e a long while alone with old
Madam, who hath since had a stroke, or a fit, or something of that like,
(the doctors have been there all day from Grilston,) and likewise young
Madam hath taken to her bed, and is ill. Oh, Lud! oh, Lud! Such work
there be going on!"

"And what of the squire and Miss?" inquired some one, after all had
maintained a long silence.

"Oh, 't would break your heart to see them," said the man, dolefully:
"they be both pale as death: he so dreadful sorrowful, but quiet, like,
and she now and then wringing her hands, and both of them going from the
bedroom of old Madam to young Madam's. Nay, an' there had been half a
dozen deaths i' t' house, it could not be worse. Neither the squire or
Miss hath touched food the whole day!"

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!"

"The sooner we get that old woman underground, for all that, the better,