"I wish you'd towld me, sir, before I took the last turn—we're nigh a mile towards the village now."
"No matte', sir!" said Furlong; "dwive where I tell you."
Up went the glass again, and Mat turned round the horses and carriage with some difficulty in a narrow by-road.
Another vision came across the bewildered fancy of Furlong: the certainty of the fury of O'Grady—the immediate contempt as well as anger attendant on his being bamboozled—and the result at last being the same in drawing down the secretary's anger. This produced another change of intention, and he let down the glass for the third time—once more changed his orders as concisely as possible, and pulled it up again. All this time Mat was laughing internally at the bewilderment of the stranger, and as he turned round the carriage again he muttered to himself, "By this and that, you're as hard to dhrive as a pig; for you'll neither go one road nor th' other." He had not proceeded far, when Furlong determined to face O'Grady instead of the Castle, and the last and final order for another turnabout was given. Mat hardly suppressed an oath; but respect for his master stopped him. The glass of the carriage was not pulled up this time, and Mat was asked a few questions about the Hall, and at last about the Squire. Now Mat had acuteness enough to fathom the cause of Furlong's indecision, and determined to make him as unhappy as he could; therefore to the question of "What sort of a man the Squire was?" Mat, re-echoing the question, replied—"What sort of a man, sir?—'Faith, he's not a man at all, sir, he's the devil."
Furlong pulled up the glass, and employed the interval between Mat's answer and reaching the Hall in making up his mind as to how he should "face the devil."
The carriage, after jolting for some time over a rough road skirted by a high and ruinous wall, stopped before a gateway that had once been handsome, and Furlong was startled by the sound of a most thundering bell, which the vigorous pull of Mat stimulated to its utmost pitch; the baying of dogs which followed was terrific. A savage-looking gatekeeper made his appearance with a light—not in a lantern, but shaded with his tattered hat; many questions and answers ensued, and at last the gate was opened. The carriage proceeded up a very ragged avenue, stopped before a large rambling sort of building, which even moonlight could exhibit to be very much out of repair, and after repeated knocking at the door (for Mat knew his squire and the other squire were not friends now, and that he might be impudent), the door was unchained and unbarred, and Furlong deposited in Neck-or-Nothing Hall.
CHAPTER XIV
"Such is the custom of Branksome Hall."
Lay of the Last Minstrel.
NECK-OR-NOTHING HALL