“Dear Jonathan,” she whispered feebly, “save me from Simon Jennings.”

In an instant, Jonathan’s grasp was tightly involved in the bailiff’s stiff white neckcloth.  And Grace, with much maidenly reserve, told her lover all she dared to utter of that base bartering for her father’s life.

“Come straight along with me, you villain, straight to the master!” And the sturdy Jonathan, administering all the remainder of the way (a quarter of a mile of avenue made part of it) innumerable kickings and cuffings, hauled the half-mummied bailiff into the servants’ hall.

“Now then, straight before the master!  John Page, be so good as to knock at the dining-room door, and ask master very respectfully if his honour will be good enough to suffer me to speak to him.”

CHAPTER XLII.

THE DISMISSAL.

IT was after dinner.  Sir John and his friends had somehow been less jovial than usual; they were absolutely dull enough to be talking politics.  So, when the boy of many buttons tapped at the door, and meekly brought in Jonathan’s message, recounting also how he had got Mr. Jennings in tow for some inexplicable crime, the strangeness of the affair was a very welcome incident:  both host and guests hailed it an adventure.

“By all means, let Jonathan come in.”

The trio were just outside; and when the blue and silver footman, hauling in by his unrelinquished throat that scared bailiff, and followed by the blushing village beauty, stood within the room, Sir John and his half-dozen friends greeted the tableau with united acclamations.

“I say, Pypp, that’s a devilish fine creature,” metaphorically remarked the Honorable Lionel Poynter.

“Yaas.”  Lord George was a long, sallow, slim young man, with a goatish beard, like the Duc d’Aumale’s; he affected extreme fashion and infinite sangfroid.

“Well, Jonathan, what is it?” asked the baronet.

“Why, in one word, my honoured master, this scoundrel here has been wickedly insulting my own poor dear Grace, by promising to save her father from the gallows if—­if—­”

“If what, man? speak out,” said Mr. Poynter.

“You don’t mean to say, Jennings, that you are brute enough to be seducing that poor man Roger’s daughter, just as he’s going to be tried for his life?” asked Sir John.

Simon uttered nothing in reply; but Grace burst into tears.

“A fair idea that, ’pon my honour,” drawled the chivalrous Pypp, proceeding to direct his delicate attentions towards the weeping damsel.

“Simon Jennings,” said Sir John, after pausing in vain for his reply, “I have long wished to get rid of you, sir.  Silence!  I know you, and have been finding out your rascally proceedings these ten days past.  I have learnt much, more than you may fancy:  and now this crowning villany [what if he had known of the ulterior designs?] gives me fair occasion to say once and for ever, begone!”