“That’s the present Squire Chillington, madam. I wor his servant many years while in the regiment.” “And how camest thee to leave him?” Tom looked significant; a smile stole round his mouth. “Well, the captain, ma’am, left me.” “Oh, indeed! I hope thou hast not offended him justly, anyway?” “No, madam, oh no! not in the least; but people may know too much, and it is inconvenient.” There was some laughter. “Chillington, we all know, has been a very wild fellow,” said Mr. Woodburn; “was it not so, Tom?” “True, sir, true,” said Tom. “Tell us a little about him, when you were with him, Tom,” said Harry Thorsby. “Well,” said Tom, as he continued to run about, changing plates and attending to everybody’s wants, “I don’t like telling tales out of school; but since my old master signed the warrant with Squire Bullockshed for picking up a hare that I happened to see in a snickle”—here Tom was drowned in a loud burst of laughter from the gentlemen—“since he did that, I don’t feel so tongue-tied as afore. Well, it is true enough, my captain did sow his wild oats pretty freely. It was a gay time, that regimental time. What with a splendid mess, and fine horses, and dogs, and fine”—Tom hesitated a moment—“fine people of one sort or another, money did go, though. My captain blazed away faster than any of them. Wasn’t he heir to the fine old estate of Beech-Lees? Well, it was the old story: my captain wor continually out at the elbows. Money, money, money wor always wanted. The governor, as he called him, that wor his honoured father, after a while stopped dead short, and wouldn’t out with a stiver. ‘Tom,’ he said—that worn’t me, it wor my captain, he wor named Thomas—‘Tom,’ he said, ‘must live on his pay.’ Live on his pay! The pay of the whole regiment wouldn’t have done for him. Well, he used to write to his father’s steward to send him money, telling him he should find the good of it when he came to the estate. And the steward sent him money for awhile, but then he writ that the Squire had got an inkling of what he was doing, and kept such a strict ferreting into the books, that it was all up in that quarter. The steward remained a good sum out of pocket.