"What dost want to writhe i' that fashion for?" he demanded. "Dost find thine inwards twisted? It's a pretty tone, though," he allowed. "The young man can fiddle. Strikes me, young master, as thee'dst do better at the Hopera than the House o' Commons. Tek a fool's advice and try."

Ferdinand smiled with genuine good-humor. This insolent old personage began to amuse him.

"Really I don't know, sir," he answered. "Perhaps I may do pretty well in the House of Commons, if you will be good enough to try me. One can't please everybody, but I promise to do my best."

"The best can do no more," said Fuller, in a mellow, peace-making kind of murmur; "the best can do no more."

"I've no mind for that theer whisperin' and shout-in' in the course of a piece of music," said Sennacherib. "Pianner is pianner, and forte is forte, but theer's no call to strain a man's ears to listen to the one, nor to drive him deaf with t'other. Same time, if the young gentleman 'ud like to come an' gi'e us a lesson now and then we'd tek it."

"I'm not able to give you lessons, sir," returned Mr. De Blacquaire, with unshaken good-humor; "but if you'll allow me to take one now and then by listening, I shall be delighted."

"Nothin' agen that, is theer, Mr. Fuller?" demanded Sennacherib.

"Allays pleased to see the young gentleman," responded Fuller.

"When may I come to listen to you again, gentlemen?" asked Ferdinand.

His manner was full of _bonhomie_ now, and had no trace of affectation.

It pleased everybody but Reuben, who had conceived a distaste for him from the first. Perhaps, if he had not placed his chair so near to Ruth, and had regarded her less often and with a less evident admiration, the young man might have liked him better.

"Well," said Fuller, "we are here pretty nigh every evenin' while the fine weather lasts. We happen to be here this afternoon because young Mr. Gold is goin' away for to-night to Castle Barfield. You'll find we here almost of any evenin'--to-morrow, to begin with."

"We had better be going now, Ferdinand," said his lordship, who dreaded the new beginning of the music. "Good-afternoon, Fuller. Good-afternoon, Eld. Good-afternoon, Gold."

"Good-day, my lord," said Reuben, rather gloomily. He had not spoken until now, and Ferdinand had wished to note the accent. There was none to note in the few words he uttered.

"Your little girl is growing into a woman, Fuller," said his lordship.

"That's the way wi' most gells, my lord," said Fuller.

"Good-afternoon, Miss Ruth," said the old n.o.bleman, nodding and smiling.

"Good-afternoon, my lord," said Ruth. Ferdinand's attentive ear noted again the absence of the district accent. He removed his cap and bowed to her.

"Good-afternoon. I may come to-morrow evening, then?" The query was addressed to her, but she did not answer it, either by glance or word.

She had answered his bow and turned away before he had spoken.

"Ay," said Fuller; "come and welcome."

He bowed and smiled all round, and walked away with his lordship. He turned at the garden door for a final glance at the pretty girl, but she had her back turned upon him, and was leaning both hands on her father's shoulder.

CHAPTER IV.

The rustic little church at Heydon Hay made a nucleus for the village, which, close at hand, cl.u.s.tered about it pretty thickly, but soon began to fray off into scattered edges, as if the force of attraction decreased with distance, after the established rule. Beside the church-yard, and separated from it by a high brick wall, was a garden, fronted by half a dozen slim and lofty poplars. Within the churchyard the wall was only on a level with the topmost tufts of gra.s.s, but on the garden side it stood six feet high, and was bulged out somewhat by the weight of earth which pressed against it. Facing the tall poplars was a house of two stories. It looked like a short row of houses, for it boasted three front doors. Over each of these was hung a little contrivance which resembled a section of that extinguisher apparatus which is still to be found suspended above the pulpit in some old-fashioned country churches. All the windows of the old house were of diamond panes, and those of the upper story projected from the roof of solid and venerable thatch. A pair of doves had their home in a wicker cage which hung from the wall, and their cooing was like the voice of the house, so peaceful, homely, and Old-world was its aspect.

Despite the three front doors, the real entrance to the house was at the rear, to which access was had by a side gate. A path, moss-grown at the edges, led between shrubs and flowers to a small circle of brickwork, in the midst of which was a well with rope and windla.s.s above it, and thence continued to the door, which led to an antique, low-browed kitchen. A small dark pa.s.sage led from the kitchen to a front room with a great fireplace, which rose so high that there was but just enough room between the mantle-board and the whitewashed ceiling for the squat bra.s.s candlesticks and the big foreign sea-sh.e.l.ls which stood there for ornament.

The diamonded window admitted so little light that on entering here from the outer sunshine the visitor could only make out the details one by one. When his eyes became accustomed to the semi-darkness he was sure to notice a dozen or more green baize bags which hung upon the walls, each half defining, in the same vague way as all the others, the outline of the object it contained. Each green baize bag was closely tied at the neck, and suspended at an equal height with the rest upon a nail. There was something of a vault-like odor in the room, traceable probably to the two facts that the carpet was laid upon a brick floor, and that the chamber was rarely opened to the air.

Ezra Gold, seated upright in an oaken arm-chair, with a hand lightly grasping the end of either arm, was at home in the close, cool shadow of the place. The cloistered air, the quiet and the dim shade seemed to suit him, and he to be in harmony with them. His eyes were open, and alighted now and again with an air of recognition on some familiar object, but otherwise he might have seemed asleep. On the central table was a great pile of music-books, old-fashioned alike in shape and binding. They exhaled a special cloistral odor of their own, as if they had been long imprisoned. Ezra's eye dwelt oftener on these musty old books than elsewhere.

He had sat still and silent for a long time, when the bells of the church, with a startling nearness and distinctness, broke into a peal.

He made a slight movement when the sound first fell upon his ear, but went back to his quiet and his dreams again at once.

Ten minutes went by and the bells were still pealing, when he heard a sound which would have been inaudible in the midst of the metallic clamor to ears less accustomed than his own. He had lived there all his life, and scarcely noticed the noise which would almost have deafened a stranger. The sound he had heard was the clicking of the gate, and after a pause it was followed by the appearance of his nephew Reuben, who looked about him with a dazzled and uncertain gaze.

"Well, Reuben, lad?" said the old man; but his voice was lost for his nephew in the noise which shook the air. "Dost not see me?" he cried, speaking loudly this time.

"I'm fresh from the sunlight," Reuben shouted, with unnecessary force.

"You spoke before. I couldn't hear you for the bells."

The old man with a half-humorous gesture put his hands to his ears.

"No need to shout a man's head off," he answered. "Come outside."

Rueben understood the gesture, though he could not hear the words, and the two left the room together, and came out upon the back garden.

The sound of the bells was still clear and loud, but by no means so overwhelming as it had been within-doors.

"That's better," said Reuben. "They're making noise enough for young Sennacherib's wedding."

"Young Sennacherib?" asked his uncle. "Young Eld? Is young Eld to be married?"

"Didn't you Know that? The procession is coming along the road this minute. Old Sennacherib disapproves of the match, and we've had a scene the like of which was never known in Heydon Hay before."

"Ay?" said Ezra, with grave interest, slowly, and with a look of a man long imprisoned, to whom outside things are strange, but interesting still. "As how?"

"Why thus," returned Reuben, with a laugh in his eyes. "Old Sennacherib comes to his gate and awaits the wedding-party. Young Snac, with his bride upon his arm, waves a braggart handkerchief at the oldster, and out walks papa, plants himself straight in front of the company, and brings all to a halt. 'I should like to tell thee,' says the old fellow before them all, rolling that bull-dog head of his, 'as I've made my will an' cut thee off with a shillin'!'"

"Dear me!" said Ezra, seriously; "dear me! And what answer made young Snac to this?"

"Young Snac," said Reuben, "was equal to his day. 'All right,' says he; 'gi'e me the shillin' now, an' we'll drop in at the "Goat" and split a quart together.' 'All right,' says the old bull-dog; 'it's th' on'y chance I shall ever light upon of mekin' a profit out o' thee.' He lugs out a leather bag, finds a shilling, bites it to make sure of its value, hands it to the young bull-dog, and at the 'Goat' they actually pull up together, and young Snac spends the money then and there. 'Bring out six pints,' cries Snac the younger. 'Fo'penny ale's as much as a father can expect when his loving son is a-spendin' the whole of his inheritance upon him.' Everybody sipped, the bride included, and the two bull-dogs clinked their mugs together. I sipped myself, being invited as a bystander, and toasted father and son together."

"But, mind thee, lad," said Ezra, "it's scarcely to be touched upon as a laughing matter. Drollery of a sort theer is in it, to be sure; but what Sennacherib Eld says he sticks to. When he bites he holds. He was ever of that nature."

"I know," said Reuben; "but young Nip-and-Fasten has the breed of old Bite-and-Hold-Fast in him, and if the old man keeps his money the young one will manage to get along without it."

At this moment the bells ceased their clangor.

"They've gone into the church, Reuben," said the old man. "I'll do no less than wish 'em happiness, though there's fewer that finds it than seeks it by that gate."

"It's like other gates in that respect, I suppose," Reuben answered.

"Well, yes," returned the elder man, lingeringly. "But it's the gate that most of 'em fancy, and thereby it grows the saddest to look at, lad. Come indoors again. There'll be no more bells this yet-awhile."

Reuben followed him into the cloistral odors and shadows of the sitting-room. Ezra took his old seat, and kept silence for the s.p.a.ce of two or three minutes.