quality chap, I reckon, one o'
these fine days," said Hazel.

"She will be a dainty dish, truly, for whomever God gives her to," quoth
Dickons.

"Ay, she will," said more than one, in an earnest tone.

"Now, to my mind," said Tonson, "saving your presence, Master Dickons, I
know not but young Madam be more to my taste; she be in a manner
somewhat fuller--plumper-like, and her skin be _so_ white, and her hair
as black as a raven's."

"There's not another two such women to be found in the whole world,"
said Dickons, authoritatively. Here Hector suddenly rose up, and went to
the door, where he stood snuffing in an inquisitive manner.

"Now, what do that dog hear, I wonder?" quoth Pumpkin, curiously,
stooping forward.

"Blind Bess," replied Tonson, winking his eye, and laughing. Presently
there was a sharp rapping at the door; which the landlord opened, and
let in one of the servants from the Hall, his clothes white with snow,
his face nearly as white, with manifest agitation.

"Why, man, what's the matter?" inquired Dickons, startled by the man's
appearance. "Art frightened at anything?"

"Oh, Lord! oh, Lord!" he commenced.

"What is it, man? Art drunk?--or mad?--or frightened? Take a drop o'
drink," said Tonson. But the man refused it.

"Oh, Lord!--There's woful work at the Hall!"

"What's the matter?" cried all at once, rising and standing round the
new-comer.

"If thou be'st drunk, John," said Dickons, sternly, "there's a way of
sobering thee--mind that."

"Oh, Master Dickons, I don't know what's come to me, for grief and
fright! The squire, they do say, and all of us, are to be turned out o'
Yatton!"

"_What!_" exclaimed all in a breath.

"There's some one else lays claim to it. We must all go! Oh, Lud! oh,
Lud!" No one spoke for a while; and consternation was written on every
face.

"Sit thee down here, John," said Dickons at length, "and let us hear
what thou hast to say--or thou wilt have us all be going up in a body to
the Hall."

Having forced on him part of a glass of ale, he began,--"There hath been
plainly mischief brewing, _somewhere_, this many days, as I could tell
by the troubled face o' t' squire; but he kept it to himself. Lawyer
Parkinson and another have been latterly coming in chaises from London;
and last night the squire got a letter that seems to have finished all.
Such trouble there were last night wi' t' squire, and young Madam and
Miss! And to-day the parson came, and wer