The Complete Wyvern Mystery (All 3 Volumes in One Edition). Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

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      Chapter VI.

      The Old Squire Unlike Himself

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      He talked very little that night in the old-fashioned drawing-room, where Alice played his favourite old airs for him on the piano, which he still called the "harpsichord." He sat sometimes dozing, sometimes listening to her music, in the great chair by the fire. He ruminated, perhaps, but he did not open the subject, whatever it might be, which he had hinted at.

      But before ten o'clock came, he got up and stood with his back to the fire. Is there any age at which folly has quite done with us, and we cease from building castles in the air?

      "My wife was a tartar," said he rather abruptly, "and she was always telling me I'd marry again before she was cold in her grave, and I made answer, 'I've had enough of that market, I thank you; one wife in a life is one too many.' But she wasn't like you -- no more than chalk to cheese -- a head devil she was. Play me the 'Week before Easter' again, lass."

      And the young lady thrice over played that pretty but vulgar old air; and when she paused the gaunt old Squire chanted the refrain from the hearth-rug, somewhat quaveringly and discordantly.

      "You should have heard Tom Snedly sing that round a bowl of punch. My sons, a pair o' dull dogs -- we were pleasanter fellows then -- I don't care if they was at the bottom of the Lunnon canal. Gi'e us the 'Lincolnshire Poacher,' lass. Pippin-squeezing rascals -- and never loved me. I sometimes think I don't know what the world's a comin' to. I'd be a younger lad by a score o' years, if neighbours were as I remember 'em."

      At that moment entered old Tom Ward, who, like his master, had seen younger, if not better days, bearing something hot in a silver tankard on a little tray. Tom looked at the Squire. The Squire pointed to the little table by the hearth-rug, and pulled out his great gold watch, and found it was time for his "night-cap."

      Tom was skilled in the brew that pleased his master, and stood with his shrewd gray eye on him, till he had swallowed his first glass, then the Squire nodded gruffly, and he knew all was right, and was relieved, for every one stood in awe of old Fairfield.

      Tom was gone, and the Squire drank a second glass, slowly, and then a third, and stood up again with his back to the fire and filled his glass with the last precious drops of his cordial, and placed it on the chimney-piece, and looked steadfastly on the girl, whose eyes looked sad on the notes, while her slender fingers played those hilarious airs which Squire Fairfield delighted to listen to.

      "Down in the mouth, lass -- hey?" said the Squire with a suddenness that made the unconscious girl start.

      When she looked up he was standing grinning upon her, from the hearth-rug, with his glass in his fingers, and his face flushed.

      "You girls, when you like a lad, you're always in the dumps -- ain't ye? -- mopin' and moultin' like a sick bird, till the fellow comes out wi' his mind, and then all's right, flutter and song and new feathers, and -- come, what do you think o' me, lass?"

      She looked at him dumbly, with a colourless and frightened face. She saw no object in the room but the tall figure of the old man, flushed with punch, and leering with a horrid jollity, straight before her like a vivid magic-lantern figure in the dark. He was grinning and wagging his head with exulting encouragement.

      Had Squire Fairfield, as men have done, all on a sudden grown insane; and was that leering mask, the furrows and contortions of which, and its glittering eyes, were fixing themselves horribly on her brain, a familiar face transformed by madness?

      "Come, lass, do ye like me?" demanded the phantom.

      "Well, you're tongue-tied, ye little fool -- shame-faced, and all that, I see," he resumed after a little pause. "But you shall answer -- ye must; you do -- you like old Wyvern, the old Squire. You'd feel strange in another place -- ye would, and a younger fellow would not be a tithe so kind as me -- and I like ye well, chick-a-biddy, chick-a-biddy -- ye'll be my little queen, and I'll keep ye brave satins and ribbons, and laces, and lawn; and I'll gi'e ye the jewellery -- d'ye hear? -- necklaces, and ear-rings, and bodkins, and all the rest, for your own, mind; for the Captain nor Jack shall never hang them on wife o' theirs, mind ye -- and ye'll be the grandest lady has ever bin in Wyvern this hundred years -- and ye'll have nothing to do but sit all day in the window, or ride in the coach, and order your maids about; and I'll leave you every acre and stick and stone, and silver spoon, that's in or round about Wyvern -- for you're a good lass, and I'll make a woman of you; and I'd like to break them young rascals' necks -- they never deserved a shilling o' mine; so gie's your hand, lass, and the bargain's made."

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

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

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

      And here the ancient Squire boisterously "bussed" the young lady, as he had threatened, and two or three times again, till scrubbed by the white stubble of his chin, she broke away, with her СКАЧАТЬ