Sir John, who was carving a roast of butcher's meat, carved on, though his young wife ventured a glance at him--a sad, timid look as though hopeful that her husband might betray some interest when other men said gallant things to her. I asked Sir John's permission to offer a toast, and he gave it with cold politeness. "To the two cruellest and loveliest creatures alive in a love-stricken world," said I. "Gentlemen, I offer you our charming tyrants. And may our heads remain ever in the dust and their silken shoon upon our necks!" All drank standing. The Seneca gulped his Madeira like a slobbering dog, noticing nobody, and then fell fiercely to cutting up his meat, until, his knife being in the way, he took the flesh in his two fists and gnawed it. But nobody appeared to notice the Seneca's beastly manners; and such general complaisance preoccupied me, because Hiakatoo knew better, and it seemed as though he considered himself in a position where he might disdain to conduct suitably amid a company which, possibly, stood in need of his good will. Nobody spoke of politics, nor did I care to introduce such a subject. Conversation was general; matters concerning the town, the Hall, were mentioned, together with such topics as are usually discussed among land owners in time of peace. And it seemed to me that Sir John, who had, as usual, remained coldly reticent among his guests, became of a sudden conversational with a sort of forced animation, like a man who recollects that he has a part to play and who unwillingly attempts it. He spoke of the Hall farm, and of how he meant to do this with this part and that with that part; and how the herd bulls were now become useless and he must send to the Patroon for new blood,--all a mere toneless and mechanical babble, it seemed to me, and without interest or sincerity. Once, sipping my claret, I thought I heard a faint clash of arms outside and in the direction of the guard-house. And another time it seemed to me that many horses were stirring somewhere outside in the darkness. I could not conceive of anything being afoot, because of Sir John's parole, and so presently dismissed the incidents from my mind. The wine had somewhat heated the men; laughter was louder, speech less guarded. Young Watts spoke boldly of Haldimand and Guy Carleton, naming them as the two most efficient servants that his Majesty had in Canada. Nobody, however, had the effrontery to mention Guy Johnson in my presence, but Ensign Moucher pretended to discuss a probable return of old John Butler and of his son Walter to our neighborhood,--to hoodwink me, I think,--but his mealy manner and the false face he pulled made me the more wary. The wine burned in Hiakatoo, but he never looked toward me nor directly at anybody out of his blank red eyes of a panther.