But before ten o’clock came, he got up and stood with his back to the fire. Is there any age at which folly has quite done with us, and we cease from building castles in the air?
“My wife was a tartar,” said he rather abruptly, “and she was always telling me I’d marry again before she was cold in her grave, and I made answer, ‘I’ve had enough of that market, I thank you; one wife in a life is one too many.’ But she wasn’t like you—no more than chalk to cheese—a head devil she was. Play me the ‘Week before Easter’ again, lass.”
And the young lady thrice over played that pretty but vulgar old air; and when she paused the gaunt old Squire chanted the refrain from the hearth-rug, somewhat quaveringly and discordantly.
“You should have heard Tom Snedly sing that round a bowl of punch. My sons, a pair o’ dull dogs—we were pleasanter fellows then—I don’t care if they was at the bottom of the Lunnon canal. Gi’e us the ‘Lincolnshire Poacher,’ lass. Pippin-squeezing rascals—and never loved me. I sometimes think I don’t know what the world’s a-comin’ to. I’d be a younger lad by a score o’ years, if neighbours were as I remember ’em.”
At that moment entered old Tom Ward, who, like his master, had seen younger, if not better days, bearing something hot in a silver tankard on a little tray. Tom looked at the Squire. The Squire pointed to the little table by the hearth-rug, and pulled out his great gold watch, and found it was time for his “night-cap.”
Tom was skilled in the brew that pleased his master, and stood with his shrewd gray eye on him, till he had swallowed his first glass, then the Squire nodded gruffly, and he knew all was right, and was relieved, for every one stood in awe of old Fairfield.
Tom was gone, and the Squire drank a second glass, slowly, and then a third, and stood up again with his back to the fire and filled his glass with the last precious drops of his cordial, and placed it on the chimney-piece, and looked steadfastly on the girl, whose eyes looked sad on the notes, while her slender fingers played those hilarious airs which Squire Fairfield delighted to listen to.
“Down in the mouth, lass—hey?” said the Squire with a suddenness that made the unconscious girl start.
When she looked up he was standing grinning upon her, from the hearth-rug, with his glass in his fingers, and his face flushed.
“You girls, when you like a lad, you’re always in the dumps—ain’t ye?—mopin’ and moultin’ like a sick bird, till the fellow comes out wi’ his mind, and then all’s right, flutter and song and new feathers, and—come, what do you think o’ me, lass?”