“Why! what does ail you?” cried he, in wonder.  “Be you took crazy?”

“I don’t want him to come home,” she replied in an awe-struck whisper.  “Roy, I don’t want him to.”

“You don’t want to be anything but a idiot,” returned Roy, with supreme contempt.

“But I’d like to hear from him,” she wailed, swaying herself to and fro.  “I’m always a-dreaming of it.”

“You’ll just dream a bit about getting the dinner ready,” commanded Roy morosely; “that’s what you’ll dream about now.  I said I’d have biled pork and turnips, and nicely you be a-getting on with it.  Hark ye!  I’m a-going now, but I shall be in at twelve, and if it ain’t ready, mind your skin!”

He swung open the kitchen door just in time to hear the church bells burst out with a loud and joyous peal.  It surprised Roy.  In quiet Deerham, such sounds were not very frequent.

“What’s up now?” cried Roy savagely.  Not that the abstract fact of the bells ringing was of any moment to him, but he was in a mood to be angry with everything.  “Here, you!” continued he, seizing hold of a boy who was running by, “what be them bells a-clattering for?”

Brought to thus summarily, the boy had no resource but to stop.  It was a young gentleman whom you have had the pleasure of meeting before—­Master Dan Duff.  So fast had he been flying, that a moment or two elapsed ere he could get breath to speak.

The delay did not tend to soothe his capturer; and he administered a slight shake.  “Can’t you speak, Dan Duff?  Don’t you see who it is that’s a-asking of you?  What be them bells a-working for?”

“Please, sir, it’s for Mr. Lionel Verner.”

The answer took Roy somewhat aback.  He knew—­as everybody else knew—­that Mr. Lionel Verner’s departure from Deerham was fixed for that day; but to believe that the bells would ring out a peal of joy on that account was a staggerer even to Roy’s ears.  Dan Duff found himself treated to another shake, together with a sharp reprimand.

“So they be a-ringing for him!” panted he.  “There ain’t no call to shake my inside out of me for saying so.  Mr. Lionel have got Verner’s Pride at last, and he ain’t a-going away at all, and the bells be a-ringing for it.  Mother have sent me to tell the gamekeeper.  She said he’d sure to give me a penny, if I was the first to tell him.”

Roy let go the boy.  His arms and his mouth alike dropped.  “Is that—­that there codicil found?” gasped he.

Dan Duff shook his head.  “I dun know nothink about codinals,” said he.  “Mr. Fred Massingbird’s dead.  He can’t keep Mr. Lionel out of his own any longer, and the bells is a-ringing for it.”

Unrestrained now, he sped away.  Roy was not altogether in a state to stop him.  He had turned of a glowing heat, and was asking himself whether the news could be true.  Mrs. Roy stepped forward, her tears arrested.

“Law, Roy, whatever shall you do?” spoke she deprecatingly.  “I said as you should have kept in with Mr. Lionel.  You’ll have to eat humble pie, for certain.”