from Stephen’s fingers upon the nails, and startled him with its din, so that he could hardly speak to the servant who answered his noisy summons.  They crossed a kitchen, into which many doors opened, to a kind of parlour beyond, fitted up with furniture that looked wonderfully handsome and grand in Stephen’s eyes, and where the master was sitting by a comfortable fire.  The impatient servant pushed him within the door, and closed it behind her, leaving him standing upon a mat, and shyly stroking his cap round and round, while the master sat still, and gazed at him steadily with an assumed air of amazement, though inwardly he was more afraid of the boy than Stephen was of him.  It makes a coward of a man or boy to do anybody an injury.

‘Pray, what business brings you here, young Fern?’ he asked in a gruff voice.

‘Sir,’ said Stephen firmly, but without any insolence of manner, ’I want to know who has turned us out of our own house.  Is it the lord of the manor, or you?’

‘I’ve bought the place for myself,’ answered the master, bringing his hand down with a heavy blow upon the table before him, as if he would like to knock Stephen down with the same force.

‘There’s nobody to sell it but me,’ said the boy.

’You think so, my lad, do you?  Why, if it were your own, you would have no power over it till you are one-and-twenty.  But the place was your grandfather’s, and he has sold it to me for L15.  When your grandfather returned from transportation his wife’s hut became his; and his right to it does not go over to anybody else till he is dead.  It never belonged to your father; and you can have no right to it.  If you want to see the deed of purchase, it is safe here, witnessed by my brother Thomas and Jones the gamekeeper, and your grandfather’s mark put to it.  I would show it to you; but I reckon, with all your learning, you would not make much out of it.’

‘Sir,’ said Stephen, trembling, ’grandfather is quite simple and dark.  He couldn’t understand that you were buying the place of him.  Besides, he’s never had the money?’

‘What do you mean, you young scoundrel?’ cried the master.  ’I gave it into his own hands, and made him put it into his waistcoat pocket for safety.  Simple is he, and dark?  He could attend his son’s funeral four miles off only a few months ago; and he can understand my niece Anne’s fine reading, which I cannot understand myself.  Ask him for the three five-pound notes I gave him, if you have not had them already.’

‘How long ago is it?’ inquired Stephen.

‘You can’t remember!’ said the master, laughing:  ’well, well, Jones left you a keepsake at your garden wicket for you to remember the day by.’

Stephen’s face flushed into a wrathful crimson, but he did not speak; and in a minute or two the master said sharply,—­

‘Come, be off with you, if you’ve got nothing else to say.’

‘I have got something else to say,’ answered Stephen, walking up to the table and looking steadily into his master’s face.  ’God sees both of us; and He knows you have no right to the place, and I have.  I believe some day we’ll go back again, though you have pulled the old house down to the ground.  I don’t want to make God angry with me.  But the Bible says He seeth in secret, and He will reward us openly.’