'John stares with an open mouth, but a peremptory "Don't you understand?" from his mistress wakes him up, and he goes and helps Sir Henry up, who therewith slowly rises, and, resting one hand on John's shoulder, without one word limps away. 'The door shuts, and Mistress Dennington turns slowly to the fire, her eyes glued to them letters burning blackly amongst the coals. As she watches she takes a cigarette from a box on the mantelshelf, lights it, and I heard her say to herself, "You fool!" then she smokes a puff or two and again she says, "You fool!" and therewith taps her foot smartly on the floor.' 'But what do you think she meant by "fool"?' I here interrupted. 'Well,' replied Jake slowly, 'I've often asked myself that very question, and what I believe she meant was something o' this sort: "Fool not to take your chance--and such a chance!--when you had it, and Fool again, for not knowing me better than to think that of me when 'twas too late."' 'And now one more question,' I said, for Jake was preluding with his weapon once again, evidently anxious to commence another bout. 'Did you ever tell the Squire?' 'No, not exactly,' replied he, 'but I gave him a hint, and bank-notes wouldn't have bought that rapier after that, and there it still hangs in Dennington Hall in the armoury, I believe, though I haven't been there since the Squire died and I set up as a Maître d'Armes in Oldcastle here. The mistress, though, she's still alive, but she never cared for Northumberland--"so dull," says she, and goes and diverts herself in London town. And now no more talk. Gardez-vous, M'sieur--en garde, s'il vous plaît,' and with a smile he struck my foil upon the floor. 'T'OWD SQUIRE' 'No, I never saw him, not the old Squire--"t'owd Squire," as they called him; but grandfather, he was thick with him, bein' the oldest farmer in the dale an' pretty nigh a gentleman hisself in those days; he was master of the 'ounds, d'ye see, when they was a trencher-fed pack--that was before Squire Heron took them over to t' new kennels at The Ford. 'Well, I done some pretty fair jumps myself at one time an' another in t' ring or steeple-chasin', but 'twas nowt to what he done, not even when a mare I was ridin' jumped over a wall an' fifteen feet into t' quarry t' other side. 'There's a pretty tidy place at t' bottom o' that field'--pointing to a low-lying, marshy expanse on the left that rose at the end to a high bank--'that he jumped one afternoon in cold blood which five out of six wouldn't have touched in warm, but at t' end of his time he was reckless--almost to touch on madness, so grandfather always said. But if ye'll bide here three minutes till I've seen the mare looked to properly I'll tell ye a tale of t' Squire--same as grandfather told it me.'