the dif- 
 ference there is between us : folks believe me 
 to be a rascal, but they can't date their belief
 
 THE OLD HALL. 171 
 
 from any particular act o' mine, while a dozen 
 or more could be brought as marks against 
 your tally." 
 
 Peter Parkins applied a lighted twig to the 
 bowl of his pipe, and, after sending some dense 
 volumes of smoke curling upwards from his 
 lips, to roll along the naked rafters of the roof, 
 replied, " There is the distinction between us 
 two, that exists throughout the world between 
 them who tahe their neighbour's goods, and 
 those who are caught in taking them. One 
 entails a probable suspicion : the other insures 
 a certain conviction." 
 
 Toby was so moved with this philosophical 
 reasoning on the part of his master, that he rose 
 from the floor, and turning his back, so that 
 the movement could be distinctly perceived, 
 shook the stump of his tail in a most positive 
 expression of approval. 
 
 " What a gift of the gab you have !" observed 
 Mike, leaving the fire now that it flared and 
 crackled brightly, and threw a cheerful light 
 
 I 2
 
 172 THE OLD HALL. 
 
 around the walls of the kennel. " What a gift 
 of the gab/* repeated he, producing a bottle 
 and a horn from some secret recess, or hidden 
 nook, in the apartment, " you have to be 
 sure !" continued Mike, finishing the sentence 
 by drawing the cork with a loud and sudden 
 pop, which acted remarkably well by way of a 
 ftdl stop. 
 
 " An orator, like a poet, must be born to the 
 trade," replied Peter Parkins, emitting a stream 
 of vapour from his jaws, that effectually threw 
 the kennel into a thick, choking fog, " not ap- 
 prenticed to it. What's the liquor ?" 
 
 "Max," shortly replied Mike, gurgling a 
 bumper of the fluid into a horn, and offering 
 the dram to the razor-grinder. 
 
 Without blinking, winking, or coughing, or, 
 indeed, evincing symptoms of any kind that 
 the drink was any other than aqua pur a, Peter 
 poured the stinging spirit down his throat, and 
 observed, as he took the cup from his lips, that, 
 " if his mother had given him such nourishment
 
 THE OLD HALL. 173 
 
 when ML infant, he should like to have re- 
 mained in her arms to this day." 
 
 His companion nodded an acquiescence to 
 this sage and affectionate sentiment, and help- 
 ing himself to an equally liberal allowance as 
 he gave the razor-grinder, Mike drank, "suc- 
 cess to our undertakings." 
 
 " Overtakings and middletakings, too, say 
 I!" added Peter. 
 
 **"With all my heart and voice!" returned 
 Mike, refilling the horn, and draining it again 
 to the addition made to the toast by his friend. 
 
 " There's nothing like an excuse for the 
 glass," said Peter Parkins : " I should like to 
 go on making 'em all day long, and the great- 
 est part of the night, and for nobody to be 
 able to refuse pocketing the affronts." 
 
 "So should I," returned Mike, giving his 
 friend a second bumper ; and, stretching him- 
 self upon his bed of badger skins, he seemed to 
 be in no way an object of compassion, or in the 
 least degree in want of what is generally termed.
 
 174 THE OLD HALL. 
 
 in the language of meek, tender-hearted charity, 
 the common necessaries of life. 
 
 Small as it was, and abridged of those 
 elegances of life which mansions of more im- 
 posing appearances for the most part possess, 
 the kennel, notwithstanding, wore a snug, warm, 
 and cheerful aspect. The bundle of dry sticks, 
 fanned into a blaze by Mike's natural bellows, 
 licked the chimney-back, and threw a dazzling 
 light, not only about the walls, but through 
 them ; for many a crevice and cranny permitted 
 the rays to stream themselves between the cracks 
 and rents in the kennel. Leaning against the 
 wall, for want of a back to his seat, opposite the 
 fire-place, Peter Parkins sat with outstretched 
 legs, blowing into a fume the sweet and narco- 
 tic weed, while Toby sprawled between them, 
 basking in the warmth, and just maintaining that 
 blissful dreamy consciousness between sleeping 
 and waking. On the bed — ^hard and uninviting 
 as it was — its occcupier often had his eyelids 
 closed by soothing sleep, when those on eider-
 
 THE OLD HALL. 175 
 
 down courted the gentle expunger of mortal 
 heartaches and feverish hopes in vain — Mike 
 reclined upon an elbow, supporting his head, 
 and regarding the reigning comfort of liis dwell- 
 ing with complacency, which, doubtlessly, was 
 in no degree lessened by the horn and the 
 bottle being placed upon the floor within con- 
 venient distance of his reach. 
 
 '' You didn't say precisely why there was an 
 objection to my being seen here," remarked 
 the razor-grinder, after a lengthened pause. 
 
 " Oh !" replied Mike, " merely on account 
 of my not wishing to be seen keeping bad com- 
 pany." 
 
 ^' Is that all ?" rejoined Peter; but it was 
 not spoken like a question. " There's no ac- 
 counting for some people's prejudices," con- 
 tinued he. 
 
 " What luck had ye to-day ? " inquired 
 Mike, without noticing his companion's obser- 
 vation upon the cramped and contracted pre- 
 possessions of the reasoning faculties.
 
 176 THE OLD HALL. 
 
 *' Tolerably good," replied his companion ; 
 " I ground two pairs of scissors, one knife, 
 and a razor, cast a nativity, told a couple of 
 fortunes, and prigged a pullet." 
 
 " Whereas that ?" quickly asked Mike. 
 
 " In my wallet," replied Peter, diving his 
 land into a canvass bag slung across his 
 shoulders, and bringing forth an exceedingly 
 plump and tempting-looking fo^v^l. 
 
 " It's a barn-door fed one," rejoined Mike, 
 taking the prematurely kiUed bird from the 
 hand of its destroyer, and weighing the dainty 
 morsel. " What a roast or a boil it would 
 make," continued he. 
 
 '' Could you cook it now ?" inquired his 
 Mend, in a bantering tone. 
 
 " Ay," responded Mike with confidence ; 
 " I'd venture a good ringing sixpence that 
 you'd say there's no mistake in my dishing up 
 savouries." 
 
 " Come, then," returned the razor-grinder, 
 waving his hand as a signal for Mike to com-
 
 THE OLD HALL. 177 
 
 mence his culinary operations, " let's try it 
 Set to work." 
 
 Without a syllable more upon the subject, 
 Mike began diligently to strip the fowl of its 
 plumage, and to prepare it for immediate dress- 
 ing. In showers the feathers fell from his nim- 
 ble fingers, and but a few minutes elapsed from 
 the beginning of his labour, before Toby's lips 
 began to water for the waifs set aside for his 
 use and benefit. 
 
 " Plucking," remarked Peter Parkins, watch- 
 ing the skilful operations of his friend, " pluck- 
 ing," repeated he, " is an universal occupation. 
 We aU pluck. The rich pluck each other, 
 and the poor pluck the rich. The ignorant 
 pluck the learned, and the learned pluck the 
 wise. The young pluck the old, and the old 
 
 pluck " the razor- grinder paused to blow 
 
 a thin cloud, and as he turned his eyes to the 
 ceiling, he seemed to be at a loss for an ex- 
 pression. " No," he continued, after some he- 
 sitation, " I don't think there is anything left 
 
 I S
 
 178 THE OLD HALL. 
 
 for the old to pluck, unless it be tlieir memo- 
 ries." 
 
 " A precious lean bone that must be for 
 their toothless gums," replied Mike. " But 
 while we're upon this subject, I'll just mention 
 a little matter that may — (nay, will, if well- 
 managed) — turn up trumps for both of us." 
 
 " What's in the wind now ?" asked Peter, 
 pricking his ears forwards, and knocking the 
 ashes out of his pipe, so that all his senses 
 might be engrossed and drawn to a focus for 
 the reception of the important intelligence. 
 
 " You've heard me tell the story of the little 
 kid being sent in a hamper to the Range some 
 years since," said Mike, by way of introduction. 
 
 " To be sure I have, over and over again," 
 replied the razor-grinder, and he spoke rather 
 fretfully, as if the tale was worn quite thread- 
 bare and stale. " Particularly," he continued, 
 " if when a little the worse or a little the better 
 for liquor. Persons have different opinions about 
 this state and condition."
 
 THE OLD HALL. 179 
 
 " Well !" resumed Mike, ^' like oaks spring- 
 ing firom acorns, that shaving of a Christian 
 has, by degrees, grown into a chip of immense 
 importance in this district." 
 
 " You were always partial to talking in a 
 roundabout, riddlemaree sort of a way," re- 
 joined Peter, irritably. *^ Why don't ye speak 
 plain ?" 
 
 " I will," returned Mike, trussing the pul- 
 let. " Then you must know, that day by day, 
 week by week, month by month, year by year, 
 since (according to Dame Woodley's belief) 
 Master Tom's arrival from heaven in a hamper, 
 he's been creeping into the favour of both the 
 Squire and Mr. Hardy, until now he's looked 
 upon as the next heir to the manor-house; for, 
 as you know, the Squire is the last of his kith 
 and kin." 
 
 " A loss to some is gain to others," said 
 Peter Parkins. 
 
 " From being nursed in a cottage, this little 
 windfall of chance," continued Mike, " is
 
 180 THE OLD HALL. 
 
 looked upon and up to by the stiff-necked in 
 thes^ parts like one of themselves ; and it 
 would go hard with many — that is, in never 
 more finding their legs under the black oak 
 table at the Range again — ^if they attempted 
 to saddle what I may call a slight upon 
 him." 
 
 " I see," remarked the razor-grinder, wink- 
 ing an eye, and giving a sage nod. " It's like a 
 chap smoothing down the hackles of some old 
 woman's tabby or pug, when at the same time 
 he longs in his heart to put his toe to their 
 behinds." 
 
 " Just so," replied Mike. " But whatever 
 the feeling may be, they daren't show it. Now, 
 I think, taking the country through, if a father- 
 less boy — as you'll remember he was ticketed — 
 ever deserved the pearl which has fallen into 
 his mouth when yawning in a hail-storm. 
 Master Tom is the chicken that ought to have 
 it." 
 
 " I've heard you say so before," remarked
 
 THE OLD HALL. 
 
 181 
 
 Peter Parkins, " in the very same words, or 
 my memory fails me." 
 
 Toby, too, exldbited a corresponding in- 
 clination to be Trearied with the recital by 
 giving a loud and palpable grunt of discon- 
 tent. 
 
 " I may have said so before," resumed Mike, 
 " but, like many a stanch hound, I'm obliged 
 to hark back as a beginning to getting for'ard. 
 I think that I've also informed ye" — and then 
 he gave a short cough, which sounded as if 
 forced and quite unnecessary — " that he's my 
 godson." 
 
 Peter Parkins scratched his ear as if it had 
 been strangely irritated. " To be sure ye 
 have," replied he. " There's nothing new — 
 or so little, that it amounts to nothing — in all 
 this." 
 
 " It's coming," returned Mike, significantly, 
 " the new cut's just about coming, Peter. Pa- 
 tience is about the best bitch in the Squire's 
 pack, and I wish you to fancy yourself coupled
 
 18^ THE OLD HALL. 
 
 with her for a few minutes. As I was about 
 saying," continued Mike, applying a flame to 
 singe the flue from the stripped pullet, " that 
 my godson, for some years, like a hundred 
 children out of a hundred and one, was per- 
 fectly indifferent as to whose son he was, so 
 long as his belly was well lined, and he felt 
 himself comfortable in other respects. And 
 notwithstanding Mr. Hardy endeavoured to 
 find out, by offering ten pounds reward in 
 great bills stuck on every wall and gate-post in 
 the county, it never was found out, and never 
 has been. Gossips talked, and many were the 
 stories sent round about concerning the matter ; 
 but up to this day the mystery is just as thick 
 as ever, and no one knows that of the truth ;" 
 and as he spoke, Mike blew a feather from 
 the palm of his hand. 
 
 " Humph!" ejaculated Peter. " Go on." 
 " Curious as people were at the commence- 
 ment," resumed Mike, '^ they soon found fresh 
 subjects to make their tongues ring, and the
 
 THE OLD HALL. 18S 
 
 wonder lasted but long enough for another to 
 take its place. Thus, like a shadow at sunset, 
 it grew pale, and at last sank altogether." 
 
 " The night wanes," observed the razor- 
 grinder, discontentedly, " and I'm hungry." 
 
 " You shall quickly have something to com- 
 fort your appetite," replied his companion, fix- 
 ing a double piece of string to a skewer, which 
 he had thrust through the fowl, and suspend- 
 ing it on a handy nail driven into a beam before 
 the fire. 
 
 Gi\Tng it a twist, the prepared pullet spun 
 round to a slow and approved movement, and 
 the whole arrangement showed that the ar- 
 tiste was far from being an inexperienced one. 
 Fresh wood was heaped upon the hearth, and 
 in a few seconds there was every appearance of 
 a speedy consummation to the razor-grinder's 
 hopes respecting the nocturnal meal. 
 
 " jCome, this looks like business," said Peter, 
 rubbing his hands with satisfaction. 
 
 Toby also appeared to think that it did ; for
 
 184 THE OLD HALL. 
 
 he sniffed the air with a keen sense of whetted 
 expectation, and licked his lips with the salted 
 relish of anticipation. 
 
 For a short time Mike was occupied in 
 silently regarding the effect of his labours; 
 and, being satisfied that no alteration was ne- 
 cessary in the arrangements, squatted himself 
 again upon the bed, after the fashion of the 
 Grand Sultan of the Ottoman Empire when 
 sipping his coffee and smoking his hookah; 
 but, at the same time, kept a watchftJ eye to 
 the primitive spit. 
 
 'r Let's hear the finish of your yarn," said 
 Peter. " I suppose we haven't come to the 
 end of the web yet." 
 
 " As I was saying," resumed Mike, " when 
 a spoke was taken out o' my wheel, the sprout, 
 if I may so call it, of Master Tom, was no 
 longer talked of or thought of." 
 
 " What's his other name ?" asked his com- 
 panion. 
 
 " He was christened Hope," replied Mike ;
 
 THE OLD HALL. 186 
 
 '' but I don't think I've heard him called by it 
 more than twice in my life. Far and near he goes, 
 and has gone, by the name of Master Tom." 
 
 '^ Go on," rejoined Peter, intensely wearied 
 with the subject. 
 
 " Until lately," said Mike, " not a word 
 has been spoken upon the probable nest he 
 was hatched in; and who do you think has 
 been raking up the old rubbish again ?" 
 
 '' Can't say," replied Peter. 
 
 '' Master Tom himself," rejoined Mike. 
 '^Yes," continued he, clinching a fist, and 
 throwing it out both swift and straight ; " let 
 Mr. Hardy, that — as Mrs. Woodley remarks 
 of him — dear old angel, and saintly individual, 
 say what he will, until he's lost his voice, 
 (which he frequently does,) and let me, his 
 godfather, say what I may, that boy cannot, 
 will not rest, until he's informed who his 
 father is, or who he was." 
 
 " ^ Oh ! * said he to me, the other morning, 
 when teaching him to tie a scarlet spinner;
 
 186 THE OLD HALL. 
 
 ' Oh, Mike, if I could only find out my fa- 
 t her !' " 
 
 " ' By the immortal Jingo !' replied I, * it 
 must be a wise child to do that ; and, although 
 you're no nincompoop, I'd advise ye not to 
 make the attempt. Let the case bide as it does ; 
 you'll not better it.' To make a long story 
 short, however, with his always scraping upon 
 the same string, both Mr. Hardy and the Squire 
 are bent, if possible, upon humouring him, 
 and a search for Master Tom's pedigree has 
 again commenced. Advertisements are being 
 put into all the papers, and a mint of money is 
 being spent in this silly matter, doing little or 
 no good to anybody. Now, I was thinking, 
 after meeting you this morning — for you're a 
 deep old file, Peter — ^if we could manage to 
 hook up a father, or something about a dead- 
 and-gone one might be better, and thereby net 
 the reward " 
 
 " What's the sum?" interrupted the razor- 
 grinder.
 
 THE OLD HALL. 187 
 
 " A hundred pounds." 
 
 '* A hundred pounds !" repeated Peter Par- 
 kins in a tone of deliberation, as if weighing 
 each sovereign comprising that amount. " It's 
 worth thought and trouble." 
 
 " We should think so," replied Mike, draw- 
 ing the breath between his teeth, ^^ when shar- 
 ing the swag." 
 
 " Share and share alike, I suppose ?" 
 
 Mike nodded an assent. 
 
 " Then leave the business in my hands," 
 continued the razor-grinder. " I'll chew it 
 very fine in my thoughts ; and, when well di- 
 gested, you shall decide whether it's a good, 
 oily, plausible plan or not." 
 
 "We must be as dark as the gi'ave about 
 it," observed Mike, seriously, " or our milk 
 will be spilt, and no mistake." 
 
 " Never fear that," said Peter, '' There's 
 no foot-mark where I tread." 
 
 " 'Tis the early bird that get's the worm," 
 returned Mike ; " and I often think the first
 
 188 THE OLD HALL. 
 
 thought about a matter generally gets the best 
 step. Have you, now, any idea/' continued he, 
 " as to what you'll do ?" 
 
 " I think," replied the razor-grinder, press- 
 ing a finger upon his brow, as if notching a 
 reflection in his brain, " I think," repeated 
 he, bending forwards, and lowering his voice 
 to a whisper, " that Fll he his father T
 
 CHAPTEH VII. 
 
 " With mirth and laughter let old wTinkles come. 
 And let my liver rather heat with wine, ; 
 Than my heart cool with mortifying groans. 
 Why should a man, whose blood is warm within, 
 Sit like his grandsire cut in alabaster? 
 Sleep when he wakes ? and creep into the jaundice 
 By being peevish ? " 
 
 The wild, roving, fickle breeze sighed his 
 tale to the stream ; for not a flower now offered 
 its charms to his ruffling kiss ; and he hummed 
 through the leafless twigs, and flapped and 
 rustled the holly and ivy, and whirled the 
 sered and withered leaf firom the oak, and rat- 
 tled old ricketty doors and casements, and 
 puffed, occasionally, the smoke back again into 
 yawning chimneys, causing many a gossip to
 
 190 THE OLD HALL. 
 
 wheeze and cough, while spinning or knitting 
 the goodman's winter hose by her cheerful 
 hearth and homely fireside. 
 
 Among other primitive " Goodies " and 
 funny old " Trots " who were thus interrupted 
 in their labours, Mrs. Sykes, the better half, 
 in a figurative sense, of Job the huntsman, 
 numbered most conspicuously. Quickly she 
 was plying her needles — the pace being a very 
 fair match with her tongue, occupied in giving 
 forth sentiments and aphorisms for the benefit 
 of mankind in general, and of Job in particu- 
 lar — when a volume of dense black smoke 
 belched forth from the chimney ; some portion 
 of it forcing itself spitefully down the throat of 
 the loquacious dame, and bringing her to an 
 abrupt terminus in speech. 
 
 Job, who was sitting in a snug corner, oppo- 
 site to his wife, inhaling and exhaling the sweet 
 narcotic fumes from his pipe, seemed in no way 
 to entertain a feeling of sympathy for the threat- 
 ened choking of Mrs. Sykes. On the contrary.
 
 THE OLD HALL. 191 
 
 he appeared pleased at the effect of the cessa- 
 tion of her tongue, and recked little of the 
 cause. Settling himself more deeply in a high- 
 backed, elbowed, and weU-stuffed chair. Job 
 threw his ruddy, jovial face upwards, and, 
 wafting a cloud of fragrant vapour, curling 
 from his lips, he mingled a fervent prayer vdth 
 it, that Mrs. Sykes might continue to cough 
 for the remainder of the evening. 
 
 Now, it must be stated in justification of 
 Job's apparent lack of humanity, that he had 
 most cogent reasons for this petition. Mrs. 
 Sykes was an excellent wife, as excellent a 
 mother, and an exemplary woman in the ma- 
 jority of respects ; but her failing — and to all 
 of us some human errors fall — was the especial 
 relish that she always derived from giving Job 
 a touch of the quality of her tongue. At all 
 times, and at aU seasons, when the opportunity 
 was at hand, Mrs. Sykes was ready to " go off" 
 with a lecture concerning those things which 
 her spouse ought to do, and those things more
 
 192 THE OLD HALL. 
 
 particularly which lie ought not to do; and 
 smoking his pipe, unhappily for Job, came 
 under one of his active and offending commis- 
 sions. For years — for many long, long years 
 — Mrs. Sykes had forcibly dwelt upon the evils 
 attending this sottisli habit; and it would ap- 
 pear, from Job's never abstaining from the 
 indulgence at the conclusion of his duties of 
 the day, that Mrs. Sykes's eloquence had been 
 entirely lost and thrown away upon him. Ne- 
 vertheless, " Repulsed, but not beaten," was 
 her motto, and she continued to repeat the at- 
 tacks with all the freshness and vigour of early 
 struggles. 
 
 With the stoical patience of that patient 
 being of yore, from whom Job derived the 
 name given to him by his godfathers and god- 
 mothers, he for the most part, and, indeed, 
 always, received these expostulations with his 
 sins and evil doings without a murmur. By 
 means only of a secret telegraph — its mysterious 
 working known but to his inward man — Job
 
 THE OLD HALL. 198 
 
 returned rejoinders and replies to Mrs. Sykes' 
 homilies. To a reproof, gentle in its bearings, 
 he would smile, and wink his left eye at the 
 ceiling, as much as to say, *' The old un's at it 
 again." To an accusation, clear and defined. 
 Job's eyebrows gradually mounted above his 
 eyes, many inches from the position designed 
 for them by nature ; and his lips, by an adverse 
 action, drew themselves into an elongated focus, 
 in close proximity to the base of his double 
 chin. To a positive upbraiding (but this was 
 very rare). Job, if he had a pipe lighted be- 
 tween his lips, opened his mouth to its utmost 
 width, and, permitting the cloud to expend it- 
 self by degrees, suddenly blew the thick mass 
 forwards ; and behind the screen of ashy vapour 
 burst into an eruption of internal laughter, 
 diffusing a deep mulberry hue over the entire 
 surface of his features, and charging his eye- 
 balls with blood, even to the danger of burst- 
 ing their veins. But, by the time the smoke 
 had so mingled with the thinner air, that his 
 
 VOL. I. K
 
 194 THE OLD HALL. 
 
 countenance became again clear and distinctly 
 vissible. Job was as calm, and bis features as 
 unruffled, as tbe surface of a mirror, or a lake 
 untouched even by a dying waft of tbe summer's 
 wind at sunset. Mrs. Sykes was occasionally 
 quite astonished at this phenomenon ; but being, 
 as it were, in the dark and fog as to the myste- 
 rious issue, she turned up ber eyes, pursed 
 her mouth, and sbook ber bead witb melo- 
 dramatic despondency, which seemed to convey 
 the resignation of a Christian's failure at the 
 attempted conversion of a beatben. 
 
 If Job was an exclusive in tbe habit that 
 adorned bis person and general demeanour, 
 that wbicb rendered Mrs. Sykes a distinction 
 from ber neighbours and fellow-creatures was 
 equally deserving to be classed under tbe title 
 of singular and original. Bleached as a snow- 
 drift was tbe close cap that fitted ber bead, 
 smoothed on tbe brow in two equal divisions 
 of air, wbitening witb age, and wbicb set off 
 tbe intricately- worked and deep border of lace
 
 THE OLD HALL. 195 
 
 with which it was fringed. Plump, rubicund, 
 and smooth were her cheeks; and the clear 
 blue eye which glistened with a good and a 
 kindly expression, still unmarked by the crow's- 
 foot of care, formed the copious index to her 
 heart and to her thoughts ; and that they were 
 generous, anybody might become surety for, 
 although a stranger to a practical illustration 
 of them. Short, stout — perhaps fat would be 
 more honest in the description of Mrs. Sykes's 
 figure — and round as a pippin she cetainly 
 was; but a more wholesome, healthy, laughing 
 (except when Job was concerned,) light-hearted, 
 light-heeled soul never shook sides at a joke, 
 nor revelled]in detailing one. Still Mrs. Sykes 
 was not the identical Mrs. Sykes upon all 
 occasions. Oh dear no ! a greater and more 
 perfect actress never fretted an hour upon the 
 stage. Just to see her counting the shillings, 
 half-crowns, and crowns which Job shelled 
 out from his pocket after a successful capping, 
 mingled with exclamations of "deary me's, 
 
 K 2
 
 196 THE OLD HALL. 
 
 lawksadaisies, and who'd-have-thought-it ; " and 
 to behold her on a washing-day with an abun- 
 dance of rain, and no prospects of drying the 
 family linen for a week or ten days, she was 
 quite a different being in her affections. Then 
 to witness her listening with pricked ears to 
 some fun, frolic, and accident which might have 
 befallen an acquaintance on return from market 
 or fair or try sting spot,' and seeing her w6nd 
 hier way to the gray, ivy-clung, moss-grown 
 church on the seventh and hallowed day — on 
 which even the debtor is at rest — with her 
 Bible, securely clasped in massive fastenings, 
 in ii6r hand, ahd dressed, from toe to the top- 
 most piece of riband in her bonnet, in Sunday 
 ttb''ail^:^thic^;^sli^'4^ k'^taUy different 
 specimen of the female fofm divine. To be- 
 hold the black silk drawn bonniet, having a 
 strong resemblance to an inverted coal-scuttle, 
 placed jauntily upon her head ; for Mrs. Sykes 
 had a strong spice of the common vanity of her 
 sex blended with her composition ; and the
 
 THE OLD HALL. 197 
 
 solemn countenance that it so amply shaded as 
 she paced, robed in all her dignity, up the 
 gravel path, flanked by tall, stately, and grave- 
 looking fir trees, in the churchyard ; a stranger 
 might have naturally imagined that a hearty 
 laugh had never broken that ascetic expression. 
 And then to see her acknowledging the bobs 
 and curtseys of respect (for Mrs. Sykes was 
 extensively respected by the juvenile branches 
 of her neighbours) shown to her by the groups 
 of little children on her way thither, it was 
 quite charming — quite. The grandeur of the 
 family of the Sykeses was well maintained in 
 the nobility of her bows. Not the breadth of a 
 barley-corn was conceded by look or gesture ; 
 and the most chary of keeping up appearances 
 wafi never more so than IVIrs. Sykes, parti- 
 cularly on a Sunday. The farthingale, too, 
 which stuck out the black ribbed silk dress, as 
 thick and substantial as a good stout board, 
 giving to view her high-heeled and buckled 
 shoes, added, in no small measure, to the effect ;
 
 198 THE OLD HALL. 
 
 while the kerchief, pinned, without crease or 
 wrinkle, tightly across her bosom, completed 
 the choicest costume in Mrs. Sykes's wardrobe, 
 and concerning which she was not a little proud 
 and dainty of her care. 
 
 It has been before stated, that one of the most 
 conspicuous failings of Mrs. Sykes was the prac- 
 tice she observed in talking at and to her hus- 
 band in terms of reproach; and this was a 
 system that she had adopted for so long a period, 
 that it really had become one of the common 
 necessaries of her existence. But, as it may be 
 supposed that she enjoyed this pabulum, and 
 indeed luxury, without interruption to its en- 
 joyment, from the patience and resignation of 
 Job ; it should be observed here, that, like all 
 sweets, there was a positive acid in the com- 
 ponent parts ; and Mrs. Sykes found the analy- 
 sis in the form of two monosyllables frequently 
 delivered by her son and only child, James, the 
 whipper-in. 
 
 '^ Now, mother" — James, who was as much
 
 THE OLD HALL. 199 
 
 like liis father in figure and general bearing, 
 as a young man six-and-twenty could be to one 
 approaching three-score — " Now, mother," he 
 would say, " shut up." 
 
 These were the magical words that at once 
 operated as a floodgate to the flow of Mrs. Sykes's 
 oratory. '' Shut up," and she was at fault, let 
 the previous syllables have dropped as smoothly 
 as oil, and with the speed of electricity, firom 
 her lips. " Shut up," and Mrs. Sykes, in the 
 graphic language of a departed philosopher, 
 was a " cooked goose." It is impossible to say 
 how this influence was gained by James over 
 his maternal parent; but so it was, and she 
 yielded to his sway with no more rebellious in- 
 clination than a slender reed to the force of the 
 blasting gale. The anticipation even of these 
 instructions, so briefly couched, was often quite 
 enough for Mrs. Sykes; and she frequently, 
 when the latch was lifted at the outer door of 
 the cottage, and Jem*s well-known heel was 
 heard, broke ofi" short in an incompleted sen-
 
 200 THE 0L1> HALL, 
 
 tence relating to Job's corruptions, much to 
 the huntsman's satisfaction. '^^ 'V^ Iiu3 idii ^ 
 J£, by any accident, Mrs. Sykes did not hear 
 the approaching footfall of her son. Job some- 
 times gave her timely intimation by pointing 
 with a straightened thumb to the quarter from 
 whence he might shortly be expected to ap- 
 pear ; and this was sufficient to put an estoppel 
 to a farther continuance -of the good woman's 
 powers of elocution. ' bfl£^^"ilBi£a— 7979fl-.I-~^ 
 
 Both long and lotidly Mrs. Sytes coughed, 
 from the irruption of the smoke into the intri- 
 cate cavities of her bronchial tubes ; and Job, 
 stretched in his chair of ease, slippered, and 
 with the knees of his breeches xinbuttoned, 
 as increased facilities for relaxation, regarded 
 the irritation of his better half s conductors to 
 her lungs with indescribable satisfaction. He 
 smiled blandly, as, from time to time, he took 
 a glance, and perceived the flattering appear- 
 ance of no immediate cessation to the temporary 
 malady. Mrs. Sykes had just been, in the ab-
 
 THE OLD HALL. 201 
 
 sence of James, who was at the kennel, treat- 
 ing herself by delivering, for the tenth thousand 
 time, a lecture of unusual force upon the dire 
 evils connected with smoking. And it forms 
 a circumstance worthy of pecuhar remark, that 
 the very subject of her discussion caused an un- 
 expected mischief little reckoned on by the 
 fluent lecturer. 
 
 "I really — think," gasped Mrs. Sykes, "that 
 — ^I — never — shall" — and then the violence of 
 the irruption completly denied the further jit- 
 terance of a syllable. -^*}^;j ^ /* — --^ 
 
 Job was in ecstasies. He winked at the ceil- 
 ing, rubbed his hands and knees, threw out a 
 monster volume of smoke, so as to obscure his 
 visage, and laughed inwardly, accompanied by 
 sundry nods and winks at a portrait of one 
 of his ancestors, suspended immediately above 
 his head, as if there was a secret understand^- 
 ing between them. 
 
 At this moment the clink of a latch was 
 heard, and quickly afterwards the young whip- 
 
 K S
 
 THE OLD HALL, 
 
 per-in entered the room, with a horn lantern in 
 his hand. As he placed it upon the table he 
 blew his fingers, and breathed upon them as 
 if they were benumbed by the cold, and he 
 stamped his feet heavily upon the floor. 
 
 "What, is't a sharp un, again lad?'* in- 
 quired Job. 
 
 " Ay, father, it is," replied his son. " The 
 wind's a regular noser from the north-east, and 
 I'll be figged if the frost's going to break." 
 
 '' Then we're not to have any hunting yet ?" 
 rejoined Job dolefully. 
 
 " No," added James, drawing a chair by 
 the side of the elder Sykes, and taking a seat, 
 " there isn't a chance of it." 
 
 " Well then," returned the huntsman, " we 
 must make the best of it. But what firosts 
 were ever sent for, I can't discover. 
 
 " Smoking," began Mrs. Sykes, who had 
 not, as yet, been able to utter a word since the 
 arrival of her son, and even now, this was the 
 only one she was capable of uttering. ^' Smok-
 
 THE OLD HALL. 203 
 
 ing," repeated she, and then she made violent 
 signals with her hands, expressive of her inabi- 
 lity to proceed. 
 
 " Come, come, mother," said James, mistak- 
 ing the intentions of the worthy dame, and be- 
 lieving that she was about to commence a ser- 
 mon upon the noxious habit indulged in by his 
 father — a proceeding he never would allow in 
 his presence. '^ Come, come, mother, shut up." 
 
 Mrs. Sykes became all but violent in. the 
 struggle to comply with the directions, and at 
 length, after swallowing a tankard of water, 
 brought fresh from " the moss-green bucket 
 that hung by the well," by the attentive James, 
 she had so far obtained the mastership over the 
 attack as to be able to explain, in a husky voice, 
 that she was not going to enlarge upon the sub- 
 ject anticipated by her son. Her say, upon 
 that head, she had said previous to his coming, 
 and as ' waste not, want not,' applied equally 
 to words as it did to flour, bread, cheese, coals, 
 candles, and parsnips, and every other kind of
 
 j|Qf THE OLD HALL. 
 
 domestic cookery, she would not for a moment 
 entertain the idea of throwing away useful lan-^ 
 guage on one who had ever since her acquaint- 
 anceship with him, and that was rather better 
 than thirty-five years, nine months, and a fort- 
 night, appeared to be not a jot the better, or in 
 the remotest degree improved. It was a matter 
 of regret, great regret, on her part, to perceive 
 the stagnated state of her husband's morals ; 
 but since she could not be accused of being a 
 lukewarm looker-on, or a silent party to their 
 want of mation, of course this in some measure 
 offered a consolation that warmed h^r bosom, 
 and prevented, ttie, cramp and rheumatism in 
 her heart." - * ' 
 
 *' That'll do, mother," returned James, ex- 
 tending a more than usually liberal permission 
 to the uninterrupted enjoyment of the dame'a 
 elocutionary capacities ; " that'll do : abut 
 
 W^: <^ 'ii ' .vi' ;; -::n3 ^^d hojwiiliioo '\xi'i£iii^ 
 
 Mrs. Sykes resumed her knitting in si»
 
 TfiE OLD HALL. 
 
 m 
 
 Job, who had been puffing a perfectly im- 
 penetrable fog around him, was laughing so 
 violently during the delivery of the old lady'a 
 homily, and, at the same time, using such 
 desperate efforts to conceal his mirth, that it 
 appeared extremely probable he would either 
 burst, or that the safety-valve (to use a 
 metaphor of the age), would blow itself off, 
 from the immense pressure and stress upon the 
 boiler. yzmos cd ton hluoo 'I3 oonh iud 
 
 -^16^11 think," observed James, the mediator 
 and pacificator in these one-sided differences in 
 the heads of the family of the Sykes, " I think," 
 replied he, " that a flagon of nice warm spiced 
 ale, with a toast in it, wouldn't harm us, father, 
 to-night.*!, i* LCixiiJJ^wi ^io:i:ol^ ^cjj h Jr ;i a 
 
 .."In good trnth,'iio^*Jem;'* repKed" the 
 huntsman, taking the pipe from his lips, and 
 slightly raising himself in his chair; "parti- 
 cularly," continued he, emphatically, " if you'll 
 mix it in your tip-top style.'* ^ - 
 
 " That I'll engage to do," rejoined his son.
 
 THE OLD HALL. 
 
 *' Will you draw a couple of quarts of the 
 best October, mother, or shall I ?" inquired 
 he. 
 
 Mrs. Sykes bowed slowly, even majestically, 
 and intimated by the movement that she would 
 take upon herself the duty of obtaining the re- 
 quired beverage from the cellar ; and, dispos- 
 ing of her work, left the room for this pur- 
 pose. 
 
 " I'll make her smile again presently," re- 
 marked James, laughing ; for a kinder-hearted 
 better-humoured, more jovial fellow, never 
 lived ; and, if he appeared to tyrannize over 
 his mother's weakness, never did a despot ex- 
 ercise a power with a more praiseworthy pur- 
 pose ; for it was always to establish peace and 
 good-will. 
 
 Job gave a sage nod with his head, refilled 
 the bowl of his pipe, applied a light, settled 
 himself more comfortably than ever in his 
 chair, and winked at the ceiling. 
 
 *' Only let her taste," resumed James, going
 
 THE OLD HALL. 207 
 
 to a cupboard in one comer of tlie room, in 
 which there were rows of glasses, black bottles, 
 lemons, pots of currant jelly, and jams of many 
 kinds and descriptions, pickles of all sorts, and 
 odds and ends of every sort and nature con- 
 nected with, and relating to, the creature com- 
 forts of life ; all blazoned and open to the eye 
 of every curious observer, through the medium 
 of a glass door of fantastic shape ; " only let 
 her," repeated he, diving among the hetero- 
 geneous materials, and bringing forth some 
 sugar, nutmeg, ginger, a grater, three glasses, 
 a small silver ladle, with a fawn's foot for a han- 
 dle, and a tin pot, quite as bright as the silver, 
 " taste half a pint of my oil of comfort," con- 
 tinued James, placing the materials upon the 
 polished oak table, " and I'll be bound that 
 
 she'll be as full of smiles as " 
 
 " Nancy Dixon, when you're whispering 
 close to her ear," interrupted his father, mak- 
 ing the rafters of the dwelling ring and vi- 
 brate with the hearty roar that followed.
 
 208 THE OLD HALL. 
 
 y. t' 
 
 ,JJow, that's too bad, father," expostulated. 
 James Sykes; and, while he spoke, the blood; 
 mantled upon his brow and in his cheeks, and 
 he used unnecessary violence in rasping the,, 
 nutmeg. 
 
 Too bad !'* returned Job, swaying his hea4^ 
 a little from one side to the other. " If I was 
 young Jem, instead of mouldy-headed Job, 
 singe my hackles but I should think it precious^, 
 good. She's," continued Job, drawing the ^^- 
 through his teeth, " what I call a clipper at all 
 points. In the first place, there's a pretty, 
 little, thorough-bred head, put on as nice a 
 neck and shoulders as ever a man's eyes would 
 like to rest on. Then there's those curls, 
 as brown as a chesnut, always flicking and 
 dancing about her pink cheeks, and the 
 damp atmosphere neyi^r straightens 'em _bj^ 
 
 any chance." .rr.ovr ^grf fiirrrG'^oT Ird ^-^2 irdi 
 ^ Job paused to take a whiff or two from hia. 
 pipe, and his son seemed to be inclined for hia^ 
 continuing the discourse, for he rubbed the;
 
 THE OLD HALL. 209 
 
 nutmeg more gently, and offered no syllable of 
 intemiption. ' s9i-^2 &em&l 
 
 ^^ As to eyes," resumed tlie huntsman, " I 
 must say that they are out-an'-outers. They're 
 as soft as a pigeon's, and yet they gimble them- 
 selves into one's in'ards, like the sunshine 
 through a chink in the shutters. And then," 
 continued Job, warming upon his subject, " as 
 to form, in a little compass, I think she's the 
 best mould that ever came across my path ; al- 
 though," said he, dropping his voice to a whis- 
 per, for Mrs. Sykes's bundle of keys, which al-i 
 ways clanked at her girdle, now gave notice of 
 her return, "your mother, Jem, was an un- 
 common nice xm in her points of make and 
 shape." -^"^ ^ 
 
 It was quite clear, upon Mrs. Sykes entering 
 with the flagon of foaming ale in her hand, 
 that she had regained her wonted good and 
 cheerftd temper; for, as she placed it before 
 her son, she put one arm round his waist at 
 the same time, and gave him a hug of endear-
 
 210 THE OLD HALL. 
 
 ment, while there was not a vestige left of that 
 rigidity of countenance which formed the strik- 
 ing characteristic upon departure. 
 
 This was not lost upon James, who always 
 proved himself a truly affectionate son, and he 
 gave a response which, although lost to mor- 
 tal gaze and hearing, caused the old lady to 
 give a nimble step, and to ejaculate, " Oh !" as 
 a preliminary to laughing, to the dangerous 
 extent of producing a second edition to her 
 cough. 
 
 Job regarded these fresh aspects of family 
 matters with great satisfaction, and he winked 
 at the ceiling in the most decided manner of 
 conveying a lively gratitude. 
 
 " I shall sleep to -night," muttered he to him- 
 self, "thank "perhaps Job was about to 
 
 thank God ; but he stopped short, and added, 
 "thank Jem!" 
 
 And now James, with all the rapidity in his 
 power, mingled the ingredients into the tin pot, 
 and placed it on the bright, crackling embers to
 
 THE OLD HALL. 211 
 
 quickly send forth a truly fragrant incense to 
 gratiiy the least susceptible of olfactory nerves. 
 
 Even the blackbii'd, inspected in his wicker- 
 cage over the hearth, and a bald-pated, old, 
 tailless fellow he was, who, for years since, had 
 ceased to welcome the approach of spring with 
 a single note, and he recked nothing of winter, 
 for he was always warm, weU-fed, and comfort- 
 able ; now roused himself on his perch, and, 
 shaking his feathers, seemed to understand the 
 matters in progress exceedingly well. He even 
 danced a feeble hop — ^for he was the very patri- 
 arch of his race, up and down the perch; and, 
 like one down in the vale of honourable years 
 attempting the agility of youth's well-strung 
 thews and sinews, thus conveyed the gaiety in 
 his breast. 
 
 A kitten, the rescued one from the litter, 
 saved from the last periodical confinement of 
 the staid old tabby, now purring with up-reared 
 tail about the feet of her mistress, chased its^ 
 tail in the bright piercing light of the moon.
 
 212 THE OLD HALL. 
 
 streaming on the carpet beliind the closely- 
 drawn and chequered curtains, and was enjoy- 
 ing the fun to a remarkable extent. 
 
 In short, everything bore a happy, cheerftd 
 appearance in the apartment, except, perhaps, 
 the mask of the fox, with his fore pad under- 
 neath, and his brush curled round them, which 
 were nailed over the door; and this bore the 
 same sneer and vindictive intent as it had in 
 the fangs of death. The bits, spurs, and whips 
 with which the walls of the room were adorned, 
 reflected the flickering blaze on their polished 
 surfaces; and even a couple of horse-shoes, 
 concerning which Job could tell, and had often 
 told, a strange tradition connected with the fa- 
 mily of the Sykeses, hung on a hook in a con- 
 spicuous position, and rivalled their neighbours 
 in their qualities of shining; for not even a 
 brass-headed nail within the domain escaped the 
 friction continually bestowed upon the goods 
 and chattels of which Mrs. Sykes was the mis- 
 tress and controller.
 
 ilAH CIO aHi 
 THE OLD HALL. 213 
 
 " Ttere," said James, lifting the prepared 
 beverage from the firej and pouring it steaming 
 into the glasses, " I'll bet a broomstick to a 
 shaving that you'U find this moisture act as oil 
 to the rust." 
 
 Mrs. Sykes, with well-becoming gravity, and 
 Job, smiling as if his heart shone, received 
 the generously filled tumblers from the hand of 
 their attentive son, and after drainiag their 
 contents — the former by a succession of rapid 
 sips, and the latter by one deep, honest draught 
 — certainly evinced decided symptoms of being 
 refreshed by the potation. Mrs. Sykes deli- 
 cately brushed her lips with the corner of her 
 handkerchief, and sent forth a short hacking 
 cough, as if the strength of the liquor had 
 rather overcome her ; but at the same time this 
 slight chip of female affectation did not prevent 
 a sunny smile from playing upon her lip ; while 
 Job patted the bottom of his long waistcoat, and 
 at the same time — winked at the ceiling. 
 
 " There !" exclaimed James, finishing the re-
 
 214 THE OLD HALL. 
 
 mains in his own glass, and drawing his chair 
 neai-er to the fire, " that's what I call the high 
 scent to the comforts o' the world." 
 
 '' We shouldn't," replied his mother, shak- 
 ing her head, '' think too much of the comforts 
 of the world. Kemember, my son, this is a 
 vale of tears — a miserable world." 
 
 " A what?^^ ejaculated Job, straining his eye- 
 brows to the extreme altitude of their reach. 
 *' A miserable world ! May I be run to death 
 by snakes if those who call it so don't feel the 
 gall when they deserve it. A miserable world ! 
 Hav'n't we the fruits and flowers of the season ? 
 Isn't there sunshine for the summer, with birds 
 to sing from its rise to its setting ? A n't there 
 rambles, too, in nice shady green lanes, for 
 young lasses and their — " Job broke abruptly 
 off, and looked slyly out of the corners of his 
 eyes towards his son. 
 
 James pulled his watch with a jerk from his 
 fob, and observed, that " it was not so late as 
 he expected."
 
 THE OLD HALL. 215 
 
 " A miserable world !" repeated Job. For 
 young and old there's always some occupation. 
 If those who may be a little too full in the 
 tooth, or who have no teeth at all, can't make 
 love ia the shade of the evening, they can sit 
 on the outside of their cottage doors and smoke 
 their pipes, compare notes of early days, and 
 lay the dust of their thirst with stoups of the 
 brown and bright October. And then, in 
 winter, isn't there the brisk, crackling Yule- 
 log, cracking of nuts and jokes round it, gob- 
 lin stories, songs, plum-pudding, roast beef, 
 hunt-the slipper, snap-dragon, kisses under the 
 mistletoe, reels and jigs, and all that sort of 
 thing ? A miserable world ! Upon my life — " 
 and then Job dropped his words one by one, as 
 if they were too precious, in his estimation, for 
 measuring them in a heap — "I've very little 
 doubt, iu my mind, that those who expect to 
 meet with a better, will be particularly mis- 
 taken." 
 
 Mrs. Sykes felt that this delivery was a tres-
 
 216 THE OLD HALL. 
 
 pass upon her prerogative ; for she considered 
 all matters connected with theology, named in 
 her presence, as peculiarly her own. However, 
 the spiced ale had so far mellowed all atoms 
 of asperity, that she merely expressed her dis- 
 approbation at Job's presumption by dancing 
 her crossed dexter foot rapidly. 
 
 For some few minutes nothing was said fur- 
 ther upon any subject, and all seemed to be oc- 
 cupied in the contemplation of their thoughts. 
 
 " Did ye leave 'em aU right in the kennel, 
 lad?" at length asked the huntsman. 
 
 *^ Quite so, father," replied James, starting 
 from a wakeful dream or reverie, which he ap- 
 peared to have been wrapped in. 
 
 ^' Does Render seem as lame as ever?" in- 
 quired the huntsman. 
 
 *' No," returned James ; " the old hound is 
 very little foot-sore to-night." 
 
 " That's well," added Job ; " for a stancher 
 never opened at a fox." 
 
 " No," responded the whipper-in ; *' or, if
 
 THE OLD HALL. 217 
 
 there was, I should like to know his pedi- 
 gree." 
 
 " Ah ! " exclaimed Job, " on the earth, un- 
 der the earth, and above the earth, there never 
 was his superior; although — and that I don't 
 like to admit — there might possibly be, and 
 have been, his equal," 
 
 " I can't believe it," added James ; " I really 
 can't believe it." 
 
 " Then you couldn't believe, I suppose," 
 replied the huntsman, knocking the ashes from 
 his pipe, which savoured strongly of the begin- 
 ning of a story, long and marvellous in its de- 
 tails, " a hound or a dog of any kind or nature," 
 continued he, " capable of being more stanch 
 than Render?" 
 
 " No," replied the whipper-in, " I could 
 not." 
 
 '^ Then, I'll just tell you a circumstance," 
 rejoined Job, ^^ that will out-do anything you 
 may have seen in that old clipper's manner 
 of running a fox to earth, or pulling him down. 
 
 VOL. I. L
 
 218 THE OLD HALL. 
 
 Give me another sip of that ale, Jem, before I 
 begin, for talking's dry work." 
 
 James readily acceded to the huntsman's re- 
 quest, and after he had done fall justice to the 
 econd edition. Job thus commenced : — 
 
 " "When I was a lad of eighteen, as a matter 
 o' course, and therefore I needn't tell ye, I 
 was whip under that old figure there ;" and as 
 he spoke, he pointed to a professed portrait of 
 his paternal parent hanging on the Wall oppo- 
 site ; and if it was not a decided libel upon that 
 departed individual, he must have been very 
 grim and acid in expression. '^ It so hap- 
 pened," resumed Job, " that in my first season, 
 and on the 1st of September, the Squii-e lost 
 his favourite pointer Romp, a large liver and 
 white bitch, handsomer than any picture that 
 ever was seen ; and, although the country round 
 was scoured from end to end, no tidings could 
 be gained of her. Bill Rap, the keeper, said, 
 the last time that he saw her was skirting the 
 top of Arkmoor-hiU, and she appeared as if
 
 THE OLD HALL. 219 
 
 drawing ; but losing sight of her on the brow, 
 and on the edge of Kipsey's-copse, he never 
 again clapped eyes upon her. For some time — 
 it was before you were hatched, Jem — there 
 was nothing talked of but Romp's unaccountable 
 disappearance, and many thought, at last, that 
 she had been spirited away. Bill tramped and 
 plodded from sunrise to sunset, but could not, 
 and never did, gain any information concerning 
 her. As you may think, the Squire was very 
 sorry, and much puzzled, at the unaccountable 
 loss of his favourite ; but as all things settle 
 down at last, he at length, and everybody 
 else, appeared to think no more of the loss of 
 Romp. It so chanced, that about the middle 
 of the October following, we drew Kipsey's- 
 copse while cub hunting ; and father, that ill- 
 tempered-looking old image there," said Job, 
 again referring, with his indicative finger, to 
 the Hkeness of his progenitor, " had given me 
 very strict orders to stop every hound that 
 might try to get away with a fox. I'd as soon 
 
 l2
 
 220 THE OLD HALL. 
 
 think of breaking my neck as breaking his di- 
 rections, particularly when he looked waxy; 
 and I did my best to keep 'em in the traces and 
 up to the collar, even to the letter. After some 
 touch-an'-goes with two or three couple of pup- 
 pies, who tried their best to get with a vixen, 
 led by an old hound called Hermitage, and who 
 ought to have known better, for he understood 
 a rate as well as he did a cheer — away he went, 
 with a couple of young uns ; and before I could 
 spur to their heads, they settled to a fox, who 
 had made a burst of it, as if the very devil was 
 kicking 'em on end ! With spleen and spite, 
 I set to with rowel and flax to stop 'em, and, 
 after speckling my heels with some of the best 
 blood that ever was let from a horse's sides, at 
 last managed to get to their heads. Knowing, 
 although it was no fault of mine, that the old 
 boy would give me a blessing, in his rough 
 manner, for my letting 'em get away, I drove 
 'em back as hard as I could split, in what may 
 be called a savage humour. Upon getting to
 
 THE OLD HALL. 221 
 
 the side of the covert, I thought that there was 
 a favourable chance of giving master Hermitage 
 a taste of the double thong for his disobedience, 
 and I rode at him through a gap into the wood. 
 Just as I did so, however, and the Miller — for 
 that was th^ name of the horse I was on — had 
 crashed through the boughs for some dozen or 
 two yards, he sunk up to his knees into a 
 rabbit's burrow, and pitched me lightly over 
 his head into a small but deep pit full of tall 
 and thick sedges and high rank grass. As I 
 scrambled to my feet to remount, for I hadn't 
 lost my reins, I was not a little surprised at 
 seeing the skeleton of a dog, in a standing 
 position, among the rushes close to me; and 
 upon taking a step or two nearer, I saw the 
 bones of a bird, bleached as snow, and without 
 a feather or bit of skin upon them, just under 
 the grinning jowl of the dog. Like a flash of 
 lightning, a squib, or a cracker, or any thing 
 else as sharp and smart, I knew what these were 
 without anything like a check in my brain.
 
 THE OLD HALL. 
 
 There couldn't be a doubt but the anatomy 
 of the dog was the remains of Romp, who had 
 found the bird here, and thus both the pointer 
 and the pointed had died from the very game 
 and stanchness of their natures," 
 
 " You don't mean to say that's true, my 
 dear ?" remarked Mrs. Sykes, seriously, upon 
 Job's concluding his history. 
 
 " I do," replied the huntsman, with respon- 
 dent gravity ; " I do, indeed." 
 
 Be it on record, however, that as Job spoke, 
 his son noticed that he gave a slight, a scarcely 
 perceptible, wink at the ceiling, which pro- 
 duced a very equivocal impression as to the 
 seriousness of his meaning in the truth of his 
 assertion. 
 
 " Dear me !" exclaimed Mrs. Sykes, lifting 
 her hands, " what a singular coincidence, to be
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 How far that little candle throws its light ! 
 So shines a good deed in a naughty world. 
 
 Although the room was wide and lofty, and 
 great black beams stretched themselves across 
 t)ie ceiling, and the walls were paneUed with 
 oak, here and there enlivened with pictures, 
 fading and faded, of scenes of former times ; 
 yet that in which the Squire and John Hardy 
 were ensconced, on the shortest day of the 
 year, did not lack a comfortable influence 
 upon the mercury of the spirits of the two old 
 Mends. John's face beamed with its wonted 
 expression of universal kindliness to all ani- 
 mate and inanimate objects of any and every
 
 224: THE OLD HALL. 
 
 kind and whatsoever nature, while the Squire, 
 if he wore a shade of comparative seriousness, 
 it proceeded from no deeper cloud of melan- 
 choly within. The couple of hearty, green 
 old fellows were sitting opposite to each other, 
 in high-back, deep-bottomed, and capacious 
 chairs, of antique fashion and handicraft, while 
 a horse-shoe table was placed before them, on 
 which stood a brace of rosy bright magnums 
 of port, and one honest bottle of choice ma- 
 deira, just disinterred from their tomb of 
 sawdust and cobwebs. A screen, composed 
 of intricately wrought tapestry, illustrative of 
 joust and fight, and falconry and love-worn 
 knights in " ladye's bower," — cased in steel, 
 and yet not proof, withal, against the feathered 
 shaft — embraced their forms, and, in its exten- 
 sive span, prevented the entry of any chill 
 from without. On the hearth — there was not 
 a grate or a stove in the Range — a pile of logs 
 flared and blazed and licked around, and now 
 and then, through a chink in the screen, rent
 
 THE OLD HALL, 225 
 
 in the canvass by the hand that crumbles the 
 stone and mocks the endurance of aught that 
 the hand of man can raise, a stream of light 
 poured upon the grim visage of a plumed 
 knight, and fierce baron, and mailed esquire, 
 suspended in rudely carved oaken frames upon 
 the walls; and although one grasped a mace, 
 and another poised a battle-axe, with deadly 
 vengeance and exterminating purpose fixed 
 upon his bearded lip, and a third wielded a 
 sword with two handles and a double edge, 
 yet time and association had so mellowed down 
 their primary fierceness and dire intent, that 
 now there was no more natural effect of a 
 tendency to let the current of human blood, 
 nor the gratification of any passions, bloody 
 and uncharitable, than in the vizored features 
 of those who clash their blunted blades iu 
 melodramatic spectacles. These representa- 
 tives, the very bones of whom had returned 
 to the dust from whence they had sprung, ^ 
 and whose bucklers, shields, gauntlets, bows,, 
 
 La
 
 THE OLD HALL. 
 
 and shafts now hung around, rusting in the 
 idleness of centuries, might point a moral to 
 many who seek for glory in savage deeds; 
 but then in the Kange there were none who 
 stood in need of such a lesson, and therefore 
 it shall be skipped like a thing worthless of 
 note. 
 
 '' It's a long time since we were parted, 
 John," observed the Squire, filling his glass to 
 the brim. 
 
 " Ay, that it is, Harry," replied John 
 Hardy, imitating the example. " Let me 
 see," he continued, peeping at the bee's-wing 
 floating in the bumper ; " it's between thirty 
 and forty " 
 
 " Never keep a tally of time," rejoined 
 the Squire; " adzooks, but you'll persuade 
 me that I am getting old !" 
 
 " Old?" repeated John Hai-dy, interroga- 
 tively. " Humph ! in the nature of things 
 I suppose that we are getting old; but upon 
 my life, Harry, I can't see that you are doing
 
 THE OLD HALL. 227 
 
 SO, neither can I feel that I am. "We're old 
 boys," continued John, " that's what we are, you 
 may depend upon it;" and then he drained 
 his glass, which seemed, as he raised it to 
 his lips, to wink an affirmative response. 
 
 " Three days !" remarked the Squire, look- 
 ing into the middle of the polished slab of 
 mahogany before him, on the surface of which 
 the cheerful flames of the Yule-log were re- 
 flected like the rays of the sun upon a clear, 
 unruffled lake. " Three whole days you're to 
 be away from me, John." 
 
 " Well," returned his companion, " it does 
 appear long, certainly. But then, what ar^ 
 three days, Harry ? They'll pass away like 
 
 " John deliberately filled his glass again, 
 
 and drained it to the last drop — " ihat^^ con- 
 cluded he, placing his hand upon the middle 
 of his waistcoat, to indicate the precise locality 
 of the transition of his metaphor. "Here, I 
 may say," continued John, " at one moment, 
 and gone the next."
 
 THE OLD HALL. 
 
 *' I drink to your safe and speedy return, 
 John," rejoined his friend, " and may your 
 journey be a fruitful one !" 
 
 " I thank you for the former," added John 
 Hardy, " and hope with you for the latter; 
 but that, of course, must depend upon cir- 
 cumstances. If I should learn any clue to the 
 object of our united wishes it will be, at least, 
 trouble and time well spent." 
 
 " I'm not so certain of that," rejoined the 
 Squire thoughtfully. " If the discovery lead 
 to the certainty of Tom being the offspring of 
 some outcast, or disgraced and branded wretch, 
 it will be far from conducive to his happiness 
 to mine, or to yours. His birth, now, is in 
 a state of uncertainty; and whatever reason- 
 able probability there may be in supposing that 
 his eyry was not in the cedar top, yet there 
 is no ground for thinking that he may not be 
 respectably, if lowly, born. If he should prove 
 to be the child of the humblest on earth, as 
 I have before said, so long as he can claim
 
 THE OLD HALL. 229 
 
 from an honest stock, he shall inherit all my 
 earthly possessions. There is not a creature 
 living, that I can trace, who has the slightest 
 claim of consanguinity upon me. I am the 
 last, John/' and the Squire's voice shook as 
 he spoke, " I am quite the last of a very old 
 race ; and if I could see, before the curtaia 
 of my life be dropped to the close, the sprout 
 and springing of a new line in our adopted 
 boy " 
 
 " That's it," interrupted John Hardy; 
 " that's it. Our adopted boy : not mine, re- 
 member." 
 
 " "We have called him so of late years," 
 continued the Squire, smihng , " although I 
 recollect the time when I insisted upon your 
 having the honour exclusively to yourself. 
 However, as I was about to remark," resumed 
 he, " if I can consistently make him inheritor 
 of the Range, I will; but his provision, al- 
 though it shall be ample, must be in a very 
 different form, if he turns out to be proven
 
 THE OLD HALL. 
 
 the son of crime or of vice. The finger of 
 scorn would be pointed not only at him, 
 but at his children; for the wealthy are 
 naturally envied by the many ; and, if there 
 be a blot upon their escutcheon, time is not 
 permitted to efface it. Conspicuous positions 
 in life to such are painful, and it is far better 
 that they should occupy the rear ranks than 
 the first and front." 
 
 *^ I quite agree with you, Harry," (when 
 did John disagree with anybody?) " but it 
 seems to me very hard that the world should 
 be so unjust as to visit the sins of the father 
 upon the child." 
 
 " If the world be unjust in this, and I 
 will not gainsay that it is so," returned his 
 friend, " it is, at any rate, generous enough to 
 regard the reflected honours and virtues of 
 the parent upon his offspring." 
 
 " Exactly so," coincided John, " to be sure 
 it does i and so the world, after all, isn't such 
 a scamp as one at a glance might suppose."
 
 THE OLD HALL. 231 
 
 " I would not have Tom aware of my re- 
 solve upon any account," resumed the Squire ; 
 " but I am quite decided, in the event of what 
 I fear being realized, he must not become that 
 which, in secret, we have planned." 
 
 " It will be no disappointment to him/' 
 said John Hardy ; " for he hasn't an idea of 
 it ; but it would be much better, I think, not 
 to sift the matter any further, and to let it all 
 sink, as it had until we stirred it up again, into 
 forgetftJness." 
 
 ^' In that case I should be content," rephed 
 the Squire ; " but the truth and honesty, and, 
 I think, pride of his excellent nature have 
 determined otherwise. He is now of an age 
 to judge for himself; and, as you know, the 
 absorbing thought of his existence is his origin ; 
 and, until learned, come evil come good, he 
 will never be satisfied." 
 
 " It may be a very natural impulse to wish 
 to know who your own father was," rejoined 
 John Hardy. " I might, if I was not confi-
 
 THE OLD HALL. 
 
 dent in his departed identity. — Requiescat eVi 
 pace .'" 
 
 " It's about time for him to return from 
 the vicarage," observed the Squire^ glancing 
 at the dial of his watch. 
 
 " In that case," replied John, " it's time for 
 me to start; for Blossom isn't an active colt, 
 as Mike says, and we have to travel not a 
 mile less than fifteen before sundown." 
 
 " You'll scarcely manage it," rejoined his 
 friend, " and therefore delay not a moment 
 longer ; for, if you get benighted, some acci- 
 dent may occur." 
 
 " I shall carry loaded pistols in my holster," 
 returned John, valiantly; at the same time 
 producing from the hidden mysteries of his 
 shirt collar the flabby and crumpled end of a 
 false one. 
 
 A bell clanged loudly ; it was the knell, and 
 it rung hoarsely and spitefully long, for worthy, 
 honest, jovial, simple-hearted, and well-beloved 
 John Hardy's departure from the Range.
 
 THE OLD HALL. 233 
 
 Many long, long years — long enough, in- 
 deed, to turn lisping infancy to mellow life — re- 
 volved upon the axle of eternity since his be- 
 coming an inmate under its hospitable roof; 
 and although he had, more than a thousand 
 times, during this interval spoken of visiting 
 " his place in town," no such resolution had 
 ever been put in practice as to quit, for one 
 entire day, the house that had sheltered him so 
 long and so happily. 
 
 "Well might the excitement that pervaded 
 the establishment, from the cellar to the roof, 
 seeming to vibrate through every brick, stone, 
 and beam, increase upon its becoming gene- 
 rally known that Blossom, the squabby cob, 
 stood at the entry of the stone porch, bridled, 
 and saddled, and cruppered, and gii'thed, 
 ready to bear his master from the Range ! 
 Well might doors be slammed and banged, 
 and noises of hurried feet be heard running, 
 shuffling, limping, and halting, at every kind 
 of pace and speed, towards the hall where
 
 234 THE OLD HALL. 
 
 John Stood passively submitting to be incased 
 in a succession of great-coats, dragged, drawn, 
 squeezed, pressed, and tugged upon his round 
 little body, until he possessed no more con- 
 trol or power over his four limbs than if he 
 had been a bale of cotton or a bag of wool ! 
 
 " I really," gasped John, struggling to 
 raise his chin above an ambitious collar of a 
 coat trying to rear itself above the head of its 
 wearer, " I really feel quite sufficiently clad, 
 thank you," continued he, conquering the 
 collar, and his ruddy face emerging from the 
 conglomerated mass of accumulated cloth, not 
 unlike the moon looming through the vapour 
 af a misty morn. 
 
 " No, no, no," hurriedly responded a chorus 
 of voices ; and then a cape, its folds reaching 
 below his knees, was buckled round his neck ; 
 and the Squire, the busiest of the throng, 
 rolled a large scarlet comforter about John's 
 throat, ears, and eyes, until every sense was 
 rendered nugatory and void.
 
 THE OLD HALL. 235 
 
 " Upon my life," gurgled John, after an 
 effectual struggle to make his voice audible 
 from behind the huge mountain of material, 
 and finding himself quite powerless and inca- 
 pable of performing the slightest office, even 
 to the putting on of his hat ; " upon my life," 
 repeated he, in the accents that a wrapped 
 mummy might be supposed to speak, " I can't 
 sufficiently thank you for your care of me ; 
 but really, I think that I'm a little over- 
 done." 
 
 " No, no, no," again followed the chorus of 
 tongues ; and then double pairs of thick woollen 
 gloves were crammed upon John's chubby 
 fingers, and his low-crowned broad- brimmed 
 beaver hat pulled well down over his eyes. 
 
 " There ! " exclaimed the Squire, triumph- 
 antly, " I don't think that you can catch cold, 
 John." 
 
 After undergoing a general inspection by 
 everybody present — and every domestic of 
 both sexes, from the oldest to the youngest.
 
 THE OLD HALL. 
 
 was there — it was unanimously declared that 
 John was in a state of perfect and complete 
 defence against any siege of the inclement 
 elements to which he might be exposed. 
 
 "Well might the innate vanity of Blossom — 
 for Blossom was a conceited cob — be gratified 
 as he appropriated the greatest share of the 
 attention shown to his master as a compliment 
 paid to himself, when^ surrounded by the 
 crowd, showers of blessings were poured upon 
 the head of John Hardy, as he effected, after 
 innumerable futile attempts, a seat upon his 
 saddle. Blossom, indeed, on the spur of the 
 moment, determined to try a little matter of 
 " show off," and commenced a short series of 
 capers upon the occasion. 
 
 " Gently, Blossom, gently, my pretty fel- 
 low," said John, through his comforter. It is 
 needless to say, however, that this order was 
 unheeded, as it was a standing rule with the 
 squabby cob to conform to no mandate what- 
 ever, except it came in the shape of Mike's
 
 THE OLD HALL. 237 
 
 cudgel, and that lie never opposed. In the 
 scarcely describable fashion of a half kick, one- 
 third rear, a slight mingling of plunge, with a 
 tendency to stumble, and the remainder of the 
 ingredients to his playfulness made up of 
 jibbing and shying. Blossom rendered John 
 Hardy's taking leave of his friends a matter of 
 some difficulty. Waving his whip hand, how- 
 ever, to one and all, the last " God bless ye !" 
 was uttered, and John, at length, found him- 
 self fairly on the road. 
 
 Mystery is not the object, in relation of the 
 simple adventures befalling John Hardy; and 
 therefore, it shall be here stated, while leaving 
 him jogging along to the fulfilment of his 
 purpose, the cause of his journeying forth into 
 the high-ways and by-ways of the world, al- 
 though the reader may have partly guessed it, 
 from the brief conference held between him 
 and the Squire, previous to his departure. 
 
 Now that Master Tom had mounted the 
 fifteenth year of his unaccountable consignment
 
 238 THE OLD HALL. 
 
 to the protection of John Hardy — from the 
 gifts bestowed upon him by bountiful Nature, 
 as he grew towards man's estate, and those that 
 he acquired from the able tutorage of the 
 vicar, his amiable and estimable tutor, aided by 
 Mike, Bill Rap the game-keeper, and Job 
 Sykes the huntsman — he might now be said to 
 be a handsome youth, bold and capable, pos- 
 sessing the accomplishments of a refined gen- 
 tleman, and the information and experience of 
 an expert sportsman. With his excellent 
 patron, John Hardy, he was regarded as a 
 perfect prodigy, to whom he yielded the over- 
 flowing kindliness, virtues, and excellence of 
 his own heart; and in the inmost recesses of 
 Tom's grateful affections they were there cof- 
 fered and dammed up like holy things that 
 they were. 
 
 Gradually, very gradually, and yet imper- 
 ceptibly, slow as it was. Master Tom crept 
 into the good favours of the Squire so securely, 
 that, at length, he was the very focus of their
 
 THE OLD HALL. 239 
 
 widely-diflFased rays. In him the Squire saw 
 all that he most admired, and nothing that 
 needed a reproof; and from the day of his 
 leaving Dame Woodley's cottage to live under 
 the roof of the Range, it became the cherished 
 hope with the Squire that Tom Hope might 
 demean himself so that he could henceforth 
 look upon him as his heir, and, eventually, the 
 bearer of his old and honourable name. This 
 desire had been shaken in no way whatever by 
 any accident or design, until the determined 
 resolve, plainly declared, and unintermittingly 
 referred to, manifested itself in Master Tom's 
 anxiety for discovering the germ and origin of 
 his existence. From the moment of being 
 made acquainted with his unclaimed, foundling 
 condition, it became an all-engrossing subject 
 of his thoughts — a passion nothing could quell. 
 In the hours of relaxation firom his studies, 
 instead of imitating Job in cheering on the 
 pack, or hearing him send forth a merry song 
 or ringing whistle, he might be seen stroUing
 
 240 THE OLD HALL. 
 
 listlessly about, brooding on speculations no 
 sooner formed than discarded, and, in short, 
 becoming the very and direct opposite to what 
 he had been — a spiritless, thinking, and miser- 
 able Master Tom. 
 
 Arguments were useless. All that the kind- 
 ness of his best Mends could invent to wean 
 him from the wretchedness that beset him, was 
 tried, but in vain ; and then it was determined 
 that efforts should be renewed in the endeavour 
 to trace the "why" and the "wherefore" 
 of Tom Hope's pedigree. 
 
 Dame Woodley, be it understood, was no 
 party to the attempt. That sagacious old wo- 
 man shook her head when she learned that it 
 was to be repeated, and expressed a belief that 
 " some people were heathens enough for any 
 thing ; but, for her part, she, thank Heaven ! 
 was a Christian ; and as there could be no doubt 
 of the hamper coming direct from the regions 
 of the blessed, she could only wonder at the 
 doubt of the genuineness of the delivery."
 
 THE OLD HALL. 241 
 
 Some time after the intelligence becoming 
 widely spread, of the offer of reward for any 
 information that might be rendered touching 
 Tom Hope's " come-by-chance/' John Hardy 
 received a letter, and not an ill-written scroll, 
 nor ignorantly couched either, informing him 
 '' that if he would meet the writer at a cer- 
 tain spot, on the twenty-second of the month, 
 all should be satisfactorily explained concerning 
 the child to whom the advertisements alluded." 
 The place named was within a few hours' 
 reach of the ancient city of Exeter; and we 
 are now speaking of times (the precise date 
 whereof is immaterial) wherein raih'oads were 
 unheard of, and fast coaches unknown, and the 
 roads so completely deficient of every thing, 
 save mire and deep ruts, that, to complete a 
 journey of five-and- twenty or thirty miles, it 
 was necessary to divide it into a couple of 
 days' labour. This — as it was rather more 
 than the last-named distance to the place of 
 appointment mentioned in the letter — was the 
 
 VOL. I. M
 
 24:2 THE OLD HALL. 
 
 occasion of John Hardy's starting on the after- 
 noon preceding the day named for the meeting 
 with the mysterious stranger ; for mysterious 
 he was, as he briefly alleged his inability of 
 meeting John an inch upon the road, without 
 assigning any reason, and stated, that unless 
 John came alone, he might as well save himself 
 the trouble and inconvenience of the journey, 
 as he would see no one and learn nothing. 
 
 After many conferences and cogitations with 
 the Squire, in secret conclave — for neither 
 Tom Hope, nor a creature — ^not even a sharp- 
 eared mouse in the wainscot could catch a 
 murmured syllable — was allowed to know the 
 object of John's departure — it was decided that 
 he should, mounted on Blossom, like a knight- 
 errant of old, start, without giving any account 
 of himself; and confide in chance or destiny 
 for any adventure, good, bad, or indifferent, 
 that might befal him.
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 Now all around the wind doth blow, 
 And coughing drowns the parson's saw, 
 And birds sit brooding in the snow. 
 
 It was very cold; every puddle was glazed 
 with ice; and the road, as hard as adamant, 
 caused Blossom's hoofs to clank loudly, as he 
 trotted briskly — that is to say, briskly for one 
 so sluggish of action — down a long narrow 
 lane leading into the highway. Every now 
 and then, a blackbkd, a mavis, or a robin 
 fluttered firom the leafless hedge, scared from 
 their retreat by his approach; but no other 
 sounds were to be heard, and nothing else was 
 to be seen, as John bumped alone and discon- 
 solately on his journey. John Hardy felt sad
 
 244: THE OLD HALL. 
 
 at heart, for he entertained misgivings, distrust, 
 and evil forebodings of the result of his mis- 
 sion : and he, as the daylight drew in, wished 
 that he had started earlier ; and all kinds of un- 
 pleasant ideas took possession of his reflective 
 faculties. Like the schoolboy, with slate and 
 satchel, going home through the lone church- 
 yard, and whistling on his way to drive the fear 
 of ghost and goblin from his thoughts, John 
 began to devise plans of ejecting the blue- 
 devils ; and, as a preface to his work, he com- 
 menced chanting — as well as the smothering 
 scarlet comforter would permit — the hun- 
 dredth psalm. But a few bars of that cheerful 
 composition had been accomplished, when he 
 was interrupted from proceeding with it by the 
 sudden crash of brambles, twigs, and boughs ; 
 and the figure of Mike Crouch standing ab- 
 ruptly before him in the road, not a couple of 
 yards from Blossom's Roman proboscis. 
 
 " Your servant. Sir," said Mike, doffing the 
 battered, bruised, and flattened rim of a hat.
 
 THE OLD HALL. ^5 
 
 " Upon my Kfe !" exclaimed John^ managing 
 by a great effort to regain liberty of speech. 
 **Upon my life!" repeated he, shaking his 
 head, '* you run a great risk, Mike, in coming 
 upon me so unawares. Don't you see that I 
 carry loaded pistols?" and as John extracted 
 one from the holster — a great yawning brass 
 barrel weapon, looking like a first cousin to a 
 blunderbuss, and held it perpendicularly aboye 
 his head, so that it might do no mischief by 
 any accident whatever, he looked like a man 
 very much to be dreaded — very much, indeed ; 
 at least so John Hardy thought. 
 
 " An' it may please your honour !" replied 
 Mike, respectfully, " I'm not frightened at a 
 
 " it is believed, but there are no solid 
 
 proofs in support of the creed, that Mike was 
 about to complete the sentence by " scarecrow.*' 
 In fine, however, he avoided so obnoxious a 
 conclusion, and added, after a pause, " gentle- 
 man." 
 
 " But, don't you see," rejoined John, re-
 
 246 THE OLD HALL. 
 
 placing the pistol in the holster, " I might have 
 taken ye for a footpad, highway robber, or 
 something of that sort? and then, if I had 
 made a snap shot at the impulse of the moment, 
 perhaps, Mike," and John Hardy spoke slowly 
 and impressively, "you would have been sent 
 to your last account, without much time for 
 reckoning the audit." 
 
 '' I might, certainly. Sir, by accident," re- 
 turned Mike, jerking his hat on the tip of his 
 nose, and placing much emphasis on the com- 
 pletion of the sentence. 
 
 " You doubt the correctness of my aim," 
 added John ; " but I'd have you remember 
 that you were a sitting — no, a standing shot. 
 And when do I miss a hare in her form, a 
 rabbit rubbing his nose, or cropping clover in 
 the evening on the verge of the coverts, or, 
 indeed, any such, what I c?^ fair marks?" 
 
 *^Very seldom, Sir," responded Mike, in 
 that doubtful accent which left the qualified 
 negative in a very equivocal condition.
 
 THE OLD HALL. 247 
 
 " Very seldom !" repeated John Hardy, as if 
 much dissatisfied with the answer. " Can you 
 name an instance that occurred lately?" con- 
 tinued he. 
 
 " There was that Sarah I found on her seat 
 yesterday morning, you know. Sir," replied 
 Mike, in a tone of justification. 
 
 ^^I tell you now, Mike," rejoined John, 
 shaking his head, "as I told you yesterday, 
 that the hare moved at the very moment I 
 obtained a cool and decided aim at her. Of 
 course this fully accounts for her escape." 
 
 Hastily, and perhaps irritably, John spoke 
 upon the subject; and therefore Mike, with 
 the policy of a courtier, essayed to change it 
 quickly. 
 
 " Not being in time to see you off with the 
 rest of the servants (Mike was especially fond 
 of classing himself as one of the Squire's re- 
 tainers), I made up my mind to cut across and 
 overtake you. Sir," said he.
 
 ^48 THE OLD HALL. 
 
 " How did you learn the way I had taken ?" 
 inquired John, with unusual sharpness. 
 
 Why did Mike hesitate to return an answer, 
 and wherefore came that flush upon his ill- 
 favoured features ? 
 
 " I ask your pardon, your honour,'* stam- 
 mered he. " What did you say ?" 
 
 John slowly repeated his question. 
 
 " Oh Sir ! " returned Mike, delving his hands 
 and arms into the pockets of his breeches, " I 
 heard the cob clattering along, and I judged 
 by the sound the road that you had taken." 
 
 "Yes, yes," added John — confiding, to-be- 
 led-by-a-cobweb, easily-gulled John Hardy — 
 " Yes, yes," repeated he, " true enough." 
 
 "It's a lonesome part, for a mile or so 
 farther," observed Mike, "and so I thought 
 I'd keep you company, with your honour's 
 leave, till you got clear on the right road." 
 
 "That was very considerate of ye, Mike," 
 replied his patron, pleased with the attention ; 
 " but as, for reasons of my own, I would
 
 THE OLD HALL. 249 
 
 rather proceed unattended, return, my good 
 lad; and there are five shillings for your 
 trouble." 
 
 Mike accepted the money, and then stated 
 that it was far from his wish to take it, as it 
 was not from any mercenary motive that he 
 came. 
 
 John believed him from the bottom of his 
 heart, and said so ; but if that worthy man had 
 chanced to have turned his face, and beheld 
 Mike, when he had taken a deferential leave, 
 standing with folded arras in the middle of the 
 road, laughing, grinning, and screwing his 
 countenance into all the ugly forms and comi- 
 cal grimaces within his comprehensive powers, 
 there might have been some misgiving as to the 
 cause beiDs: a correct one for his confidence. 
 
 Whether it was that Blossom anticipated a 
 certain distance must be performed as a preli- 
 minary to tasting the joys of the stable, and that 
 the quicker he moved his reluctant limbs, the 
 sooner these pleasures would be embraced, is a 
 
 M 3
 
 250 THE OLD HALL. 
 
 matter known only to that sagacious animal ; but 
 it is an undeniable fact, that he evinced a de- 
 cided disposition not only to increase his speed, 
 but to mend his pace. For, instead of jolting 
 his master after the fashion of using a pepper- 
 box, as was his wont, he literally adopted an 
 easy canter, and sped away over the frosty 
 ground upon the very best of terms with him- 
 self, his rider, and the world. 
 
 If John was surprised at this natural pheno- 
 menon, he was no less pleased with it; and 
 as he was borne through the bracing air, lightly 
 and cheerfully, his spirits mounted, and he soon 
 lost every trace of gloom and shadows of fan- 
 cied evils. 
 
 Deep and deeper still the shades of night 
 gathered around, and one by one the stars 
 peeped out glistening from their azure canopy ; 
 an endless succession of lights tipping the tree- 
 top, and flashing in the hoar frost, now crisping 
 every blade of grass that grew. The moon, 
 too, sailed above the horizon, and with the ex-
 
 THE OLD HALL. 251 
 
 ception of a few fleecy clouds, that skimmed 
 across her disk, veiling but not concealing the 
 pale rays, ofiered a broad and steady beacon to 
 guide our traveller on his way. 
 
 And now miles were gained ; and now an- 
 other, and now another, was added to the score. 
 And did Blossom — the stalwart, squabby cob, 
 begin to slacken in his speed and ardour ? Not 
 he. His will, for once, was good, and of his 
 powers a question was never raised. 
 
 Pit-a-pat, pit-a-pat, on. Blossom, on ! 
 
 Yes, past lowly thatched cottages, through 
 the lattices of which streams of warm light 
 poured from the blazing fagot and log ; and 
 up the hill, where the old windmill — a dilapi- 
 dated, rickety, creaking, squeaking old thing 
 that self-same windmill is at the best of times 
 — stands ready to grind all the grist that is 
 brought ; and past the direction-post at the four 
 cross-ways — tall and seared weeds nearly choke 
 it from observation; and as to the pompous 
 profession of being a direction-post now, there
 
 252 THE OLD HALL. 
 
 never was anything so idle, for the storms and 
 showers of the changing seasons have long since 
 expunged all sign and symbol of the where- 
 abouts to which it so pointedly referred in better 
 days ; and past the blacksmith's forge, not a 
 spark now flitting from its belching chimney ; 
 and through the shallow stream crossing the 
 road, and by the hollow tree on the village 
 green — what tales that old tree could tell if it 
 could but repeat a tithe that had been told be- 
 neath its shade ! — and past the kissing-stile at the 
 end of the village, that very often so opportunely 
 obstructed the way to church across the fields 
 — Blossom bore his master briskly and safely. 
 
 Pit-a-pat, pit-a-pat, on. Blossom, on ! 
 
 And now past great lumbering wagons, piled 
 to the apex of the span of awning with all 
 kinds of moveables, drawn by teams of great 
 dropsical horses, three abreast, and tinkling 
 bells ringing at their heads, the squabby cob 
 rattled, with pride swelling in his heart at giv- 
 ing them the " go-by."
 
 THE OLD HALL. 253 
 
 *' Yo-ho ! " hallooed the wagoner, waking 
 from his dozy winks, and comfortably stretched 
 in a heap of straw in front of the unwieldy 
 vehicle. "Yo-ho!" 
 
 " Yo-ho ! " returned John heartily ; but he 
 tightened no rein, and soon the tinkling bells 
 were heard faintly in the distance. 
 
 Pit-a-pat, pit-a-pat, on. Blossom, on ! 
 
 Up hill and down, and level, slope, and 
 slant, the squabby cob maintained his even 
 pace ; and if he puffed a little from want of use 
 to such exertion, still he was far from being 
 run to a stand-still. 
 
 Upon turning a somewhat abrupt corner in 
 the road, John became conscious that he was in 
 the immediate vicinity of a very comfortable- 
 looking inn. A tremendous savage represen- 
 tation of some unnatural monster, painted in 
 yellow, swung upon a rusty hinge above the 
 portal ; and the inhabitants of these parts, 
 being gifted with strong imaginative powers, 
 called it the Lion. It is somewhat singular.
 
 254 THE OLD HALL. 
 
 that at the moment of John's becoming sensible 
 of the Lion being so near at hand, Blossom 
 became also cognizant of the fact ; and that 
 quick-sighted, precocious, squabby cob no 
 sooner caught a glance of the Lion, than he 
 testified his desire of paying the rampant animal 
 a visit by coming to a sudden and dead stop at 
 his door. John Hardy did not roll over his 
 ears ; but it may be said that a miracle alone 
 prevented him. 
 
 *' Who-ho, who-hoo- ooo-oooo, my little fel- 
 ler ! " hallooed a voice in an expostulatory tone ; 
 and when John had quite recovered his seat, 
 he perceived, by the aid of the strong light 
 of the moon, and a glimmering lamp above 
 his head, that somebody held Blossom by the 
 bridle. 
 
 " Young man," said somebody, in a deep- 
 toned, sententious voice, " never be in a hurry. 
 
 Don't " Somebody was evidently at fault ; 
 
 " dont't do nothin' in haste what may be re- 
 pented at leisure ! "
 
 THE OLD HALL. 1^55 
 
 Nothing could be more self-evident than that 
 this sentiment was one of somebody's old musty- 
 stock, and was brought in by way of a finish. 
 
 " Dear me ! " exclaimed John, " I'm very 
 much obliged to ye, my good iriend; but I 
 had no intention of tarrying here, nor, indeed, 
 until I arrived at Exeter." 
 
 " Ex-e-ter ! " repeated somebody, dwelling 
 upon the syllables. " Humph !" 
 
 " How far is it?" asked John. 
 
 " How far is it?" repeated somebody, halt- 
 ing at each word as he delivered it. " Why, it 
 may be a matter of four miles, a little more or 
 a Kttle less, as the case maybe; but — you'll 
 excuse my saying it, young man" (somebody 
 persisted in calling John a young man, and the 
 term was not displeasing to his ears) — ^' there's 
 accommodation here for man aiid beast. Yes, 
 yes, at the Lion may be found a good, well-aired 
 bed, and a warm stable ; clean, wholesome 
 sheets, and capital straw ; chops, steaks, sound 
 oats, and sweet hay ; wines, spirits, strong beer.
 
 ^30 THE OLD HALL. 
 
 and water that can't be beat, and mayn't be 
 matched." 
 
 " You're very obliging, I'm sure," rejoined 
 John. " May I ask whether you are the land- 
 lord of this inn?" 
 . *' I am that individooal," returned the host. 
 
 " Well, then ! " added John, as if commun- 
 ing with himself, '' I think I'll stop here to- 
 night, and start early in the morning ; for I feel 
 rather wearied, and it's getting late." 
 
 " Permit me to observe. Sir," said the land- 
 lord — " as the vice-chairman of the Rummy 
 Club says every Saturday night, when we meet 
 in the best parlour — ^that such a sentiment 
 does credit to your natur.' Here, Dick, come 
 and take this gentleman's oss." 
 
 *^ Feed him well, if you please," said John, 
 dismounting, and delivering Blossom to the 
 care of a sturdy-framed lad, who made his ap- 
 pearance with alacrity. 
 
 " Look after that oss," ordered the landlord, 
 in a tone that conveyed a solemnity with it.
 
 THE OLD HALL. 25T 
 
 " as you would your mother, Dick. I need 
 say no raore. Sir," continued he ; " for that 
 boy is remarkably fond of his mother." 
 
 Leading the way, the host — a very corpu- 
 lent being, with the figure and form of a quart 
 pot — conducted John Hardy into the narrow 
 passage of the Lion. Waddling after him, for 
 his wrappers were strange impediments to his 
 gait, John hastened ; and as he arrived at a 
 little sort of a projecting window thrown up, 
 called the bar, he was particularly struck with 
 the features of an extremely pretty girl, grace- 
 fully bending over a glass of whisky toddy she 
 was engaged in mixing. 
 
 " Nancy, my dear," said the host, point- 
 ing with his thumb over his shoulder at his 
 customer, with greater significance than polite- 
 ness, " this young man will stay at the Lion 
 to-night." 
 
 Nancy curtsied and smiled, and shook some 
 very long curls that hung bobbing and dancing 
 on each side of her rosy cheeks, and, snatching
 
 258 THE OLD HALL. 
 
 a candle from a table at hand, skipped nimbly 
 before the bulky host — her excellent parent — 
 and begged John to step that way. 
 
 Preceded by the two, John Hardy was he- 
 ralded into a small and snug apartment, which, 
 from two folding doors, seemed to lead into a 
 much larger one. 
 
 " I suppose," remarked the landlord, lifting 
 a round fur cap from a brow quite devoid of 
 hair, not from any feeling of respect to his new 
 comer, but from a sensibility that he invariably 
 entertained upon entering any private room in 
 the Lion, " that you're not accustomed to these 
 roads, young man ? " 
 
 *^ No," replied John, tugging at the buckle 
 of the cape, and making many fruitless strug- 
 gles to uncase, and give himself to view ; " I 
 can't say that I am ; nor, indeed, to any other." 
 
 '^ Nor, indeed, to any other ! " slowly re- 
 peated the host. " What ! an't you a com- 
 mercial traveller, or cattle-jobber, or something 
 o' that sort?"
 
 THE OLD HALL. 259 
 
 '^ Oh dear no ! " rejoined John. " My name's 
 Hardy. I live with my Mend Mr. Lawrence, 
 at the Range ; perhaps you may have heard of 
 him, although not of me." 
 
 " Squire Lawrence — at the Range — Mr. 
 Hardy!" ejaculated the landlord^ in uncon- 
 nected sentences, and looking like a man filled 
 to overflowing with surprise. 
 
 Nancy, who had been stirring the fire into a 
 blaze, dropped the poker, and stood regarding 
 John's form, when he made himself known, 
 as if she had completely lost her presence of 
 mind. 
 
 " Not heard of you. Sir ! " at length ex- 
 claimed the host, stripping himself of his abridg- 
 ment of a coat, for he never wore a skirt to 
 this garment, and rushing to assist John in 
 taking off his layers of clothing. " Not heard 
 of you. Sir ! Tell Ned Dixon that he never 
 heard of his respected grandmother ! Yes, 
 Mr. Hardy, I'm Edward Dixon of the Lion. 
 I suppose you never heard of me ? Ha, ha.
 
 260 THE OLD HALL. 
 
 ha, ha," and then Edward Dixon laughed long 
 and loudly at the absurdity of such a suppo- 
 sition. 
 
 John, most decidedly, had not heard of such 
 an individual ; but as he felt that he should 
 wound the feelings of Edward Dixon by say- 
 ing so, he gave no reply, but joined in the 
 laugh. 
 
 " And that's Nancy Dixon/' said the land- 
 lord, pausing in dragging off the last coat that 
 remained to be stripped from John Hardy's 
 person, when he had got it as far as his elbows, 
 and thus leaving him in about as helpless a con- 
 dition as a trussed fowl. ^' That's Nancy Dixon, 
 that is," repeated he, chuckling inwardly. " I 
 suppose. Sir, you never heard of her, nor Jem 
 Sykes neither ?" and then the host of the Lion 
 made known to everybody in the house, and a 
 great many out of it^ that he was enjoying one 
 of his own jokes immensely. 
 
 " Nancy Dixon ! " exclaimed John Hardy. 
 " Dear me ! Bless my life, to be sure I have.
 
 THE OLD HALL. 261 
 
 Why, that's the name of the young damsel 
 James Sykes, the whipper-in, is to be married 
 to." 
 
 " The same. Sir," replied the host, releasing 
 John from his helpless state ; " and there she is, 
 to answer for herself," continued he, referring 
 to his daughter, by sundry jerks of a straigh- 
 tened thumb. 
 
 Nancy, blushing and confused with these per- 
 sonal remarks, resumed the poker, and made a 
 prodigious clattering among the coals and cin- 
 ders. 
 
 " I'm quite delighted with this accidental 
 meeting with you, my dear," said John, ad- 
 vancing towards Nancy, and taking her hand, 
 gently and kindly. " I have frequently heard 
 of you through my friend Harry — Mr. Law- 
 rence, I should say ; and he, I believe, through 
 Job the huntsman : and it's a great pleasure to 
 see anybody we have heard much praised, par- 
 ticularly when we're a little surprised at there 
 not being more praise bestowed."
 
 262 THE OLD HALL. 
 
 " You're very kind. Sir," replied Nancy, 
 bending a curtsy, and turning her head slightly 
 aside ; for she was unused to compliments, and 
 the blood now tingled in her cheeks from the 
 effect of John's gallantry. 
 
 " It was quite an accident your comin' here, 
 sir, it would seem," remarked the host ; " and 
 all but an accident corned of it ; for you were 
 precious near smellin' the ground when your 
 nag stopped." 
 
 " Very near, indeed," replied John, rubbing 
 his hands, and smiling; "particularly near," 
 continued he, occupying a chair, and settling 
 himself in front of the grate. "And now, Mr. 
 Dixon, what can I have ?" 
 
 "What can you have?" repeated Edward 
 Dixon, dropping his double chin upon his 
 breast, and closing his projecting light-blue, 
 goggle eyes. "Humph!" and thus deeply 
 meditating for a few seconds, the worthy host 
 seemed to be refreshing himself with a short 
 dose.
 
 THE OLD HALL. 268 
 
 " I think. Sir," suggested his (laughter, after 
 waiting a very liberal time for the bringing 
 forth of her parent's idea in a procrastinated 
 state of incubation, " I think, Sir, we can let 
 you have a broiled fowl with mushroom sauce, 
 chops, steaks, or some " 
 
 " Stay, stay," interrupted John, " don't pro- 
 ceed another step, my good girl. The broiled 
 fowl, if you please, as soon as you can ; for I'm 
 both cold and hungry." 
 
 Quickly the brisk, comely, neat, pretty little 
 Nancy Dixon hastened firom the apartment to 
 fulfil the order in the most tempting and cap- 
 tivating manner that her culinary knowledge 
 would permit. 
 
 "I believe. Sir," observed the landlord, 
 waking from his trance, " that there's no occa- 
 sion for my putting my finger in the pie, now. 
 The affair's settled." 
 
 " Quite so, my friend, thank ye," returned 
 John. 
 
 " Very good," added Edward Dixon ; and
 
 264 THE OLD HALL. 
 
 then, with a slow and deliberate step, he 
 turned upon his heel and quitted the apart- 
 ment. 
 
 It has been before stated, that the room 
 in which John was located was snug and cozy ; 
 and so he thought upon taking a survey of it. 
 For there were bright scarlet curtains drawn 
 across the windows, and little sketches of 
 '^ contented shepherds," happy gardeners," 
 '^ merry cow-boys," "jolly sheep-shearers," and 
 many other pictures of such -like blissful mor- 
 tals, in corresponding states of beatitudey* hung 
 around; and over the mantel-shelf there was 
 the print of a fat man, with a boyish counte- 
 nance, lifting a tankard of foaming ale to his 
 lips, and very like the figure of Bacchus some- 
 times seen mounted on a hogshead, half a 
 century older, and more decently attired ; and 
 this old toper appeared to be almost suffocated 
 with mirth. John looked at this figure of fun, 
 until he felt a powerful inclination to laugh 
 too ; and at length, yielding to it, he burst into
 
 THE OLD HALL. ^5 
 
 a hearty roar, and kept it up until his sides 
 ached again. 
 
 " Dear me !" ejaculated John, forcing a check 
 with difficulty upon his mirth, " what a stu- 
 pid old fellow I am, to be sure ; some people 
 would really consider me fit only for a lunatic 
 asylum." 
 
 Just as this soliloquy was finished, the door 
 opened with a measured movement, and in 
 stalked Edward Dixon, bearing in his hand a 
 reeking glass of some liquid mixture or other. 
 With a portentous expression upon his heavy 
 countenance, the landlord approached John 
 Hardy^ and in silence proffered him the well- 
 filled goblet. 
 
 " Oh," exclaimed John, " what's this ?" 
 
 Edward Dixon made no reply; but gave a 
 sage nod, and forced the glass into John's 
 hand. 
 
 There was no mistaking this pantomimic 
 indication; and so John returned an answer 
 by taking a sip of a comprehensive form, and 
 
 VOL. I. N
 
 THE OLD HALL. 
 
 said, turning his eyes to the ceiling, "that it 
 was truly delicious — immensely so." 
 
 " I should say it just was," returned Edward 
 Dixon, " or I must have lost my reputation. 
 A reputation. Sir," continued the landlord, 
 tapping the middle of his waistcoat, reaching 
 nearly to his knees, " that I dearly prize, 
 for mixin' of punch." 
 
 "I am certain that you well deserve it," 
 responded John, taking another pull at the 
 punch ; " I may say richly deserve it," con- 
 tinued he, emptying the glass. 
 
 " A cold stomach," remarked Edward Dixon 
 theoretically, " knows the value of hot punch. 
 I thought it better to take yours in what I 
 may call the nick o' time, Sir, to show what 
 oould be done in the matter of punch ; and it 
 does me good to see that merit meets with a 
 just reward. Now, if I had postponed the 
 visit of a glass to your lining, Mr. Hardy, until 
 after the respects paid to it by the broiled fowl, 
 you wouldn't have felt the glow. Sir, that is
 
 THE OLD HALL. 267 
 
 now spreading itself all through your wheels 
 and mainsprings. Not that I'm throwing 
 cold water on the broiled fowl and mushroom 
 sauce ! No, no, no. Anything my Nancy 
 takes in hand," said the proud father, " must 
 not be spoken of sHghtingly." 
 
 " Am I, then, to be indebted to your daugh- 
 ter for my supper ?" asked John Hardy. 
 
 " You are. Sir," replied the landlord ; and 
 if it's a matter that will give you the smallest 
 sort of comfort, ye never need pay her nor me 
 either." 
 
 "Tut, tut!" hurriedly rejoined John. "I 
 merely meant, indebted to her kind atten- 
 tion." 
 
 " I beg your pardon, Mr. Hardy," returned 
 the host, " but I'm a plain matter of fact. Yes, 
 Sir, you see in me, Ewdard Dixon, not the es- 
 sence of ginger, but the essence of truth." 
 
 John scarcely knew what reply to give to 
 this strange piece of egotism, and so he merely 
 gave a nod, conveying an acquiescence or dis- 
 
 n2
 
 268 THE OLD HALL. 
 
 agreement, or any kind, sort, or form of reply- 
 that might be agreeable to the landlord's senti- 
 ments. 
 
 ** Yes, Sir," continued Edward Dixon, fold- 
 ing his arms across his capacious breast, '*IVe 
 always walked upright, talked upright, laid 
 down upright ; that is my opinions ; and, as 
 King Solomon says — I think it's King Solo- 
 mon, Mr. Hardy — He who walks in righteous 
 ways, in an easy chair may end his days ! 
 That's my hope. Sir." 
 
 John trusted that the hope would be rea- 
 lized. 
 
 " Now there's my Nancy," said the landlord, 
 flying off at another tangent, " is a very fair 
 sample of what may be done in bringing up an 
 infant in the way it should walk. / did that, 
 Mr. Hardy," continued Edward Dixon, placing 
 unmistakeable stress upon the pronoun. " She 
 was left an unprotected little sucker, at the 
 early age of two days," said he, lowering his 
 voice to a pathetic tone. "Yes, Mr. Hardy,
 
 THE OLD HALL, 269 
 
 her mother, and my Sally, left us the Lion to 
 ourselves, with scarcely any notice beforehand ; 
 and firom that moment / became her nurse. 
 You'll understand," and now he dropped his 
 words into a confidential whisper, for the 
 broiled fowl was audibly on its way up stairs, 
 " I don't mean that I was the wet-nurse ; that 
 motherly duty. Sir, was performed by Susan 
 Colly, our blacksmith's wife ; but barring this, 
 Nancy, as you now see her, is the result of her 
 father's training." 
 
 " I'm sure," responded John, ^' that she con- 
 fers upon you very great credit." 
 
 And now the broiled fowl made its appear- 
 ance, cai'ried by Dick, the attendant upon Blos- 
 som, acting in the double capacity of ostler and 
 waiter, on a large tray, surrounded by countless 
 accompaniments, and followed by Nancy, with 
 her hands full of the assistants to the creature 
 comforts. 
 
 After inquiring after the state and condition 
 of Blossom, and learning that the squabby cob
 
 270 THE OLD HALL. 
 
 was as happy as good oats, hay, straw, and a 
 warm stable could render him — more he never 
 required — John drew his chair to the well- 
 filled, well-appointed table, and commenced, to 
 the infinite gratification of Edward Dixon, an 
 onslaught upon the dainties spread before him. 
 May good digestion wait on appetite, excel- 
 lent, glorious John Hardy ! for ye count not 
 on the coming, ay, and near, too, adventurej* 
 of this night. Erst thy snore becomes loud 
 enough to summon Jack o' Dreams to play 
 frolics in thy brain, well may'st thou say — 
 
 " Sleep, gentle sleep, 
 Nature's soft nnrse, how have I frighted thee, 
 That thou no more will weigh my eyelids down. 
 And steep my senses in forgetfulness ?"
 
 CHAPTER X, 
 
 ** Enjoy the honey-heavy dew of slumber : 
 Thou hast no figures, nor no fantasies, 
 Which busy care draws in the brains of men ; 
 Therefore thou sleep' st so sound." 
 
 The past, present, and to come ; age of youth 
 and youth of age, health of sickness and sick- 
 ness of health; of strength, when tottering 
 weakness unstrings the well-girt thews and si- 
 news of manly vigour, and of helpless, weak, 
 and sinking debility; when the blood leap? 
 through the veins, and in every intricacy of 
 the frame not a throb of the pulse indicates 
 a nerve to be disordered — such is the stuff 
 that dreams are made of I 
 
 Ay, the old, when wrapped in slumber deep.
 
 272 THE OLD HALL. 
 
 are led back to scenes fresh and fanciful, which, 
 in their wakeful moments, would appear but 
 shades of faint imageries and things all but 
 bleared from their memory. 'Tis then that the 
 games of careless boyhood are played again; 
 the cricket ball is whizzed by the well-directed 
 bat across the village green, and the shout and 
 whoop ! ring and echo as in the days of yore. 
 Meadows daisy-pied, and green lanes, flanked 
 with blooming May-flowers, wild and beautiful, 
 are trod and wandered through again, and the 
 heart's first chosen one, with all the flush of 
 generous early days, is once more a companion 
 loving and beloved, in those heaven-blessed 
 wanderings, never to be efiaced from the re- 
 collection. 
 
 And then manhood's ambitious struggle for 
 fame and fortune ! The days, the nights, the 
 months, the years of toil ! The hour — the 
 moment that is to crown the victor, or to crush 
 the vanquished — all pass like the quick succes- 
 sive changes in the kaleidescope through the
 
 THE OLD HALL. 273 
 
 prism of the mind ; and at the first crow of the 
 wakeful cock, or the buzzing of an idle fly, the 
 sleeper wakes — a depressed, old, and friendless 
 man. Such is the stuff that dreams are made 
 of! 
 
 Perhaps he had slept long, and yet it seemed 
 that his eyelids had scarcely been closed for 
 a few short moments, when John Hardy — a 
 tenant in full occupation and possession of the 
 best bed of which the Lion could boast, and 
 after being " tucked up" and inspected as he 
 recHned and was wedged between a double 
 row of the soft feathers of the bird in lineal 
 descent to that gaining the capitol of ancient 
 Rome, by Edward Dixon, and being pro- 
 nounced by that bigoted individual, " as com- 
 fortable as a buttered muffin" — awoke. The 
 act of waking was not one of those yawning, 
 gaping, stretching, reluctant separations from 
 the tender and soothing embraces of Somnus: 
 not a lingering resignation to obliviousness of 
 the world without at this moment, and a heavy- 
 
 ^ o
 
 274 THE OLD HALL. 
 
 eyed, winking, blinking, uncertain conscious- 
 ness, the next and succeeding one. Quick, sud- 
 den and abrupt, John Hardy found himself 
 as wide awake as ever he was in his exist- 
 ence, which, metaphorically speaking, was not 
 nearly up to the mark in the estimation of Mike 
 Crouch, Peter Parkins, and such like worthies, 
 that the world and its ways deem it expedient 
 for the vision of mortals to be. 
 
 There, wrapped in his hoUand, John sat bolt 
 upright in the bed, with a hand grasping the 
 tassel of his nightcap, in the act to draw and 
 hurl it from his head ; but still a laudable hesi- 
 tation to be rash, withheld the deed. 
 
 The rushlight, placed, for security, in the 
 washing basin, at the farthest corner from the 
 bed, and in which were a few teaspoonfuls of 
 water, as an additional protection against the 
 fiery element, and yet such was the pale, con- 
 sumptive, flickering flame, that it appeared 
 scarcely capable of keeping itself in, much less 
 of igniting anything besides — threw an uncer-
 
 THE OLD HALL. 275 
 
 tain, indistinct light around and about, and 
 made John's substantial and material body, 
 visible above the bed-clothes, look somewhat 
 misty, and of the ghostly order. 
 
 There could be no doubt about it, no doubt 
 whatever ; although John dived the end of his 
 little finger into his left ear, and extracted the 
 piece of wool therein ensconced, that he might 
 hear the better, as, forty years ago, he caught 
 a cold in the organ, and ever since that time 
 it had been his wont to apply this as a guar- 
 dian and protective; — there could be no doubt, 
 whatever, it must be repeated, that the cause 
 of John Hardy's disturbance, from slumber 
 sweet and profound, was the conglomeration 
 of many words from several mouths, hallooed 
 from a diversity of tongues, in all the keys that 
 a lover of discord could desire. 
 
 "Charles, de-a-r Charles," sobbed a woman's 
 voice on the other side of the wainscot, sup- 
 posed to be intended as a division between the 
 two rooms ; but even Edward Dixon had strong.
 
 276 THE OLD HALL. 
 
 misgivings as to the feasability of the hypo- 
 thesis, and has been known to strain his sight 
 between the many cracks in the panels, and to 
 thump his knuckles sharply on one side, and 
 to run quickly round, in order to catch the 
 sound on the opposite. 
 
 " Faithless woman !" ejaculated a voice, in 
 a melodramatic tone. " Faithless wom — " 
 
 " I pledge you my honour — " interrupted a 
 third speaker. 
 
 " I pledge you my honour. Sir," repeated the 
 interpleader, '^ that you are lying — " 
 
 " Lying?" thundered the melodramatic voice. 
 
 "Under a mistake," concluded the inter- 
 cessor, in an oily, winning, slippery, eel-like, 
 wriggling tone ; and then there were certain 
 p — pu — puffs, leading the listner to suppose the 
 sentence might have been followed by clouds 
 issuing from the burning and narcotic weed, 
 " tobacco," from lips engaged in clasping a 
 plebeian yard of clay, a luxurious hookah, or 
 the more fashionable taper tip of a cigar.
 
 THE OLD HALL. 277 
 
 " My h — us — ba — nd ! " exclaimed the fe- 
 male, from behind something of the choking 
 order — ^perhaps a handkerchief. 
 
 *' I can't — I can't — I cannot stand it ! " re- 
 joined — from the solemnity of the delivery, 
 John Hardy concluded that it was the husband 
 who declared his inability of maintaining an 
 erect position. 
 
 '^ Pardon me," returned the third speaker ; 
 for there were evidently but three speakers 
 engaged in the discussion, " you had much 
 better sit down and be comfortable." 
 
 ^^ Sit down and be comfortable ! " repeated 
 the husbandlike-tongue, between a shriek and 
 a roar. " Is not this my wedding-day ? Has 
 not my Amelia — my wife, eloped with a viper 
 who I thought my iriend ? — Sit down and be 
 comfortable! Preposterous supposition!" 
 
 " All quite true, certainly," added the 
 speaker, who seemed to be occupied between 
 smoking, talking, and listening, and which 
 respective indulgencies it appeared that he was
 
 278 THE OLD HALL. 
 
 reducing to the focus of one enjoyment; " but 
 then, taking all the circumstances into consi- 
 deration, you will find it much more satisfac- 
 tory," continued he, " to wave the ideal, and 
 come to facts." 
 
 '" Yes, yes," returned the womanly accents, 
 " come to facts, in the name of Heaven ! " 
 
 " Have I not come to facts ?" asked the appa- 
 rently injured stranger. " Did I not arrive 
 here and find 'both of ye at the Lion, this road- 
 side inn? And are not these facts — strong, 
 palpable, undeniable facts?" 
 
 " To be sure they are," replied the interlo- 
 cutor, in a cool, unruffled tone, at direct vari- 
 ance with the accuser's. " But what of that ? 
 The very admission renders the arrangement 
 so much the more easy. When a circumstance 
 is reduced to a positive conclusion, there's an 
 end to all quibbling, prevaricating, questioning, 
 doubting, and all that sort of thing. Now, here 
 we are, and we must bear the brunt of the acci- 
 dent, Sniphey."
 
 THE OLD HALL. 279 
 
 " Accident!^'' ejaculated the person evidently 
 addressed as Sniphey. " Do you call running 
 away with a man's wife, on the day he was 
 married, an accident, Tobias?" continued he, 
 in a superlatively iudignant tone. 
 
 " Pure and unadulterated, I stake you my 
 reputation," responded Tobias. 
 
 A laugh followed; but conveying no asso- 
 ciation of mirth. It was one of those hollow, 
 empty haw-haws, which may be supposed to 
 emanate from the fiend when stirring up the 
 furnace of fallen spiidts. 
 
 '' Oh Char — ar — r — ^r — les ! " exclaimed the 
 female voice. It was your fau — au — It. You 
 did it!" 
 
 '' Yes, Mr. Sniphey," added Tobias, and his 
 voice became many degrees firmer and more 
 authoritative, " you did it, and I am sorry for 
 ye." 
 
 '^ I!" screeched Sniphey—'' I did it?" 
 
 " Yes, sir," returned the representative of 
 the softer sex, changing her tone and manner
 
 ^80 THE OLD HALL. 
 
 from the supplicating to — coarse maybe the 
 term, but there is no other so graphical — the 
 " bullying." " Yes, Sii," repeated she, and 
 approaching her beginning-to-be-cowed hus- 
 band, until it appeared to John Hardy that her 
 nose was within touch and miss of his. " It 
 was your shameful, unhandsome, unmanly, de- 
 spicable shocking neglect of me, your bride, 
 Sir, that led to the teaching you this les- 
 son ; and, if any repugnance of conscience be 
 felt for your unheard of cru — cru— elty" — the 
 passionate outburst of grief which followed, 
 completely swamped and swallowed up the 
 completion of the sentence. 
 
 " Sniphey ! " said Tobias whoever-it-might- 
 be, " I can make allowances for a man's wound- 
 ed vanity at finding his wife bolting (bolting is 
 a sporting phrase) immediately, or within an 
 hour or two of the religious ceremony which 
 assigns him the right and title of so calling her. 
 I say," continued Tobias, seriously, " that I 
 can make the allowances of a Christian in such
 
 THE OLD HALL. 281 
 
 a matter ; but, when the cause may be directly 
 traced to his own wilful negligence and " 
 
 " Wilful negligence ! " interrupted Sniphey. 
 
 " Most unquestionably," rejoined Tobias. 
 " What did you, let me ask, after plighting 
 your troth at the altar?" 
 
 " Eat my breakfast," replied the humbled 
 Sniphey, as if the admission came involunta- 
 rily. 
 
 " But after that. Sir, after that," rejoined his 
 wedded but unbedded half; and she brought 
 the flat palms of her hands sharply together, 
 by way of a finish. 
 
 " My dear Amelia," pleaded the now beaten 
 Sniphey, " I acknowledge that I was wrong ; 
 but still two wrongs don't make a right." 
 
 " Yes they do, Mr. Sniphey," returned To- 
 bias, " yes they do. Sir, and I'U prove it. If 
 you wrong the law, what is the consequence ? 
 The law, very likely (most immensely so) takes 
 your money out of your pocket to the wrong of 
 your creditors, wife, and children, poor rela-
 
 THE OLD HALL. 
 
 tions and connexions ; and yet people generally, 
 or, as they are called, the world, will say that 
 it served you right. Can anything be plainer ?*' 
 
 Sniphey seemed, from his silence, dumb- 
 founded. 
 
 " If you'll ask for my forgiveness in suitable 
 terms and manner," said Amelia, " I may be 
 induced to grant it." 
 
 " Has it come to this ! " exclaimed Sniphey, 
 again, what may be called, " boiling up," and 
 at the same time, there was a sudden slap, as 
 if a fly or a gnat had been crushed upon the 
 bald part of his brow. 
 
 '^ To be sure it has," replied Tobias, " and 
 very properly so. Down on your knees, Sni- 
 phey." 
 
 There was a pause in the proceedings — a 
 long, doubtful, lingering pause, big with the 
 fate of Sniphey. 
 
 " No," at length ejaculated that individual ; 
 and, as it came from his lips, it sounded not 
 unlike a cough.
 
 THE OLD HALL. 28S 
 
 " Very good/' responded Tobias. " Am I, 
 then, to understand by this intrusion upon my 
 privacy that you require anything more of me, 
 now that I have yielded undisturbed possession 
 of your wife? If so, speak; if not, be off, 
 Sniphey ; for I would enjoy the next whiff of 
 the weed in comfort, and that must, of neces- 
 sity, be in your absence, Sniphey." 
 
 Upon the heels of this reply there was an 
 indistinct mui'mur, and John Hardy fancied 
 that the sound bore a close affinity to " satis- 
 faction." 
 
 There was a half-smothered scream ; it might 
 have been more effectual if the handkerchief 
 had been closely pressed across the lips, more 
 particularly at one corner. 
 
 " Oh, certainly, to be sure !" observed Tobias ; 
 " all men have a right to be satisfied, and a re- 
 presentative of the Snipheys has as good right 
 to the demand as any other. " By the way," 
 continued the speaker, " here's a brace of pis- 
 tols ;" and scarcely had he spoken, when the
 
 284 THE OLD HALL. 
 
 scear clicking in the tumbler gave evidence 
 that he was trying the strength of the triggers. 
 
 Now, John Hardy felt as conscious as if his 
 eyes had not been obstructed by the thin and 
 dilapidated panel professing to divide his dormi- 
 tory from the apartment in which this examina- 
 tion was taking place, that these pistols were his 
 own ; and the reflection was also mingled with 
 the knowledge that they were loaded — ^loaded 
 with real powder and bullets. The very idea 
 occasioned John's teeth to chatter, and a tre- 
 mor vibrated through his frame like aspen 
 leaves in a bustling wind. 
 
 ^'Goodness gracious!" exclaimed that little 
 worthy man, while the scanty white hairs be- 
 neath his nightcap became stiff with horror at 
 the contemplation of a deed of blood. ** Good- 
 ness gracious ! " repeated he, and he clutched 
 the bedclothes in a sort of convulsion," the man 
 is surely not rash enough to touch my pistols !" 
 
 "Sniphey," said a voice, while the sharp 
 clicking of a deadly weapon announced the fact
 
 THE OLD HALL. 285 
 
 of its being prepared for service, " take your 
 choice of these playthings." 
 
 " Playthings !" repeated John Hardy, turning 
 his eyes to the chintz canopy above his head. 
 
 "Take a respectful farewell of your wife, 
 Sniphey," continued the speaker, in a cool, de- 
 termined manner ; " place yourself in yonder 
 corner of the room, and I'll send you to another 
 and to'a better world in a canter." 
 
 " No, no, no," hurriedly ejaculated the wo- 
 manly voice; "Charles, my hus-hus-band, don't 
 be fool-hardy !" 
 
 "Very proper advice, certainly," rejoined 
 Tobias, " and worthy of regard; but when ho- 
 nour calls, cowards only should be deaf. Eh, 
 Sniphey?" 
 
 There was a dull, gloomy, dogged silence, 
 which was unbroken for the longest half-minute 
 that ever drew its weary length along the life 
 of John Hardy. To him it seemed as if Time 
 had forgotten to press on, and was making a 
 pause in his flight.
 
 THE OLD HALL. 
 
 I'm resolved !" at length cried a voice, which 
 the listener at once recognised as belonging to 
 Sniphey, " and I'll be shot — " 
 
 John waited to hear no more ; had he done 
 so, the completion of the sentence — ^' if I don't 
 call the constable y " might have made a strange 
 difference in his proceedings. As it was, how- 
 ever, he threw aside the coverings of his bed, 
 sprung upon the floor^ and, forgetful of his all 
 but primitive state, rushed to the folding doors 
 which opened into the sitting-room, where he 
 had regaled himself with the broiled fowl and 
 mushroom sauce, and threw them back abruptly, 
 almost violently, upon their hinges. 
 
 A scream, loud, shrill, and piercing, burst 
 from the tongue of a female form, as John's 
 rotundity of figure made itself clear, defined, 
 and palpable within. 
 
 " I beg your pardon," commenced John, 
 bowing politely to the three strangers before 
 him, one of whom was a tall, thin, spare-rib of 
 a woman, with a long vinegar countenance;
 
 THE OLD HALL. 287 
 
 another a short, fat, tubby man, with light flaxen 
 hair and a pink skin under it, and a face as 
 round, smooth, and pale as a white wafer ; and 
 the third, a tall, powerfully-built man, of dark 
 complexion, with a profusion of strong black 
 hair curling crisply in one bunch over his head. 
 " I beg your pardon," repeated John, taking a 
 modest glance at each of the three composing 
 his audience ; " but I hope the cause will jus- 
 tify my intrusion — I heard, accidentally, I as- 
 sure ye, words of quarrel — high, threatening 
 language." 
 
 From the summit of John Hardy's cerebrum 
 to the ends of his stockingless and unslippered 
 feet, he was subjected to the inspection, by a 
 slow and measured gaze, of the respective mem- 
 bers forming the group. 
 
 All seemed speechless from astonishment. 
 At length the pause was broken by the vinegar- 
 faced, spare-rib of a woman, throwing herself 
 upon the neck of the tubby man with flaxen 
 hair, and shrieking, as she hid her ill-favoured
 
 288 THE OLD HALL. 
 
 countenance in his bosom. " It is a man, 
 Charles, my husband ; it*s a man without his 
 breeches !" 
 
 '^ Hush, my love, hush !" returned the little 
 man, patting the back of his love as if she was 
 suffering from the sensation of choking. " Com- 
 pose yourself, my Amelia ; compose yourself." 
 
 " Lead me from the room," added she in a 
 hoarse whisper, " or I shall faint." 
 
 Doing her bidding, the compliant husband 
 assisted her out of the room, and the door 
 closed upon the couple. 
 
 '^1 trust," said John, addressing the dark 
 stranger remaining, and who stood staring at 
 the extraordinary figure presented to his view 
 in mute wonder, " I trust," repeated he, " that 
 I have not driven the lady away ?" 
 
 " Driven the lady away !" repeated the stran- 
 ger. " Would you have her remain in the 
 presence of a man without his — " 
 
 The speaker pointed significantly to John's 
 exposed shins.
 
 THE OLD HALL. 289 
 
 '* Oh dear me !" ejaculated John, looking at 
 his legs, " you refer to my breeches, or, more 
 properly, to a want of them. I really beg a 
 thousand pardons ; but in my haste to prevent 
 the shedding of blood, I quite overlooked that 
 circumstance." 
 
 " Ha, ha, ha," laughed the stranger, " ha, ha, 
 ha ; " and he laughed both long and loudly, and 
 until the tears poured down his cheeks. "But 
 I forgot," said he, getting a check upon his 
 mii'th, *^ you're unacquainted with Sniphey, or 
 you would never have been so hastily disturbed 
 from your bed with such a fear." 
 
 "Was it all sham, then?" innocently in- 
 quired John. 
 
 " By no means," answered the stranger. 
 " However, go and put on your breeches, 
 before I answer any more questions." 
 
 " Perhaps," rejoined John, doubtftdly, " I 
 ought no longer to intrude, as there seems 
 to be not any likelihood of murder or man- 
 slaughter." 
 
 VOL. 1. o
 
 290 THE OLD HALL. 
 
 " You may be wanted, notwithstanding," 
 returned the stranger, " and as you have 
 volunteered your services, I shall require their 
 performance. Get your breeches." 
 
 Ever ready to be of service, if that service 
 was to confer a benefit, John retired for a few 
 seconds, and re-appeared with his legs encased 
 in the desired articles, and wrapped up in one 
 of his great-coats. 
 
 " Come," said the stranger, pushing a chair 
 opposite his own, by the fire burning briskly 
 
 in the grate, " you now look more like a " 
 
 he was about to add '^ man," but upon closer 
 examination of John's form, he substituted 
 " mummy." 
 
 John thought this remarkably facetious, and 
 broke into a loud fit of laughter. 
 
 " That's a hearty sound. Sir ! " said the stran- 
 ger, admiringly, " a jolly, good, wholesome, 
 healthy laugh. I love to hear a man laugh 
 in that style. Let me mix ye a glass of brandy 
 and water."
 
 THE OLD HALL. 291 
 
 John began to plead a number of polite ex- 
 cuses, and stated, over and over again, that he 
 never drank moret han a certain quantity of 
 a night, and that had ah'eadv been deposited 
 within. 
 
 The stranger took not the slightest notice of 
 John Hardy's excuses, couched in the plainest 
 English that was ever delivered, any more 
 than if they had been made in Japanese, 
 Chinese, or some unknown tongue spoken ten 
 thousand years ago, and of which there is 
 neither record nor syllable left to tell what it 
 was. He filled a capacious goblet to the brim 
 with as dark mahogany-coloured a mixture as 
 eyes ever beheld in the shape of brandy and 
 water. 
 
 " There/' said he, proffering the glass, 
 "sip that. You must be chilly from a warm 
 bed." 
 
 Well ! John sipped ; and, as he did so, he, 
 like anybody else, could not refrain from mak- 
 ing a slight cursory examination of his com- 
 
 o 2
 
 THE OLD HALL. 
 
 panion. As before has been stated, he was a 
 tall and strong-limbed man, with a dark olive 
 complexion, and a luxuriant head of jet-black 
 curls. There was a peculiarity about the ex- 
 pression of his eyes and mouth — a sly, cunning 
 look about the former, while the latter seemed 
 pursed with satirical humour — which no close 
 observer could mistake as the characteristics of 
 the affections within, 
 
 " Your health. Sir," said he, raising his 
 glass, " and let me hope this nocturnal disturb- 
 ance will not prove prejudicial to it." 
 
 John thanked him politely and warmly for 
 this friendly wish, and pledged his own senti- 
 ment — which was quite as benevolent — more 
 deeply, and that was to the last drop in his 
 glass. 
 
 Things progress strangely fast, sometimes, 
 when brandy and water acts as a stimulant, 
 and, perhaps, never did they proceed at a 
 gredter pace than on the present occasion. 
 
 The stranger smoked a little, short, Dutch
 
 THE OLD HALL. 
 
 pipe, with a disproportionably large bowl, and 
 at short intervals, occupied in keeping the 
 tobacco burning, began to inform John Hardy 
 of the cause of the extraordinary scene which, 
 if he had not exactly witnessed, he was fully 
 acquainted with by the sense of hearing. 
 
 " The whole afiair lies in a nut-shell," said 
 the stranger, carelessly running his fingers 
 through his bushy locks. " My name is Tobias 
 Smith, Sir — the family of the Smiths, as you 
 may be aware, are well known throughout the 
 civilized world — that of the biped in whose 
 safety your best feelings of humanity were 
 awakened, Charles Leo Sniphey. About a 
 month since, we became acquainted, in conse- 
 quence of my turning the corner of a street 
 sharply, in Exeter, and knocking him down 
 backwards, to the injury of the behind part of 
 his person generally; and from that moment 
 we became, what I may call, bosom friends. 
 The principal secret that I had to communi- 
 cate, was the one that all my acquaintances
 
 294 THE OLD HALL. 
 
 discover, sooner or later — an unfortunate want 
 of money; and, in order to evince my con- 
 fidence in Sniphey, I told him, without re- 
 serve, the state of my finances, and within an 
 hour of our introduction, borrowed twenty 
 pounds of him. Well, Sir," continued the 
 stranger, after sending a thick volume of 
 smoke curling upwards to the ceiling, " in ac- 
 knowledgment of this trust, Sniphey informed 
 me of the whole particulars of his birth, 
 parentage, education, hopes, disappointments,, 
 and joys — with which details I shall not trou 
 ble you — and, among the rest of his affairs, in- 
 formed me that he was about to be married to 
 the widow of his departed master, an opulent 
 auctioneer." 
 
 John felt rather dozy at this stage of the 
 proceedings, and his head began to sway to 
 atnd fro. But, shaking off the dull effects of 
 sleep, he, smilingly, expressed a hope that his 
 companion would proceed. 
 
 " The tale is nearly ended," resumed the
 
 THE OLD HALL. 295 
 
 stranger, commencing to mingle tlie ingre- 
 dients for a fresli glass. ^' I was very fre- 
 quently with Sniphey at his lodgings after this, 
 especially at the times of dinner and supper ; 
 and, at the end of a week from the time of 
 knocking him backwards, we were inseparable. 
 He introduced me to his intended, the acid- 
 featured, bony woman, whom your want of 
 breeches conferred the benefit of getting rid of 
 before any reasonable expectation of so doing 
 presented itself, and the little attentions that I 
 paid the remains of antiquity, led her quickly 
 to imagine that I was a captive to her scraggy 
 charms. I like a joke immensely, and rather 
 fanned this flame of conceit than threw any 
 damper upon it; and the consequence was, 
 that, by the time the wedding-day arrived — 
 which was this extremely cold one — the old 
 lady, instead of being desirous of becoming 
 the better half of Charles Leo Sniphey, was 
 far more ambitious of my claiming her as the 
 more valuable portion of Tobias Smith. Now,
 
 296 THE OLD HALL. 
 
 although I am free to confess, that I should 
 have liked her money, yet I need not say ta 
 you, Sir — a man of taste, I am sure — that 
 a few hundreds were insufficient to gild so re- 
 pugnant a pill ; I therefore fought shy, and 
 Sniphey conducted his betrothed, this morn- 
 ing, to the altar. The ceremony — did jou 
 ever hear the ceremony?" inquired the narra- 
 tor, flying off at a tangent. 
 
 John replied, that he never had had the 
 pleasure. 
 
 " It's a dull, matter-of-fact sort of proceed- 
 ing," rejoined the stranger, " and far from 
 contributing to cheer one's spirits early in the 
 day. However, the ceremony over, we, that 
 is, Mr. and Mrs. Sniphey, and the bridesmaid 
 — an old char-woman, hired expressly for the 
 occasion, for Mrs. Sniphey does not appear to 
 have a friend of any kind or description in this 
 wide world — sat down to breakfast at the 
 Old London Inn; and, if you had seen the 
 meal that that Sniphey swallowed. Sir, you
 
 THE OLD HALL. 297 
 
 never would have forgotten it. E-ump-steaks, 
 smothered with onions, sausages, tripe, boiled 
 and fried, slices of fat ham, eggs, hot rolls, 
 and rounds of buttered toast, disappeared down 
 that pasty, poultice- faced individual's throat 
 in such quantities, that, where store-room 
 could be found is, and will be, a matter of 
 speculation with me for the remainder of my 
 existence. After visible effects of repletion, 
 the gorged bridegroom quaffed a pint of Dublin 
 stout, and two glasses of brandy ; and, throw- 
 ing himself at full stretch upon the sofa in the 
 room, gave himself up to the enjoyment of a 
 deep, thick, snoring sleep. 
 
 " And now. Sir," continued the speaker, 
 " I must, having arrived at nearly a termina- 
 tion of my condensed narrative, make a short 
 break in the links of the chain of events, and 
 give you to understand the causes by which 
 my subsequent conduct were actuated. It has 
 been the absorbing object of my life to create 
 a stir — by some it is called a sensatign — when- 
 
 o 3
 
 298 THE OLD HALL. 
 
 ever and wherever I could. As flies love su- 
 gar, children toys, women dress, clergymen their 
 tithes, aldermen turtle soup, soldiers war^ doc- 
 tors disease, and lawyers quarrels, so / delight 
 in stirs. Give me a stir, and I am happy; 
 without it, I am wretched. The poet says, 
 * what is life without its pleasures V I, Tobias 
 Smith, say — what is life without its stirs ? 
 Read, write, make love, fight, anything for a 
 stir. These are my sentiments." 
 
 John remarked, that they were singular; 
 but there was no accounting for taste. 
 
 " Accounting for taste !" repeated the stran- 
 ger, elevating his voice the more at every con- 
 secutive syllable. " No, my dear Sir ; look at 
 that Sniphey, and then say no more of taste. 
 Well, when Sniphey had so far forgotten his 
 wife and himself, as to snore most discord- 
 antly, I, in the winning manner of an eternal 
 slave, began to make love to the bride ; and it 
 took something less than a quarter of an hour 
 to prevail upon the old lady to order and — I
 
 THE OLD HALL. 299 
 
 may add, by way of parentliesis — pay for a 
 single horse-fly, to creep — not rwi, mark you 
 — away with me to this inn, just for the pur- 
 pose of creating a stir. "We were a long time 
 on the road, having to get out and walk up the 
 hills, from the weakness of the animal; but 
 at length here we arrived, as you, I suppose, 
 had given up possession of this room; for 
 there were the battered remains of a fowl on a 
 dish when we entered it, and other odds and 
 ends, which might lead one to suppose that 
 a gentleman had just finished his supper. A 
 couple of hours afterwards, the bewildered Sni- 
 phey, having learned the route we had taken, 
 followed us on the box-seat of the night- 
 coach, which stops here to change horses 
 about twelve o'clock ; and that which followed 
 you are, doubtlessly, aware of" 
 
 " The coincidence is very remarkable," ob- 
 served John Hardy. 
 
 " Got up just for a stir, Sir, I assure ye," 
 replied the stranger ; " and if you had not come
 
 SOO THE OLD HALL. 
 
 in when you did, I should have blazed off that 
 pistol," continued he, " and stirred up Sni- 
 phey's fears pretty considerably, and everybody 
 in the Lion who may be now asleep." 
 
 " I suppose," said John, giving himself a 
 shake, as if under the chilling influence of the 
 dying cinders in the grate, " that the gentle- 
 man will not return to renew the quarrel ?" 
 
 '' You need be under no apprehension on 
 that score," replied Tobias Smith ; " for I shall 
 take my leave immediately, and leave Sniphey 
 to settle the account. Have another glass of 
 brandy and water ?" 
 
 John declined, and rose to take his leave. 
 
 " You're going," said the stranger, noticing 
 the movement. " Well ! I cannot hope that 
 you will stay any longer from bed, and you 
 need be under no farther apprehension from a 
 stir on my account." 
 
 John hoped not, and, although he hesitated 
 to shake hands with such a doubtful charac- 
 ter as his companion undoubtedly was, yet.
 
 THE OLD HALL. 301 
 
 after a short pause, he gave him a friendly 
 grasp, and turned upon his heel to take his 
 departure. 
 
 " God bless you !" said the stranger. " By 
 the way," continued he, as John Hardy was 
 just becoming lost to sight within his dormi- 
 tory, " can you direct me to a place called the 
 Range, a few miles fr'om here ?" 
 
 " The Range !" repeated John, standing still, 
 and looking like a man astonished beyond ex 
 pression. 
 
 That's the name of the spot," replied Tobias 
 Smith, " that I shall start for at once, although 
 it's yet too early for the light." 
 
 John Hardy had a very powerful inclination 
 to inquire about the pleasure or business that 
 Tobias Smith might have at the Range ; but 
 he mastered the desire to put the question. 
 
 '• I know the Range very well," observed he; 
 " it belongs to an old friend of mine." 
 
 " The devil it does !" ejaculated the stranger. 
 " Indeed. Humph ! Then you may know
 
 802 THE OLD HALL. 
 
 something of the stir that I caused there some 
 years ago, and which, I have been given to 
 understand, has never been allowed to settle 
 down again." 
 
 It was very natural that John should inquire 
 what this was, having prefaced the query by 
 declaring that he did not, and, in a homely 
 phrase, without beating about the bush, he 
 asked for the particulars of this event. 
 
 " Did you never hear of a fine, fat, living 
 baby being sent " 
 
 John Hardy sprung from the floor as if it 
 had suddenly heaved him into the air, and, 
 rushing towards the no less surprised Tobias 
 Smith, clutched him by both hands, and, by 
 main force dragged him into a chair. 
 
 " Young man," said he, in a scarcely arti- 
 culate voice, " you've touched a chord" — 
 and John thumped himself significantly on the 
 bosom. 
 
 An hour passed, and then another, and when 
 even Dick the ostler, the earliest riser of the
 
 THE OLD HALL. 303 
 
 inmates of tlie Lion, hastened to give Blossom 
 his matin feed, John Hardy remained drink- 
 ing, with ready ear, the tale, both strange and 
 true, that Tobias Smith recounted to him.
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 An envious sneaping frost, 
 
 That bites the first-born infants of the spring. 
 
 " I NEVER could, and never shall, I expect," 
 soliloquized Job Sykes, looking at the ceiling, 
 but not exactly referring to it, " be able to find 
 out what frosts are sent for !" 
 
 Mrs. Sykes was in the act of dropping into a 
 tea-cup about as much sugar as could be con- 
 veniently placed on ttie point of a pen-knife 
 without squeezing ; but upon hearing this ob- 
 servation from Job, she deliberately replaced 
 this minimum quantity in the basin from which 
 she had extracted it, .and, raising her hands, 
 gave vent to the short exclamation of, " Well, I 
 never !"
 
 THE OLD HALL 305 
 
 " What's the matter now ?" said Job. 
 
 " Matter !" returned Mrs. Sykes. " If you 
 were a heathen that didn't eat pork, or a Jew, 
 or a cannibal, one mightn't be surprised at 
 such wicked observations about the frost ; but 
 for a man who can read his Bible." — Mrs. 
 Sykes gravely shook her head. — ^' Be thankful 
 if your tea or toast don't choke ye this even- 
 ing. 
 
 " I meant no harm, my dear," added Job. 
 " As you know, a frost shuts up hunting, gives 
 chilblains to children, pinches the old and poor, 
 and I can't see any good it does whatever. 
 That's all I meant to say, my dear." 
 
 " And isn't that enough, and more than 
 enough ?" added Mrs. Sykes. *^ As a husband 
 — the father of a family " 
 
 " Of Jem, my dear," ventured Job, correct- 
 ing, as he considered, the mistake of his better 
 half. 
 
 " And what is James but a family?" re- 
 turned Mrs. Sykes. " Is he not my son — what
 
 306 THE OLD HALL. 
 
 is a son but a child, and what is a child but the 
 one of children, and what are children but a 
 family?" 
 
 Job now winked at the ceiling, and an au- 
 dible " the old un's at it again," escaped his 
 lips. 
 
 " I begin," said Mrs. Sykes, making a second 
 dive at the sugar, " to pity your ignorance as 
 well as your laxity of morals !" 
 
 " I forgot to say," remarked Job, making a 
 desperate effort to change the subject, " that 
 Master Tom will be here this evening. I 
 shouldn't be surprised," continued he, glancing 
 at the old clock in the corner, tick-tacking in 
 the extreme feebleness of age, " if he comes 
 in about five minutes from this time." 
 
 " Then why didn't you say so before ?" re- 
 plied Mrs. Sykes. " You know I can't abide 
 being taken unawares, particularly if my cap's 
 not quite in trim. You seem to me, Job," 
 continued she, " to grow more thoughtless.
 
 THE OLD HALL. 807 
 
 and worse in all points of view, every day you 
 Hve." 
 
 "It's of no consequence/' pleaded the re- 
 proved Job. " He'll not stay a minute, as 
 we're going to try to bag a badger to-nigbt." 
 
 " But be may not wisb to start immediately," 
 rejoined Mrs. Sykes ; ** and I bope be won't, as 
 a more agreeable young gentleman to talk to a 
 body, doesn't live in tbese parts." 
 
 " You never spoke a truer word, Betty," 
 returned Job, blowing a cup of hot tea, " ne- 
 ver in your life. He's what I call thorough- 
 bred, unblemished, and sound, and worthy of 
 being, as he is, first favourite with everybody, 
 from the Squire down to Mike Crouch." 
 
 " You've gone low enough noio,^ added Mrs. 
 Sykes. " Mike Crouch should never have been 
 taken into the Squire's service ; it allows the 
 vagabond to give himself a consequence he's no 
 right to." 
 
 " He's the best earth-stopper in all Warwick- 
 shire," remarked Job.
 
 THE OLD HALL. 
 
 A pretty recommendation truly," retui'ned 
 Mrs. Sykes, with, offended dignity portrayed in 
 every move and gesture : " and the one, I've no 
 doubt, to which he owes his right of claiming 
 servitude under the Squire. 
 
 " I certainly did—" 
 
 " Of course you did^'' interrupted Mrs. 
 Sykes, anticipating the sequel to her husband's 
 sentence : " you always do those things which 
 you ought not to do, and leave undone a mul- 
 titude of things which a sensible man would 
 scorn to forget or neglect. I begin to feel" — 
 and Mrs. Sykes closed her eyes, and looked 
 like a woman suffering under a load of mental 
 trouble — " that my lessons to you, Job, is very 
 like throwing sound apples to swine — a wanton 
 waste." 
 
 " Perhaps it is, Betty," replied Job ; and, 
 giving a sly wink at the ceiling, added, " per- 
 haps it would be as well not to throw any more." 
 
 " I know my duty, Mr. Sykes," rejoined the 
 loquacious and pedantic dame, "without any
 
 THE OLD HALL. 309 
 
 assistance on your part. If I choose to resign 
 myself, Sir, to the loss of my words, the greater 
 reason for yon to profit by my meekness." 
 
 At this juncture, and much to the huntsman's 
 satisfaction, approaching footsteps were heard 
 without, and immediately afterwards, his son 
 James opened the door of the apartment, and, 
 holding it open, said, " Mother, here's Mas- 
 ter Tom come to see ye." 
 
 " Good evening, Mrs. Sykes," said Master 
 Tom, entering the room, and offering his hand 
 to the delighted old lady ; " I hope this cold 
 weather has not produced any return of the 
 rheumatism." 
 
 Mrs. Sykes thanked heaven and some new 
 flannel garments, that it had not. 
 
 " I'm no later than I said I would be. Job," 
 observed Master Tom, turning to the hunts- 
 man. 
 
 " No, Sir," replied Job ; " it's just about 
 the time : but we must start soon, as the moon 
 will sink early."
 
 310 THE OLD HALL. 
 
 " Mike is at the door ^ith the dogs, re- 
 joined Master Tom, " and I am ready when you 
 are." 
 
 " What kind of a team is it, Sir ?" inquired 
 the huntsman. 
 
 " There's his brindled bull-terrier, the white 
 Scotch one of mine, and a dog called Toby, 
 that he borrowed of some friend," replied Mas- 
 ter Tom. 
 
 " Why, that last one is the razor-grinder's, 
 I expect," rejoined Job. 
 
 " Yes, it is," responded James; '' and a 
 bigger varmint never lived : he's ready to worry 
 anything from a mouse to a horse." 
 
 During this short discussion, Mrs. Sykes had 
 been rummaging about the shelves of the cup- 
 board with a glass door, and bringing forth a 
 stout bottle, proceeded to fill bumpers round, 
 with a grateful fluid, commonly called " cherry- 
 bounce." 
 
 " There, Sir ; take that," said Mrs. Sykes, 
 proffering Tom a glas s : '* it's my own, and
 
 THE OLD HALL. 311 
 
 from experience, I know it will keep the cold 
 out." 
 
 Tom thanked the dame, and said that he did 
 not question her experience in such a matter 
 for a moment ; but still he would put it to the 
 test, and had the pleasure of drinking her health, 
 long life, and captivating looks to the end of 
 her days. 
 
 Tom, Master Tom ! you touched the most 
 vulnerable corner in the most sensitive part 
 of Mrs. Sykes's affections, and you knew it. 
 Yes; that good dame had still the smoulder- 
 ing embers of vanity within, which required 
 but little of the breath of praise to fan into a 
 flame; and with his accustomed habit — for 
 Master Tom had a soft word, and still softer 
 looks for both young and old of the weaker 
 sex — he lost not the opportunity of sending 
 her blood tingling to her cheek, and her pulse 
 to beat fast and uncertain, as in those days 
 when Job used to dwell so rapturously upon 
 her charms.
 
 31^ THE OLD HALL. 
 
 " Really, Sir/' said Mrs. Sykes, simpering 
 and blushing, "you make one feel like a Mi- 
 chaelmas flea all in a twitter." 
 
 "Ha, ha, ha!" laughed Job, slapping the 
 mahogany-coloured top of his boot, crossed 
 over his knee. " Ha, ha, ha ! The old 
 woman, Sir," continued he, appealing to Master 
 Tom, " talks just as she did when young, and 
 as ripe as a cherry. I remember that very 
 speech thirty years ago, when I was giving her 
 a little of the tongue's daily-dally." 
 
 It would have been as well for the hunts- 
 man's subsequent peace of mind, if he had not 
 made this allusion to the past, as Mrs. Sykes 
 became suddenly calm, just like one of those 
 lulls before a gale, with the resolve and fixed 
 determination of making him regret that he 
 had thus given licence to his speech. 
 
 " Now, Job," said Master Tom, finishing 
 the cherry-bounce, " let us start ; for I ven- 
 tured four crowns with the Squire, that we 
 would get him a skin for a cap to keep his ears
 
 THE OLD HALL. 315 
 
 warm in the fen, and it would mortify me to 
 lose the wager." 
 
 "I'm at your service, Sir," replied the 
 huntsman, rising from his seat. '' But where 
 is Jem?: — isn't he going?" 
 
 " Yes, father," returned Jem, from without : 
 " here I am, quite ready, and so will Mike be 
 when he's finished the stoup." 
 
 " I can't, Mr. James, I can't, indeed!" said 
 the well-known voice of Mike Crouch, as if 
 considerably stifled from want of breath. 
 
 *' Nonsense, man !" replied the whipper-in, 
 heartily : " what are a couple of quarts of mild 
 ale to you? — Down with every drop." 
 
 Job buttoned his coat to his throat ; Master 
 Tom took a flattering leave of Mrs. Sykes — 
 and such an one, that the old lady became all 
 smiles again; and, as he made her a low and 
 cremonious bow upon leaving the room, she 
 thought him the handsomest youth she had ever 
 seen in a black velvet shooting-jacket, gaiters, 
 and breeches. 
 
 VOL. I. p
 
 314 THE OLD HALL. 
 
 "We're under your guidance, directions, 
 and orders, recollect, Mike," said Master Tom, 
 upon gaining tlie outside of the cottage, " and 
 so lead away." 
 
 '* Very good. Sir," replied the earth-stopper, 
 swinging three or four sacks over his left shoul- 
 der, and trudging forwards, followed by the 
 three terrible rough and ragged animals chris- 
 tened Trip, Trouncer, and Toby. The last- 
 named animal has been heard of before. 
 
 "Where shall ye point for first?" inquired 
 Job. 
 
 "To the Devil's Spring," replied Mike. 
 " We shall be sure to find a badger's run 
 there; and if not earthed, we'll soon have 
 him." 
 
 " There's very little chance of his being 
 at ground, I think, at this hour," remarked the 
 whipper-in. 
 
 " It's a little too early," returned Mike. 
 However, by the time we get there, I'm in 
 hopes to find him a-foot."
 
 THE OLD HALL. 315 
 
 Up long lanes, and thjough meadows, and 
 over hedge and ditch, gate and stile ; through 
 gaps and yielding fence ; and now over the 
 hill-top on which the night-wind swept so keen 
 and sharp, that tears floated in the eyes of the 
 wayfarers not used to its rough, buiiy kiss; 
 and then, deep in the valley, and skirting the 
 copse, and across the common on which the 
 furze and dwarf blackberry-bush flourished, 
 Mike led the party, bent upon the capture of 
 the digger of the fox's earth — the tough- 
 skinned, strong-jawed badger. 
 
 Now they entered a thick wood, studded 
 with dark-green fir-trees, and over which tow- 
 ering elms and beech-trees stretched their 
 giant limbs; and from the lofty boughs of 
 many, the gaily-plumed pheasant craned his 
 long neck, and, peering at his nocturnal dis- 
 turbers, shook his bright feathers, after they 
 had passed, and settled himself again to rest. 
 The wary wood-pigeon, too, gave notice of the 
 coming of the intruders, and broke the stilly.
 
 316 THE OLD HALL. 
 
 soundless haunt of many a sleeping denizen 
 of the wild, by flapping her broad wing from 
 her perch, and whirr-r-ing to some distant 
 scene. 
 
 " Hist/' said the huntsman in a whisper, " I 
 thought I heard the bark of a fox." 
 
 " You thought right enough/' replied Mike, 
 in the same suppressed accent; " there, d'ye 
 hear the varmint now ?" 
 
 As he spoke, the sound was too clear and 
 distinct to be mistaken, and reynard was doubt- 
 lessly making a rabbit's heart tremble, as he 
 heard his enemy making, to him, night hi- 
 deous. 
 
 " It's beautiful to one's feelings," rejoined 
 Job ; " quite beautiful to hear a fox. For my 
 own part," continued he, " I think there's 
 more music in his bark than in the song of a 
 nightingale." 
 
 Threading through the narrow path lead- 
 ing through the covert, they at length gained 
 the outskirts, flanked by deep furze brakes*
 
 THE OLD HALL. 317 
 
 and in wliich there was a sand-pit, abandoned 
 to the free use and occupation of numerous 
 progenies of conies; and a high mound, or 
 bank of earth, forming a natural barrier to 
 more than two-thirds of this waste, afforded 
 retreats for the fox and the badger. 
 
 " I stopped most of the earths last night," 
 observed Mike, ^' and so we have but to peg 
 our bags down at the few open ones." 
 
 * You know where to drop upon them, I 
 suppose ? " returned Master Tom. 
 
 " Yes, Sir, yes," rejoined Mike; " I could 
 find them with my eyes shut;" and, as he 
 spoke, he stooped down, and began fixing a 
 long bag or sack at the mouth of a cavity in 
 the bank, scooped under the entangled roots 
 of some trees hard by. 
 
 " There," continued the earthstopper, ad- 
 dressing Master Tom, and finishing the ar- 
 rangement of the trap, " you see. Sir, there's 
 a running noose at the end of the bag, which 
 I peg down with this forked stick ; so, as when
 
 318 THE OLD HALL. 
 
 the varmint flashes in, it hugs him close and 
 holds him." 
 
 " I understand/' replied Tom, eager for the 
 commencement of the sport. " Be as quick as 
 you can, Mike." 
 
 In a few minutes Mike had fixed the sacks 
 at each of the open earths he had left, and, 
 placing his companions in such positions that 
 they might guard them, " hey'd" the terriers 
 off. 
 
 Right glad of the permission, away they 
 went, through bramble and briar, followed by 
 the earthstopper, who dashed through the 
 prickly impediment, with as much ease as if he 
 had been brushing aside buttercups in merry 
 May. 
 
 " Now, Trouncer, now Toby ?" hallooed he, 
 "wind him! drag on him! — hoick, hoick 
 there, hoick!" 
 
 " D'ye hear that, father ?" said the whipper- 
 in, stifling a laugh; " Mike's copying your 
 cheer."
 
 THE OLD HALL. 319 
 
 " That mustn't be allowed for the future," 
 replied Job. " Cheering a set of mongrels to a 
 badger, like, or even something like clap- 
 ping hounds on to a fox, is playing games 
 with " 
 
 The huntsman was about to add " religion," 
 but checking himself, he concluded by saying, 
 " matters that don't bear mocking." 
 
 '^ Hark ! " said Tom, posted at a little dis- 
 tance off, " I heard one of the dogs quest." 
 
 " That's it, Trouncer ! " hallooed Mike ; and 
 his voice rung wide and far at that silent hour, 
 and echoed musically away in the very depths 
 of the woods, as if a hundred voices were 
 joining in the cheer. " Hark, hark to Troun- 
 cer ! — have at him there ! — Yoicks, press him ! 
 — to him, there ! — Hark ! hark ! " cheered 
 Mike, with his heart in his voice, as " the 
 find " was announced. 
 
 Not with each tongue imder each, but any 
 way and any how, the terriers yapped, howled, 
 and barked, as they drove the object of pursuit
 
 THE OLD HALL. 
 
 before them ; and, if any fear existed in the 
 mind of Mike Crouch, that this might unfortn- 
 nately be a rabbit, stoat^ polecat, weazel, or 
 rat, as he full well knew 'that his pack would 
 open at anything with life, it was quickly dis- 
 pelled by hearing something brush past him, 
 and a strong fetid smell at the same time gave 
 evidence that it was a badger. 
 
 And now Mike hallooed the dogs on, with 
 all the energy that he was master of, and fol- 
 lowed closely in their wake, although the 
 ground was rough and difficult to tread. 
 
 Now up to his middle in furze, and then 
 crashing through tall, clinging briars ; at one 
 moment held fast by some mass of underwood, 
 and then pitching all but head-foremost to the 
 ground, as he struggled, with vengeance, to 
 escape, straight he flew, heedless of every 
 obstacle; and such was his speed and perse- 
 verance, that the space between him and the 
 terriers was far from being wide. 
 
 " Look out !" called the earth-stopper to his
 
 .■•"*^' 
 
 THE OLD HALL. 321 
 
 companions, as the chase pointed to the earths 
 where the sacks had been placed. " Look 
 out !" repeated he. 
 
 Scarcely had he given this instruction to be 
 wary, when Master Tom hallooed at the ex- 
 treme stretch of his lungs, " Here he is, Mike ; 
 make haste." 
 
 In a few long strides, the earth-stopper was 
 at his side; but, ere he came, a terrible tug of 
 war had begun. 
 
 The badger, it appeared, had gained the 
 earth ; but not liking the sack, or being fright- 
 ened from it by some impolitic, ardent action, 
 on the part of Master Tom, he turned from it 
 just in time to be seized by Trouncer's ready 
 jaws, assisted by his fellows. Throwing himself 
 on his back, and inflating his skin as tightly as 
 a bladder, he defied the tusks of his enemies, 
 and effected fearful ravages with his long sharp 
 claws and teeth. 
 
 Howling with pain and rage, the terriers 
 seized the badger, and in turn were seized, un-
 
 S22 THE OLD HALL. 
 
 til the ground — where they rolled over and 
 over, how up, now down — was freely stained 
 with the scarlet current of their life. 
 
 " He'U kill my dog ! " exclaimed Tom, in 
 a troubled voice, and making a blow at the 
 badger with a stick, which, unhappily, fell on 
 Toby's pericranium. The effect was somewhat 
 stunning; but the courageous Toby refreshed 
 himself with a shake, and went to work again 
 like a Trojan. 
 
 " Don't hit him," pleaded Mike, enjoying 
 the fight immensely. " It's a pity to spoil the 
 fun." 
 
 ^' He's more than a match for the dogs," 
 said Job. " Kill him outright." 
 
 " Trouncer is fixed by the throat," returned 
 James, trying to draw the dog off". 
 
 '' He'U be killed !" shouted Tom. 
 
 Mike dropped suddenly on his knees, and 
 in a moment rolled the dog and the badger 
 into a sack, and, rising, threw both over his 
 shoulder.
 
 THE OLD HALL. 
 
 323 
 
 " I tell you the dog will be killed/' re- 
 peated Tom, taking hold of the sack angrily. 
 
 " He is. Sir/' coolly returned the earth- 
 stopper, '^ and so is the badger." 
 
 END OF VOL I. 
 
 LCXI»ON : 
 
 RHDIXG AND JUDD, PRINTERS, 4, HORSE SHOF. OODR T, 
 
 ilLGATE hlLL.
 
 p
 
 1
 
 UNIVERSITY OF ILLIN0I3-URBANA 
 
 3 
 
 12 051399068 
 
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