The service began, and Annie listened to the words she had longed to hear for twelve years past, the words that would make her mistress of Cloom Manor.  Morality meant as little to her as to any of the half-savage folk of the remote West in the middle of the nineteenth century, when the post of squire’s mistress was merely considered less fortunate than that of squire’s wife; but socially Annie was gaining—­for she would become an eligible widow-woman.

With fumbling hands Ruan slipped his signet-ring on the ugly, work-worn finger of the woman who was at last his wife.

* * * * *

That night Annie gave birth to the latest heir of the house of Ruan, and in the grey of the dawning, when, with the aid of parson and lawyer, the Squire had arranged all his temporal affairs in a manner to ensure as much ill-will as possible in the family he was leaving behind him, he was gathered to his fathers.

In the big kitchen, where the mice skittered nervously over the last night’s supper-table, and the tall clock chuckled before it struck each hour, huddled a group of frightened children.  The eldest was angry as well, for, while the younger boys and the little girl were but dimly aware that all their world was tumbling about their ears, he, with the precocious knowledge of the ten-year old country lad, knew more nearly how the crying babe was ousting him from his previous height.  Resentful, sleepy, fearful, and exiled from the rooms of birth and death they crouched together and watched the paling sky, their own quarrels forgotten in their common discomfort; and overhead the cries of the new-born child pierced the air of the new day.

CHAPTER I

HIGH ADVENTURES IN A FARMYARD

A bullet-headed little boy of eight sat astride upon a farmyard gate, whistling and beating time with a hazel-switch.  He had fastened his belt round the gate-post and was using it as a bridle, his bare knees gripped the wooden bar under him, and his little brass-tipped heels flashed in the sun like spurs.  It was Saturday morning, which meant no lessons with Parson Boase at the vicarage, and a fine day in late August, which meant escape from the roof of Cloom and the tongue and hand of its mistress.  Ishmael Ruan, his head stuffed with the myths and histories with which the Parson was preparing him for St. Renny Grammar School, felt in the mood for high adventures, and his surroundings were romantic enough to stir the blood.

Cloom Manor, a deep-roofed, heavy-mullioned pile of grey granite dating from the Restoration, presented a long, low front to the moorland, a front beautified by a pillared porch with the Ruan arms sculptured above it, and at the back it was built round a square court, from which an arch, hollowed through the house itself, led into the farmyard.  The windows were low-browed and deep-set, thickly leaded into small squares, with