suppose I had better pay at the bar?"
"As you like best, sir," said Richard Turnbull.
Mr. Feltram bowed all round to the gentlemen, who smiled, ducked or
waved their hands; and the Doctor fussily followed him to the hall-door,
and welcomed him back to Golden Friars--there was real kindness in this
welcome--and proffered his broad brown hand, which Mr. Feltram took; and
then he plunged into his chaise, and the door being shut, away he
glided, chaise, horses, and driver, like shadows, by the margin of the
moonlighted lake, towards Mardykes Hall.
And after a few minutes' stand upon the steps, looking along the shadowy
track of the chaise, they returned to the glow of the room, in which a
pleasant perfume of punch still prevailed; and beside Mr. Philip
Feltram's deserted tea-things, the host of the George enlightened his
guests by communicating freely the little he had picked up. The
principal fact he had to tell was, that Sir Bale adhered strictly to his
original plan, and was to arrive on the tenth. A few days would bring
them to that, and the nine-days wonder run its course and lose its
interest. But in the meantime, all Golden Friars was anxious to see what
Sir Bale Mardykes was like.
CHAPTER IV
The Baronet Appears
As the candles burn blue and the air smells of brimstone at the approach
of the Evil One, so, in the quiet and healthy air of Golden Friars, a
depressing and agitating influence announced the coming of the
long-absent Baronet.
From abroad, no good whatever had been at any time heard of him, and a
great deal that was, in the ears of simple folk living in that
unsophisticated part of the world, vaguely awful.
Stories that travel so far, however, lose something of their authority,
as well as definiteness, on the way; there was always room for charity
to suggest a mistake or exaggeration; and if good men turned up their
hands and eyes after a new story, and ladies of experience, who knew
mankind, held their heads high and looked grim and mysterious at mention
of his name, nevertheless an interval of silence softened matters a
little, and the sulphureous perfume dissipated itself in time.
Now that Sir Bale Mardykes had arrived at the Hall, there were hurried
consultations held in many households. And though he was tried and
sentenced by drum-head over some austere hearths, as a rule the law of
gravitation prevailed, and the greater house drew the lesser about it,
and county people withi
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