'Ay, Stevie,' sobbed the child; and Stephen, kissing her tenderly, put her on to Martha's lap, and walked out into the moonlight. The clouds were hanging heavily in the western sky, but the clearer heavens shone all the brighter by the contrast. The mountains lay before him, calm and immovable in the soft light; and he could see the round outline of his own hollow, at which his heart throbbed for a minute painfully. But there was a hidden corner at the side of the cabin, and there Stephen knelt down to pray earnestly before he went farther on his errand, until, calm and quiet as the hills, and as the moon which seemed to be gazing lovingly upon them, he went on with a brave and stedfast spirit to the master's house.
Botfield Hall was a large, half-timbered farmhouse, with a gabled roof, part of which was made of thatch and the rest of tiles. It stood quite alone, at a little distance from the works, on the other side of them to that where the village was built. The window-casements were framed of stone; and the outer doors were of thick, solid oak, studded with large-headed iron nails. The iron ring that served as a rapper on the back door fell with a loud clang from Stephen's fingers upon the nails, and startled him with its din, so that he could hardly speak to the servant who answered his noisy summons. They crossed a kitchen, into which many doors opened, to a kind of parlour beyond, fitted up with furniture that looked wonderfully handsome and grand in Stephen's eyes, and where the master was sitting by a comfortable fire. The impatient servant pushed him within the door, and closed it behind her, leaving him standing upon a mat, and shyly stroking his cap round and round, while the master sat still, and gazed at him steadily with an assumed air of amazement, though inwardly he was more afraid of the boy than Stephen was of him. It makes a coward of a man or boy to do anybody an injury.
'Pray, what business brings you here, young Fern?' he asked in a gruff voice.
'Sir,' said Stephen firmly, but without any insolence of manner, 'I want to know who has turned us out of our own house. Is it the lord of the manor, or you?'
'I've bought the place for myself,' answered the master, bringing his hand down with a heavy blow upon the table before him, as if he would like to knock Stephen down with the same force.
'There's nobody to sell it but me,' said the boy.
'You think so, my lad, do you? Why, if it were your own, you would have no power over it till you are one-and-twenty. But the place was your grandfather's, and he has sold it to me for £15. When your grandfather returned from transportation his wife's hut became his; and his right to it does not go over to anybody else till he is dead. It never belonged to your father; and you can have no right to it. If you want to see the deed of purchase, it is safe here, witnessed by my brother Thomas and Jones the gamekeeper, and your grandfather's mark put to it. I would show it to you; but I reckon, with all your learning, you would not make much out of it.'
'Sir,' said Stephen, trembling, 'grandfather is quite simple and dark. He couldn't understand that you were buying the place of him. Besides, he's never had the money?'
'What do you mean, you young scoundrel?' cried the master. 'I gave it into his own hands, and made him put it into his waistcoat pocket for safety. Simple is he, and dark? He could attend his son's funeral four miles off only a few months ago; and he can understand my niece Anne's fine reading, which I cannot understand myself. Ask him for the three five-pound notes I gave him, if you have not had them already.'
'How long ago is it?' inquired Stephen.