She looked at him dumbly, with a colourless and frightened face. She saw no object in the room but the tall figure of the old man, flushed with punch, and leering with a horrid jollity, straight before her like a vivid magic-lantern figure in the dark. He was grinning and wagging his head with exulting encouragement.
Had Squire Fairfield, as men have done, all on a sudden grown insane; and was that leering mask, the furrows and contortions of which, and its glittering eyes, were fixing themselves horribly on her brain, a familiar face transformed by madness?
“Come, lass, do ye like me?” demanded the phantom.
“Well, you’re tongue-tied, ye little fool—shame-faced, and all that, I see,” he resumed after a little pause. “But you shall answer—ye must; you do—you like old Wyvern, the old Squire. You’d feel strange in another place—ye would, and a younger fellow would not be a tithe so kind as me—and I like ye well, chick-a-biddy, chick-a-biddy—ye’ll be my little queen, and I’ll keep ye brave satins and ribbons, and laces, and lawn; and I’ll gi’e ye the jewellery—d’ye hear?—necklaces, and ear-rings, and bodkins, and all the rest, for your own, mind; for the Captain nor Jack shall never hang them on wife o’ theirs, mind ye—and ye’ll be the grandest lady has ever bin in Wyvern this hundred years—and ye’ll have nothing to do but sit all day in the window, or ride in the coach, and order your maids about; and I’ll leave you every acre and stick and stone, and silver spoon, that’s in or round about Wyvern—for you’re a good lass, and I’ll make a woman of you; and I’d like to break them young rascals’ necks—they never deserved a shilling o’ mine; so gi’e’s your hand, lass, and the bargain’s made.”
So the Squire strode a step or two nearer, extending his huge bony hand, and Alice, aghast, stared with wide open eyes fixed on him, and exclaiming faintly, “Oh, sir!—oh, Mr. Fairfield!”
“Oh! to be sure, and oh, Squire Fairfield!” chuckled he, mimicking the young lady, as he drew near; “ye need not be shy, nor scared by me, little Alice; I like you too well to hurt the tip o’ your little finger, look ye—and you’ll sleep on’t, and tell me all to-morrow morning.”
And he laid his mighty hands, that had lifted wrestlers from the earth, and hurled boxers headlong in his day, tremulously on her two little shoulders. “And ye’ll say good-night, and gi’e me a buss; good-night to ye, lass, and we’ll talk again in the morning, and ye’ll say naught, mind, to the boys, d——n ’em, till all’s settled—ye smooth-cheeked, bright-eyed, cherry-lipped little”——
And here the ancient Squire boisterously “bussed” the young lady, as he had threatened, and two or three times again, till scrubbed by the white stubble of his chin, she broke away, with her cheeks flaming, and still more alarmed, reached the door.
“Say good-night, won’t ye, hey?” bawled the Squire, still in a chuckle and shoving the chairs out of his way as he stumbled after her.
“Good-night, sir,” cried she, and made her escape through the door, and under the arch that opened from the hall, and up the stairs toward her room, calling as unconcernedly as she could, but with tremulous eagerness to her old servant, “Dulcibella, are you there?” and immensely relieved when she heard her kindly old voice, and saw the light of her candle.