voice of the squire hailing him from some distance up the fields to the left hand. Mr. Longstaff pushed forwards with increased speed, and without taking more notice of his master's call than if he had not heard it; but before he could reach the gate of that which had now become as a fortress to him, Mr. Lupton again hallooed in a tone which even a deaf man could not, with any show of grace, have denied hearing something of. Longstaff accordingly stopped, and, on turning his head, beheld the squire on horseback beckoning to him with his hand. There was now no alternative; and in a few minutes the steward was by his side. “Well, Longstaff,” said he, as he carelessly twirled the lash of his whip upon its stock like a horizontal wheel, “how has it ended? I suppose you have given a son-and-heir to somebody or other?” “It has turned out a deal worse job than I expected,” dolefully observed the steward. “Ah!--a bad job is it?” “Very, sir, very!” sighed the unfortunate go-between. “Why--what--wouldn't she be persuaded, Longstaff?” “Oh, yes,” replied the steward, with a deep curse on Mrs. Clink, “she took all I was authorised to give her--” “And gave me the whelp in exchange, eh?” added the squire. “No, sir, no,”--(he inly wished she had)”--worse than that, sir,--a great deal worse.” “Worse!” earnestly exclaimed Mr. Lupton; “that is impossible. Have _you_ got him then?” Mr. Longstaff cast his eyes to the ground, arranged the shoe-tie of his left foot with the toe of his right, and with a dolorous face, drawn nearly as long as his own name, faintly drawled out, “I have, sir!” Mr. Lupton burst into a fit of laughter, which lasted two whole minutes, blew out his breath in a prolonged whistle, not unlike an autumn blast through an out-door key-hole, and then dashed away, cracking his whip and laughing as long as he could be heard. “Dang the woman!” exclaimed the steward, as he began to move off the ground homewards, “I 'll kick her and her barn * out of house and home to-night, or may I be------” * A common Yorkshire corruption of the Scottish _bairn_. Somehow or other, however, he could not screw up sufficient courage to carry him immediately home, and, as it were, into the very jaws of Mrs. Æneasina Longstaff. He therefore crossed the corners of two other fields again, on to the high-road, and walked into the Cock and Bottle, the only inn in Bramleigh, with the intention of strengthening his shaken nerves with a respectable potation of brandy and water.