"Oh, you serpent!" cried Jane, pale with rage. "You bad, wicked fellow! You're like the scorpion in the Holy Bible, you are, that turns to rend the hand that fed it. Oh!" she cried, growing gradually more and more furious, "to think that I've wasted all my best days about such a traitor--such a cruel, malicious, spiteful, dirty story-teller! Shame on you! How dare you, you villain, hint at such wickedness about my poor dear sweet mistress, whose dear heart is as pure as an angel's--a sweet, suffering lamb?" "A sweet, suffering lamb, indeed!" cried Gurdon, savagely. "Yah! There's a pair of you--she-wolves, more likely." "Then I'll be the wolf that shall shake such a nasty lying cur as you!" cried Jane, furiously. "Go down on your knees, you wicked--wicked-- nasty--story-telling--villain--you, or I'll shake all the breath out of your body!" In effect, beside herself with rage, Jane had caught the butler by the collar with both hands, and at every word she had given him a furious shake, till, utterly confounded at the suddenness of the attack, he had really, to avoid the onslaught, sunk upon his knees, enabling her, though, to deliver the correction more effectually. "Say it was all stories--say it was all stories," cried Jane. "I won't: it's all as true as true, and her--" "Take that, you wicked villain!" shrieked Jane; and with the full force of her by no means weak arm, she slapped him across the mouth just as the door opened, and a knot of eager, curious servants appeared. "What is the matter?" was the cry. "Let him say a word if he dares," cried Jane, ending her punishment by a tremendous box on the butler's ears, to the intense delight of the lookers-on. "He told lies about me, and I hit him--there!" said Jane defiantly, "and let him say it isn't true if he dares." Then, utterly exhausted by her efforts, poor Jane threw herself, sobbing, into a chair. "Oh, take me away!--take me away!" she cried; and two of the sympathising women ran to her, declaring that it was a shame, that it was; while the stout cook delivered her opinion that it would be a blessing if there wasn't a man left on the face of the earth, "breaking poor women's hearts as was faithful unto death." Whereupon one of the footmen winked at a very smart and aspiring kitchen-maid, who had whispered to him her suspicions respecting cook's possessing a similar weakness to Mr Gurdon's, and requiring stimulants for the due invention of fresh dishes. "It's a pity that people don't know their places," said Gurdon, sulkily, "and keep to the kitchen and hall, instead of pushing themselves into the housekeeper's room, where they're not wanted." But somehow, the butler's words had but very little effect, for in spite of their knowledge of his engagement to Jane Barker, and her great influence in domestic matters with her mistress, John Gurdon's tenure at the Castle was held to be in a very insecure state.