I laid hands on the flask and poured myself out a glassful. “Here’s your health, sir,” I says, bowing to him. “I never thought to find thee disaffected,” says he, taking no heed of my compliment. “Have you done so, sir?” I asks him. He favoured me with a hard look. “Faith!” he says, half muttering to himself, “I don’t find much enthusiasm in you.” “You forget, sir,” I answers, “that I am to be a lawyer. ’Tis not my trade to show my feelings, but rather to conceal them.” “Be damned to your feelings!” he raps out. “’Slife, man, there are half the lads in England shouting for one side or t’other to-night, instead o’ sitting as you do with a face as long as those parchments you pour over.” “I am quite agreeable, sir,” says I. “Let them shout--I suppose I have a right to preserve my voice for the courts of law.” “Oh, preserve it!” he answers. “Will you take some more wine, sir?” I says very polite, and pushing the flask towards him. He stared at me from under his bushy eyebrows and laid his pipe on the table. “No!” he says. He rose and stretched himself on the hearth, his big body seeming to eclipse the leaping flames. “I’ll to bed,” he says. “Good-night--and more spunk to you. Master Richard,” and he strode across the hall to the door. I jumped up at that. “By God!” says I, a sudden passion raging within me. “If occasion should ever serve, Sir Jarvis, you shall see what spunk I have!” With his hand on the door he turned and looked long at me, as I leaned forward over the table staring straight into his eyes. “Aha!” says he at last. “I see how it is--egad, Dick, I thought it strange if I could not draw thee! Well--well--as I said before, ’twill be house against house, and brother against brother, aye, and son against father. Good-night to thee, Dick.” He swung through the door and left it open. I heard his heavy tread on the kitchen flags, and then the clank of his sword’s heel as it caught each stair. I stood there in the same attitude until all was still again. The fire crackled behind me. I suddenly bethought me of the letter which Matthew Richardson had sent me, and ran out to the kitchen hearth, half afraid that some scrap of it might have escaped the flames. The fire had smouldered away; it was all dead ashes; and before it sat Jasper, his hands folded across his stomach, fast asleep. IV. When I came into the hall next morning it was later than my usual hour for appearing before my uncle. I had slept ill during the first part of the night, and kept my bed late in consequence. During the night the weather had changed, and the sun was now shining brightly across the meadows and the garden outside our windows. My uncle, evidently relieved of his pain to some extent, sat at the table, breaking his fast, but there was no sign of Sir Jarvis Cutler.