of the room, and returned dressed in a
complete set of new clothes, like a farmer's son
riding to market. He was very tall and
strong of his age, and handsome. Grand he
did look, with a red flush on his cheek and a
strange, wild look in his eye. The children
shouted with pleasure and surprise. Then
says he, "Dame Crookit, I am going on a journey
—a long journey. The king has sent for me,
and I must give you all a feast such as we
read of in story-books before I go." So
they all set to work, and cooked, feasted, and
laughed, and rejoiced, and he the loudest of
them all. When they had done, he called in
all the labourers that were in the cattle-yards
and round the house, and made them drink
his health and a pleasant journey. "Drink,"
he said, "the wine won't hurt you; it's old;
it has lain in the cellar ever since my grandfather
died, and long before that. If you
don't like wine here's rum marked on the
cask, ninety years old." So you may believe
they all drank. He made the men go out
and fetch in more logs and pile up such a
fire as had not been seen for many a year.
Then he said, "Come, my friends, I will sing
you a song." So he sung first one and then
another ballad—all mournful ditties that
made the lasses weep—he was always a fine
singer. Many a time he has rode before me
when he was a child, and sung all the way
through the park. His beautiful voice went
ringing through the empty halls, and winding
up the stairs, where the cow-boys hung
listening.

He was in the middle of a ballad—
we could hear the last verse as we came
up the avenue. "What's that?" said
the Squire. For the house was always
mute as an empty church. When we
turned into the stable-yard the flames of
the hearth-tire flashed out through the
dusty, cobwebed window. "Good heavens!"
he cried: "the house is on fire!" Next,
as he hurried along the passage came the
gabble of cheerful voices. He flung open
wide the heavy door, and cried, in a voice
of dismay and rage, "What's all this?
Who dared do this?"

"It was I, father," said Rupert, stepping
forward, looking flushed and even still more
fierce than his father. "It was I who did it
all. I am going to leave you, sir, on a long
journey, and thought I should like to give
my brothers and sisters and old friends one
farewell feast after years of starvation; and
if you grudge it me. why then you can
deduct it from my share of my mother's
fortune, which you must pay when I come
of age."

"Villain! It's false. You've not a shilling
unless you've robbed me." And he raised
his whip to strike him.

"Don't strike me," said Master Rupert,
stepping back apace, and turning from red to
white; "don't strike me, or you'll repent it
for many a long day."

But he did strike him again and again,
right across his face, until the blood flew.

In one minute, before I could step between
them, the son, who was a head taller than his
father, had him in his arms pinioned, snatched
out of his other hand the big black pocket-
book he always carried, and then full of the
price of twenty bullocks, burst it open over
the fire, shook out the notes into the crackling
flames, then threw the book into the embers
and put his heel upon it. Some of the notes
flew burning, like evil spirits, up the chimney;
the rest were ashes in an instant.

"There!" he cried, "there! That's how
I should like to serve all your cursed money—
it is your curse and ours."

Before the Squire could recover himself
Master Rupert was gone. We heard a
clattering in the yard of horses' feet. I ran
to the window, and saw him by the light
of the moon gallop down the avenue on
his gray colt, that he must have had all
ready saddled. We never saw him again.

The Squire took to his bed and lay there
nigh a week, scarce eating anything. I
tended on him myself. I could hear him
groan as I passed his door; but, when I came
in he looked just as usual, pale and hard and
grim. You could never tell what he meant
by his face.

Some said he fretted for his son; others
said it was for the money Master Rupert had
burned, and the loss of the gray colt, the best
he'd bred. Anyhow he said no word, but got
up at the end of the week, moiling and
striving, and screwing, and grinding worse
than ever. I think myself he loved Master
Rupert, for all his hard lines to him; for, once
—when his son had been gone six months—I
found him in the old lawyer's study standing
looking at two pictures—one of himself,
taken when he was about ten years old, and
another of Rupert when he was seven or
eight, drawn for his grandfather by some
foreign artist. I heard him mutter to
himself, "so changed"; and I half fancied there
was a tear in his eye. But turning him
sharp round on me, he said grimlike, "Could
any one believe that pretty child could have
turned out such a villain, to rob his poor old
father? What?" he cried to me, as I
muttered something—for the boy was my
favourite—"do you defend him?"

"Master Rupert was not a villain," says I,
"if it was the last word I was ever to speak."
And with that I threw down the sample of
wheat I had brought, went out, and never
went near him all day. But he could not do
without me. So the next time I had to go to
him, he took no more notice.

When we came to settle with the miller
who took part of our corn and sent us meal,
we found that he had paid Master Rupert
cash for a brood mare that used to be called his.
Before that time the Squire had taken care
of the money, as he said for them, of any
calves or lambs sold belonging to the children.