"He strip't him to the waist, He boldly Trefry faced, I'll let him know That I can throw As well as he to-day! So little Jan, huzzah! And some said so--but others, No, Trefry, Trefry, huzzah!" Sol sang lustily, with his hands in his pockets and his legs extended. "Come, lad, down on your knees, and off with my boots." Anthony did stoop, he went on one knee, not on both, and not to pull off the old man's boots, but to pick up his single-stick, whirl it round his head, and level a blow at the head of the undefended Uncle Sol; the blow would have fallen, had not Urith, who had entered the room at the moment, sprung forward, and caught it in her hand. "Coward!" she exclaimed, "coward!--my uncle! an old man! I hate you. Would God I had never seen you!" He had hurt her hand, he saw it, for she caught it to her bosom, then put it to her mouth, but her eyes glared at him over her hand like white lightning. "A scurvy trick, lad--did not think thee capable of it," said Uncle Sol. "Has he hurt thee, child?" He stood up. Anthony flung the single-stick from him with an oath, put his hand to his brow, stood for a minute confronting Urith, looking into her fiery eyes, without exculpation, without a word. Then he turned, took up Uncle Sol's hat, without observing that it was not his own, flung it on his head, and went forth. CHAPTER XXXIII. INTO TEMPTATION. Never is man so inflamed with anger, so overflowing with gall against others, as when he is conscious that he has laid himself open to animadversions. Anthony was bitter at heart against his wife and against her uncle, because he was aware, without being ready to acknowledge it, that he had acted ill towards both. Why should not Urith have yielded at once to his wishes about the cradle? How obtuse to all delicate and elevated feeling she was to think that such a dusty, dingy, worm-eaten crib would suffice for his son, the representative of the house of Cleverdon--the child who was to be the means of reconciliation between himself and his father--the heir of Hall, who would open to him again the internal mansion, and enable him to return there and escape from Willsworthy, a place becoming daily more distasteful, and likely to become wholly insupportable! That he had seen the cradle under disadvantage, in its abandoned, forgotten condition, and that it could be made to look well when a little feminine skill and taste had been expended on it, did not occur to him.