"Why that, to tell you the truth, I don't know. I believe he hung so long about the house, that Master Grey asked him his intentions. And then, you know, the young man was obliged to speak out."
"But, then, Mr. Casement, what put it off so long?"
"Ah! that I can't tell exactly; but I suppose it was Master Claude's temper. He is a dreadful temper. Besides, he went off with a married woman in Italy."
"But that was before this affair," said Harriet.
"Was it? I don't know. I am rather sorry for Miss Peggy; she is a well-behaved little girl, upon the whole; but as people brew, so they must bake. Some people say that old Grey turned him out of the house, and would not hear of the match. I know this, that I caught him one evening making love; and the next day he was off. But old Grey was very close, in some things: he had his secrets. He rather wished her to marry Hubert Gage."
There was one thing in which Mr. Casement and Harriet cordially sympathised. He hated the Trevors.
"Nice people, ah! very nice, indeed," he exclaimed. "Everybody speaks well of them; 'so much the worse,' as the man says, in the 'School for Scandal.' A mean family, depend on it. A very attached couple; attached, because they have one interest in common; to scrape and save every farthing they can lay their hands upon. And the children; straggling all over Ashdale, and spoiling the furniture. Poor old Grey never liked children. 'I like 'em when they grow old enough to talk to,' he used to say. I will tell you when I like 'em—never! I should like to see Trevor begging about the streets, like a Manchester weaver, with his five children behind him."
When Harriet confided to Mr. Casement how she meant to serve the five children at the breakfast, his delight knew no bounds.
"Have 'em! cram 'em! the avaricious little villains!" he exclaimed. "Have them all, down to the stuffed pillow case on two legs, that they call baby! See, if I don't do 'em a good turn. I'll drown 'em in sack! I'll make 'em all drunk, or my name is not Roger Casement!"
And Mr. Casement, when the time came was as good as his word.