‘No, nor never will be with a parson blowing his horn at this rate,’ the squire rejoined.  ‘And mind you,’ he said to Peterborough, after dismissing the servants, to whom my aunt Dorothy read the morning lessons apart, ’I’d not have had this happen, sir, for money in lumps.  I’ve always known I should hang the day when my house wasn’t blessed in the morning by prayer.  So did my father, and his before him.  Fiddle! sir, you can’t expect young people to wear decent faces when the parson’s hopping over the floor like a flea, and trumpeting as if the organ-pipe wouldn’t have the sermon at any price.  You tried to juggle me out of this book here.’

‘On my!—­indeed, sir, no!’ Peterborough proclaimed his innocence, and it was unlikely that the squire should have suspected him.

Captain Bulsted had come to us for his wife, whom he had not found at home on his arrival last midnight.

‘God bless my soul,’ said the squire, ’you don’t mean to tell me she’s gone off, William?’

‘Oh! dear, no, sir,’ said the captain, ‘she’s only cruising.’

The squire recommended a draught of old ale.  The captain accepted it.  His comportment was cheerful in a sober fashion, notwithstanding the transparent perturbation of his spirit.  He answered my aunt Dorothy’s questions relating to Julia simply and manfully, as became a gallant seaman, cordially excusing his wife for not having been at home to welcome him, with the singular plea, based on his knowledge of the sex, that the nearer she knew him to be the less able was she to sit on her chair waiting like Patience.  He drank his ale from the hands of Sillabin, our impassive new butler, who had succeeded Sewis, the squire told him, like a Whig Ministry the Tory; proof that things were not improving.

‘I thought, sir, things were getting better,’ said the captain.

’The damnedest mistake ever made, William.  How about the Fall of Man, then? eh?  You talk like a heathen Radical.  It’s Scripture says we’re going from better to worse, and that’s Tory doctrine.  And stick to the good as long as you can!  Why, William, you were a jolly bachelor once.’

‘Sir, and ma’am,’ the captain bowed to Dorothy Beltham, ’I have, thanks to you, never known happiness but in marriage, and all I want is my wife.’

The squire fretted for Janet to depart.  ’I ‘m going, grandada,’ she said.  ’You’ll oblige me by not attending to any matter of business to-day.  Give me that book of Harry’s to keep for you.’

‘How d’ ye mean, my dear?’

’It ‘s bad work done on a Sunday, you know.’

‘So it is.  I’ll lock up the book.’

‘I have your word for that, grandada,’ said Janet.

The ladies retired, taking Peterborough with them.

‘Good-bye to the frocks! and now, William, out with your troubles,’ said the squire.

The captain’s eyes were turned to the door my aunt Dorothy had passed through.