"And forced me to retrench, almost to starvation, and to exact the last farthing that the estate will yield, to keep me from a prison? Was it you or I, Mrs. Dalrymple?"
"But things need not be made quite so bad," she took courage to say in a timid tone; "you need not proceed to these extremes."
"Your father's system was one of indulgence, mine is not; and the tenants, large and small, don't know what to make of it. As to Pinnett, he does not consider himself responsible to me for his actions; and I—I cannot interfere with them. So long as I am a poor man, struggling to pay your debts, Selina, so long must Pinnett take his own course."
Oscar turned back again, caught up the book he had laid down, and went on reading it. Selina took a seat on the other side of the table, and sat supporting her head with her hands. She wished things were not so wretchedly uncomfortable, or that some good fairy would endow her with a fortune. Suddenly a tramp of feet arose outside the house. Oscar heard it, unmoved; Selina, her ears covered, did not hear it, or she might have flown sooner to bar the doors. Before she could effect this, the malcontents of the common were in the hall, their numbers considerably augmented. It looked a formidable invasion. Was it murder they intended?—or arson?—what was it not? Selina, in her terror, flew to the top of the house, a servant-maid after her: they both, with one accord, seized upon a rope, and the great alarm-bell boomed out from the Grange.
Up came the people from far and near; up came the fire-engines, from the station close by, and felt exceedingly aggrieved at finding no fire: the farmers, disturbed in the midst of their pipes and ale, rushed up from Mr. Lee's. It was nothing but commotion. Old Mrs. Dalrymple, terrified at the alarm-bell, hastened to the scene, Mary Lynn with her, and Reuben coming up behind them.
Contention, prolonged and bitter, was going on in the hall. Oscar Dalrymple was at one end, listening, and not impatiently, to his undesirable visitors, who would insist upon being heard at length. He answered them calmly and civilly, not exasperating them in any way, but he gave no hope of a change in the existing policy.
After seeing his mistress seated in the hall, for she insisted on making one of the audience, poor Reuben, grieved to the heart at the aspect of affairs altogether, went outside the house, and paced about in the moonlight. It was a fine, light night. He had strolled near the stables, when he was accosted by some one who stood aloof, under the shade of the walls.
"What's the matter here, that people should be running, in this way, into the Grange?"
"I should call it something like a rise," answered Reuben, sorrowfully. "Are you a stranger, sir?"
"I am a stranger. Until this night I have not been in the neighbourhood for years. But I formerly was on intimate terms with the Dalrymple family, and have stayed here with them for weeks together."