"Who _told_ thee all this about the squire's losing the estate?" inquired Dickons, with mingled trepidation and sternness. "We heard of it but an hour or so agone. Mr. Parkinson (it seems by the squire's orders) told Mr. Waters, and he told it to us; saying as how it was useless to keep such a thing secret, and that we might as well all know the occasion of so much trouble." "Who's to ha' it then, instead of the squire?" at length inquired Tonson, in a voice half choked with rage and grief. "Lord only knows at present. But whoever 'tis, there isn't one of us sarvents but will go with the squire and his--if it be even to prison, _that_ I can tell ye!" "I'm Squire _Aubrey's_ gamekeeper," quoth Tonson, his eye kindling as his countenance darkened, "and no one's else! It shall go hard if any one else here hath a game"-- "But if there's law in the land, sure the justice must be wi' t' squire--he and his family have had it so long?" said one of the farmers. "I'll tell you what, masters," said Pumpkin, mysteriously, "I shall be somewhat better pleased when Jonas here hath got that old creature Bess safe underground!" "Blind Bess?" exclaimed Tonson, with a very serious, not to say disturbed, countenance. "I wonder--sure! sure! _that_ ould witch can have had no hand in all this---- eh?"---- "Poor old soul, not she! There be no such things as witches now-a-days," exclaimed Jonas. "Not she, I warrant me! She hath been ever befriended by the squire's family. _She_ do it!" "The sooner we get that old woman underground, for all that, the better, say I!" quoth Tonson, significantly. "The parson hath a choice sermon on 'The Flying away of Riches,'" said Higgs, in a quaint, sad manner; "'tis to be hoped that he'll preach from it next Sunday!"---- Soon after this, the little party dispersed, each oppressed with greater grief and amazement than he had ever known before. Bad news flies swiftly--and that which had just come from the Hall, within a very few hours of its having been told at the Aubrey Arms, had spread grief and consternation among high and low for many miles round Yatton. CHAPTER X.