"Oh, you do me injustice--you do me injustice, Mary," cried Miss Slingsby; "I seem nothing but what I am. As to Captain Hayward," she added, with a sly smile, "you know best, Mary dear. He is your preux chevalier, you know; delivered you from lions and tigers, and giants and ravishers, and, as in duty bound, has talked to nobody but you all day."
Mary coloured a little, but replied straightforwardly, "Oh yes, we have talked a good deal, enough to make me think that he is not so thoughtless as my uncle says; and I know you are not so thoughtless as you say you are yourself. But what do you intend to do while they are gone?"
"O, I shall sit up, of course," answered Isabella; "I always do, till papa goes to bed. When he has a large party, and I hear an eruption of the Goths and Vandals making its way hither--which I can always discover by the creaking of the glass-door--I retreat into that little room and fortify myself with lock and key, for I have no taste for mankind in a state of drunkenness; and then when they have roared and bellowed, and laughed, and quarrelled, and drank their coffee and gone away, I come out and talk to papa for half an hour, till he is ready to go to bed."
"But is he always in a very talking condition himself?" asked Mary Clifford.
"Oh, fie! now, Mary," exclaimed her cousin; "how can you suffer your mind to be prejudiced by people's reports. My father likes to see every one happy, and even jovial under his roof--perhaps a little too much--but if you mean to say he gets tipsy, it is not the case; I never saw him the least so in all my life; in fact I don't think he could if he would; for I have seen him drink as much wine as would make me tipsy twenty times over, without its having any effect upon him at all--a little gay, indeed; but he is always gay after dinner."
Mary Clifford listened with a quiet smile, but replied not to Isabella's discourse upon her father's sobriety, merely saying, "Well, if you sit up, my dear cousin, I shall sit up too, to keep you company;" but scarcely had the words passed her sweet lips, when in came Sir John Slingsby and Mr. Beauchamp, the baronet holding a note open in his hand.
"Ha, ha, ha," he cried, "news of the deserter, news of the deserter, we had just got to the hall door, horses ready, cloaks on our backs, servants mounted, plans arranged, a gallop of five or six miles and a bivouac on the moor before us, when up walks one of the boys from Buxton's inn with this note from the runaway; let us see what he says," and approaching the lamp he read by its light several detached sentences from Ned Hayward's letter, somewhat to the following effect: "Dear Sir John, for fear you should wonder what has become of me--so I did, by Jove--I write this to tell you--ah, I knew all that before--cantered him across the common--earthed him in old sand-pit--rascal fired at me--not much harm done--chased him along the road, but lost him at the three turnings--came on here--very tired--comfortable quarters--particular reason for staying where I am--over with you early in the morning--Ned Hayward."
"Ah, very well, very well," continued Sir John, "that's all right; so now Beauchamp, if you are for a game at piquet I am your man; if not, some wine and water and then to bed. I'll put you under the tutelage of my man Galveston, who knows what's required by every sort of men in the world, from the Grand Turk down to the Methodist parson, and he will provide you with all that is necessary."
Mr. Beauchamp, however, declined both piquet and wine-and-water; and, in about half-an-hour, the whole party had retired to their rooms; and gradually Tarningham Hall sank into silence and repose.
One of the last persons who retired to rest was Sir John Slingsby himself; for, before he sought his own room, he visited the library, and there, lying on the table where his letters were usually placed, he found a note, neatly folded and sealed, and directed in a stiff, clear, clerk-like hand. He took it up and looked at it; laid it down again: took it up once more; held it, for at least three minutes, in his hand, as if irresolute whether he should open it or not; and at length tore open the seal, exclaiming,