There was no resisting the cheery, persistent hospitality of the man, and Griff gave in. He could well believe now that the Marshcotes folk had spoken a true word when they said that the Squire was a devil to those he hated, and the best of good fellows to any who happened to take his fancy.
The stocks and the old market-place have gone from Saxilton main street now, but in those days they fronted the lawyer's office of which Griff had come in search. After saying good-bye to the Squire, he cantered up the narrow street, hitched Lassie's bridle to a ring at the end of the stocks, and went inside to get through his business with what expedition he might, since they lunched sharp at one at Plover. Gorsthwaite Hall, as Crabtree of the Bull had prophesied, was to be had for a song; the lawyers were only too glad to get rid of it at a trifle over the price which Griff first named, and the place was his in a very short space of time. Then, his business settled, he set off for Plover Court, and reached it within five minutes of the luncheon hour.
It was lucky that Griff had a good head for liquor; for the Squire kept him drinking long after Mrs. Daneholme had left the table, with the avowed intention of seeing which was the better man at the bottle.
"You worsted me with your fists, you puppy—not that you would find it easy to do as much a second time—but I'm hanged if I haven't the stronger head for port."
"We can only decide that in one way," laughed Griff, who was always quick to take up a challenge.
They cracked a second bottle, and a third, the Squire chatting ceaselessly of this and that harum-scarum adventure in which he had taken part—when he was younger, he never failed to add. And the longer Griff listened, the better he liked the man's healthy energy. Old Daneholme had no conscience whatever, save on certain points where a rough-and-tumble honesty was concerned. By his own showing, he had indulged in some rough vices, and even generosity he carried recklessly past the point where it ceased to be a virtue. Yet, with it all, there was a fresh, inborn strenuousness about old Roger; he never stopped to ask himself if he were good or bad—could not have been certain, indeed, what so absurd a question implied—but just took life at a gallop, over hedge and ditch, and enjoyed such frolic as Heaven sent in his way. There was a vein of sound humour in him, too,—a trifle rough and biting to the taste, may be, but sound for all that—and his fine grey eyes looked out at you with a twinkle which said, as plainly as possible, that he cared not one button for your opinion. A man of the true old Yorkshire breed.
"Get on to your legs, my boy," said the Squire, when they were half through with the fourth bottle.
Griff complied with the request, and stood looking down at his host with humorous gravity. Then he went the length of the room and back again, with the action of a horse being put through its paces. Finally, he resumed his seat, with a—
"Can you do as much, sir?"
"Can I do as much?" roared the Squire. "Confound your impertinence, sir! I'm scarcely warmed with the wine as yet. Gad, though, you don't turn a hair! I wish that son of mine had been at home to see you; it would have knocked some of the conceit out of him. He can't touch me, Lomax, not if I give him one bottle handicap. Come, drink up!"