“What! Mark the Poet?” said the curate of Lansmere, with a smile. “Come to write squibs for the election?”
“Squibs, sir!” cried Mark, indignantly.
“Burns wrote squibs,” said the curate, mildly.
Mark made no answer, but again knocked at the door.
This time, a man, whose face, even seen by the starlight, was much flushed, presented himself at the threshold.
“Mr. Morgan!” exclaimed the curate, in benevolent alarm; “no illness here, I hope?”
“Cott! it is you, Mr. Dale!—Come in, come in; I want a word with you. But who the teuce are these people?”
“Sir,” said Mark, pushing through the doorway, “my name is Fairfield, and my wife is Mr. Avenel’s daughter!”
“Oh, Jane—and her baby too!—Cood! cood! Come in; but be quiet, can’t you? Still, still—still as death!”
The party entered, the door closed; the moon rose, and shone calmly on the pale silent house, on the sleeping flowers of the little garden, on the old pollard with its hollow core. The horse in the taxed cart dozed unheeded; the light still at times flitted across the upper windows. These were the only signs of life, except when a bat, now and then attracted by the light that passed across the windows, brushed against the panes, and then, dipping downwards, struck up against the nose of the slumbering horse, and darted merrily after the moth that fluttered round the raven’s nest in the old pollard.