There was, in truth, not a dry eye in the room, nor one whose voice did not seem somewhat obstructed with his emotions.
"Who told thee all this about the squire's losing the estate?" inquired Dickons, with mingled trepidation and sternness.
"We heard of it but an hour or so agone. Mr. Parkinson (it seems by the squire's orders) told Mr. Waters, and he told it to us; saying as how it was useless to keep such a thing secret, and that we might as well all know the occasion of so much trouble."
"Who's to ha' it then, instead of the squire?" at length inquired Tonson, in a voice half choked with rage and grief.
"Lord only knows at present. But whoever 'tis, there isn't one of us sarvents but will go with the squire and his—if it be even to prison, that I can tell ye!"
"I'm Squire Aubrey's gamekeeper," quoth Tonson, his eye kindling as his countenance darkened, "and no one's else! It shall go hard if any one else here hath a game"—
"But if there's law in the land, sure the justice must be wi' t' squire—he and his family have had it so long?" said one of the farmers.
"I'll tell you what, masters," said Pumpkin, mysteriously, "I shall be somewhat better pleased when Jonas here hath got that old creature Bess safe underground!"
"Blind Bess?" exclaimed Tonson, with a very serious, not to say disturbed, countenance. "I wonder—sure! sure! that ould witch can have had no hand in all this—— eh?"——
"Poor old soul, not she! There be no such things as witches now-a-days," exclaimed Jonas. "Not she, I warrant me! She hath been ever befriended by the squire's family. She do it!"