“You need not look like a girl at me,” said Meadows, “most likely it won’t come to that.  It is not easy to beat me, and I shall try every move man’s wit can devise—­this last,” said he, in a voice of iron, touching the pistol as it lay on the table.

There was another pause.  Then Meadows rose and said calmly:  “You look tired, you shall have a bottle of my old port; and my own heart is staggered, but it is only for a moment.”  He struck his hand upon his breast, and walked slowly from the room.  And Crawley heard his step descend to the hall, and then to the cellar; and the indomitable character of the man rang in his solid tread.

Crawley was uneasy.  “Mr. Meadows is getting wildish; it frightens me to see such a man as him burst out like that.  He is not to be trusted with a loaded pistol.  Ah! and I am in his secrets, deep in his secrets; great men sweep away little folk that know too much.  I never saw him with a pistol before.”  All this passing rapidly through his head, Crawley pounced on the pistol, took off the caps, whipped out a little bottle, and poured some strong stuff into the caps that loosened the detonating powder directly; then with a steel pen he picked it all out and replaced the caps, their virtue gone, before Mr. Meadows returned with two bottles; and the confederates sat in close conclave till the gray of morning broke into the room.

The great man gave but few orders to his subordinate, for this simple reason, that the game had fallen into his own hands.

Still there was something for Crawley to do.  He was to have an officer watching to arrest Will Fielding on the old judgment should he, which was hardly to be expected, come to kick up a row and interrupt the wedding.  And to-morrow he was to take out a writ against his “father-in-law.”  Mr. Meadows played a close game.  He knew that things are not to be got when they are wanted.  His plan was to have everything ready that might be wanted long before it was wanted.

But most of the night passed in relation of what had already taken place, and Crawley was the chief speaker, and magnified his services.  He related from his own point of view all that I have told, and Meadows listened with all his soul and intelligence.

At the attack on Mr. Levi, Meadows chuckled.  “The old heathen,” said he, contemptuously, “I have beat him anyway.”

“By the way, sir, have you seen anything of him?” asked Crawley.

“No.”

“He is not come home, then.”

“Not that I know of; have you any reason to think he has?”

“No, only he left the mine directly after they pelted him; but he would not leave the country any the more for that, and money to be made in it by handfuls.”

“Now, Crawley, go and get some sleep.  A cold bath for me and then on horseback.  I must breakfast at Grassmere.”

“Great man, sir! great man!  You will beat them yet, sir.  You have beat Mr. Levi.  Here we are in his house; and he driven away to lay his sly old bones at the Antipodes.  Ha! ha! ha!”