Griff laughed and said, ‘There, we have had enough of this;’ and in fact we had already moved on, so that he had to make some long steps to overtake us, muttering, ‘So we’ve started a Meg Merrilies! My father won’t keep such a foul-mouthed hag in the parish long!’ To which I had to respond that her cottage belonged to the trustees of the chapel, whereat he whistled. I don’t think he knew that we had heard her final denunciation, and we did not like to mention it to him, scarcely to each other, though Emily looked very white and scared. We talked it over afterwards in private, and with Henderson, who confessed that he had heard of the old woman’s saying something of the kind to other persons. We consulted the registers in hopes of confuting it, but did not satisfy ourselves. The last Squire had lost his only son at school. He himself had been originally second in the family, and in the generation before him there had been some child-deaths, after which we came back to a young man, apparently the eldest, who, according to Miss Selby’s story, had been killed in a duel by one of the Fordyces. It was not comfortable, till I remembered that our family Bible recorded the birth, baptism, and death of a son who had preceded Griffith, and only borne for a day the name afterwards bestowed on me. And Henderson, who was so little our elder as to discuss things on fairly equal grounds, had some very interesting talks with us two over ancestral sin and its possible effects, dwelling on the 18th of Ezekiel as a comment on the Second Commandment. Indeed, we agreed that the uncomfortable state of disaffection which, in 1830, was becoming only too manifest in the populace, was the result of neglect in former ages, and that, even in our own parish, the bitterness, distrust, and ingratitude were due to the careless, riotous, and oppressive family whom we represented. CHAPTER XVII. THE SIEGE OF HILLSIDE. ‘Ferments arise, imprisoned factions roar, Represt ambition struggles round the shore; Till, overwrought, the general system feels Its motion stop, or frenzy fire the wheels.’ GOLDSMITH. GRIFFITH had come straight home this year. There were no Peacock gaieties to tempt him in London, for old Sir Henry had died suddenly soon after the ball in December; nor was there much of a season that year, owing to the illness and death of George IV.