Nor was Mr. Herbert forgotten in the general joy, for he had endeared himself to the people to an extent that astonished themselves, when they were able without a dissentient opinion, to agree that their beloved young lady, the only daughter of the Falconers, could not do better than bestow herself on the village parson, and thus insure the blessing of her sweet presence among them for aye. For Maude had agreed to the same some time ago, and the return of her brother was the only event needed to complete the universally approved arrangement.
"Hark!" said Timothy, as he resumed his pipe, "I thought I heard a screech."
"Very like you did," said the sexton, "the owls often screeches about the old Church tower."
"It ain't very good manners to be screeching now though," remarked the landlord. "I declare it does one good to see the Squire! Never a bit of envy or ill-will against the feeling for the old family, and the boy rides by his side just as if he was his own son."
"Aye, aye," said Mr. Spadeley, with his most sagacious look, "I've planned it all: there's one thing that's next best to being his own son, hey, Mr. Turnbull?"
Possibly Mr. Turnbull did not see it, but he went on to expatiate on the good which had been done since Mr. Hazelwood became the possessor of the Moat.
"If you want to do good to people, live among 'em," he said. "Our Squire has done more in seven years than the Falconers could have done in fifty, living away the while."
Mr. Spadeley could not deny the fact, and since the fraud practised upon the widow and her children, he certainly had not been heard to boast so loudly of the untarnished honour, and high-bred nobility of the lordly race that came in with the Conqueror.
The gossip was proceeding into the interesting subject of another wedding in prospect, and the landlord was describing his intentions with regard to his trusty factotum Joe, who, he said, had proved himself as good a judge of a wife as he knew him to be of a horse, when suddenly one of the men-servants from the Moat came panting along.
"I say, have you seen Miss Evelyn pass this way?" he asked.