_Dan._ No; though for years I never passed a strange face but I peered into it--for I knowed every line o’ his, though I never heerd his name. Knowed it! Why, it burnt in my eyeballs, so that I see it in the dark! I seed it everywhere--I seed it in the forge, and be sure I raked it out!--I seed it red-hot on my anvil, and be sure I hammered with a will! After a while (but it was a weary while!) the thought come that mayhap he had perished in the gale, so I thought less about it; and Dolly seemed more like my own. Yet the old fear comes back, odd times, and, oh, Geoffrey, it’s like enough she’ll be taken from me yet. _Enter DOROTHY from cottage._ _Dor._ Oh, father, a gentleman, whose horse hath cast a shoe, hath need of thy services in the yard. _Dan._ A gentleman, eh? _Dor._ It is Master Reuben Haines, Sir Jasper’s bailiff. He passed this way twice before to prepare for Sir Jasper’s arrival; but that was when thou wast away at Norwich. _Dan._ And what manner of man is he? _Dor._ A strange man, full of unmeaning jests, who maketh faces at me which doth fright me much, and he rolleth his eyes in a manner fearful to behold. _Dan._ A town fashion, Dolly, who knows? Ha! ha! Take no heed of his faces. Make him welcome, for there’s no foreseein’; it may serve us, one day, to stand well with the bailiff! Come, Geoffrey, and lend me a hand. I’ll see to his horse. [_GEOFFREY kisses DOROTHY and exit with DAN’L._ _Enter REUBEN in riding dress, from cottage._ _Reu._ Good morrow, pretty Mistress Dorothy! We have not forgotten one another, I see! And how has time sped with thee since I saw thee last? Has it crept, crawled, drawled, dragged, and dawdled for lack of a certain merry old man who whiled away a certain half-hour with thee two months since with curious quip, quaint retort, and surprising conundrum? Dost thou remember that half-hour, Dorothy? _I_ do. In the course of it I said many rare things to thee, complimentary and insinuating things of amatory significance and connubial import, neatly disguised, or, as one may say, embalmed, in an outer husk of delicate epigram. And thou didst listen! Ye gods! how thou didst listen! I love a good listener. _Dor._ Sir, I do indeed remember your coming; but as for your sayings, I was silent, for I understood them not. Is--is Sir Jasper at hand? _Enter DAN’L DRUCE, unobserved, at back._ _Reu._ He will be here anon. Some village clowns are plaguing him with an address--a scurvy long one, and writ in very false jingle. I heard the first lines thereof; it began: “Sir Jasper Combe, to welcome you We do as much as we can do: Here live and die--to House and Tomb We welcome you, Sir Jasper Combe!” It did so move me to laughter that Sir Jasper, who hath no sense of the ridiculous, did order me to ride on. But I doubt not that even he is laughing heartily thereat, by this time!