‘Your hat, sir?’

‘My horsewhip, I said.’

‘Your hat is in the hall,’ Sewis observed gravely.

‘I asked you for my horsewhip.’

‘That is not to be found anywhere,’ said Sewis.

The squire was diverted from his objurgations against this piece of servitorial defiance by his daughter Dorothy’s timid appeal for permission to come in.  Sewis left the room.  Presently the squire descended, fully clad, and breathing sharply from his nostrils.  Servants were warned off out of hearing; none but Sewis stood by.

The squire himself unbolted the door, and threw it open to the limit of the chain.

‘Who’s there?’ he demanded.

A response followed promptly from outside:  ’I take you to be Mr. Harry Lepel Beltham.  Correct me if I err.  Accept my apologies for disturbing you at a late hour of the night, I pray.’

‘Your name?’

’Is plain Augustus Fitz-George Roy Richmond at this moment, Mr. Beltham.  You will recognize me better by opening your door entirely:  voices are deceptive.  You were born a gentleman, Mr. Beltham, and will not reduce me to request you to behave like one.  I am now in the position, as it were, of addressing a badger in his den.  It is on both sides unsatisfactory.  It reflects egregious discredit upon you, the householder.’

The squire hastily bade Sewis see that the passages to the sleeping apartments were barred, and flung the great chain loose.  He was acting under strong control of his temper.

It was a quiet grey night, and as the doors flew open, a largely-built man, dressed in a high-collared great-coat and fashionable hat of the time, stood clearly defined to view.  He carried a light cane, with the point of the silver handle against his under lip.  There was nothing formidable in his appearance, and his manner was affectedly affable.  He lifted his hat as soon as he found himself face to face with the squire, disclosing a partially bald head, though his whiskering was luxuriant, and a robust condition of manhood was indicated by his erect attitude and the immense swell of his furred great-coat at the chest.  His features were exceedingly frank and cheerful.  From his superior height, he was enabled to look down quite royally on the man whose repose he had disturbed.

The following conversation passed between them.

’You now behold who it is, Mr. Beltham, that acknowledges to the misfortune of arousing you at an unseemly hour—­unbetimes, as our gossips in mother Saxon might say—­and with profound regret, sir, though my habit is to take it lightly.’

‘Have you any accomplices lurking about here?’

‘I am alone.’

’What ‘s your business?’

‘I have no business.’

’You have no business to be here, no.  I ask you what ’s the object of your visit?’

’Permit me first to speak of the cause of my protracted arrival, sir.  The ridicule of casting it on the post-boys will strike you, Mr. Beltham, as it does me.  Nevertheless, I must do it; I have no resource.  Owing to a rascal of the genus, incontinent in liquor, I have this night walked seven miles from Ewling.  My complaint against him is not on my own account.’