John recoiled a step in amazement and awe; then, emboldened by curiosity, kept his place, and made his bow to the master. Mr. Scarsdale stamped his foot on the floor in lack of words, and pointed to the door with a violent gesture; and before he knew what he was about, Peggy rushed against John, thrust him out before her, and closed and bolted the door after him. The amazed and sheepish look with which he rubbed his shoulders, and gazed at the inhospitable door from which he had been so summarily expelled, would have been worth a comic actor's while to see. The honest fellow stood outside, looking first at the house and then at his mare, with a ludicrous astonishment. "The devil's in the woman!" said John. That was a proposition not unfamiliar to him. Then in his blank bewilderment he marched gravely round the house, spying in at the vacant windows. Everything was empty except that kitchen, in which the pale spectre in the dressing-gown might be murdering the women for anything John knew. What should he do? After various pauses of troubled cogitations, John decided that discretion was the better part of valour, and chirruped to his mare. The two went off together, much discomfited, and the landlord of the "Tillington Arms" had full occupation for the rest of the road in amending the circumstances according to his fancy, and bringing himself into sufficient dignity and importance in the tale to make it meet for the ears of his wife. When John Gilsland was disposed of, Mr. Scarsdale addressed himself to his daughter and his servant. "I understand," he said, without speaking directly to either, "from his absence at table, and from the articles which I have just now seen taken out of the house, that Mr. Horace Scarsdale has chosen to leave Marchmain; I say nothing against that--he is perfectly welcome to choose his own residence; but I desire you to understand, both of you, that on no pretence whatever must this young man return into my house--not even for a visit; he has placed himself among those strangers whom I decline to admit. I make no complaint," added the recluse, coldly, "that my family conspire against me, and that messages are received, and my property sent away, without my knowledge." "Master," said Peggy, while Susan stood trembling before her father, her work fallen from her hands, and her womanish fright and anguish falling into tears. "Master," exclaimed his old servant, who was not afraid of him, "you're no to leave that reproach on me. I've conspired against none of you, if it was my last word! Your son's gone, as he should have gone a dozen years ago, if ye had been wise, or ta'en my advice. He's gone, and God's blessing and grit speed be with him! I never was more glad of nothing in my born days; and for his things in his box!--I knowed you a lad and a man, and a better man nor you are this day; but did I ever even it to you to keep back another man's, if it was a servant's claithes?"