Page:The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17.djvu/110

102 told me all about it. He said, says he,—

"'Some do break a kine or the likes on these here j'yful occasions; other some do exchange goold rings. Your young mistress and me, we exchange nags. She takes my pieball, I take her gray,' says he. 'Saddle him for me, Joe,' says he, 'and wish me j'y.'

"So I clapped Muster Neville's saddle on the gray, and a gave me a goolden guinea, a did; and I was so struck of a heap I let un go without wishing on him j'y; but I hollered it arter un, as hard as I could. How you looks! It be all right, bain't it?"

Squire Peyton laughed heartily, and said he concluded it was all right.

"The piebald," said he, "is rising five, and I've had the gray ten years. We have got the sunnyside of the bargain, Joe."

He gave Joe a glass of wine and sent him off, inflated with having done a good stroke in horseflesh.

As for Kate, she was red as fire, and kept her lips close as wax; not a word could be got out of her. The less she said, the more she thought. She was thoroughly vexed, and sore perplexed how to get her gray horse back from such a man as George Neville; and yet she could not help laughing at the trick, and secretly admiring this chevalier, who had kept his mortification to himself, and parried an affront so gallantly.

"The good-humored wretch!" said she to herself. "If Griffith ever goes away again, he will have me, whether I like or no. No lady could resist the monster long without some other man close at hand to help her."

, when a camel drops in the desert, vultures, hitherto unseen, come flying from the horizon, so Mr. Charlton had no sooner succumbed than the air darkened with undertakers flocking to Bolton for a lugubrious job. They rode up on black steeds, they crunched the gravel in grave gigs, and sent in black-edged cards to Griffith, and lowered their voices, and bridled their briskness, and tried hard, poor souls! to be sad; and were horribly complacent beneath that thin japan of venal sympathy.

Griffith selected his Raven, and then sat down to issue numerous invitations.

The idea of eschewing funereal pomp had not yet arisen. A gentleman of that day liked his very remains to make a stir, and did not see the fun of stealing into his grave like a rabbit slipping aground. Mr. Charlton had even left behind him a sealed letter containing a list of the persons he wished to follow him to the grave and attend the reading of his will. These were thirty-four, and amongst them three known to fame: namely, George Neville, Esq., Edward Peyton, Esq., and Miss Catherine Peyton.

To all and each of the thirty-four young Gaunt wrote a formal letter, inviting them to pay respect to their deceased friend, and to honor himself, by coming to Bolton Hall at high noon on Saturday next. These letters, in compliance with another custom of the time and place, were all sent by mounted messengers, and the answers came on horseback, too; so there was much clattering of hoofs coming and going, and much roasting, baking, drinking of ale, and bustling, all along of him who lay so still in an upper chamber.

And every man and woman came to Mr. Gaunt to ask his will and advice, however simple the matter; and the servants turned very obsequious, and laid themselves out to please the new master, and retain their old places.

And, what with the sense of authority, and the occupation, and growing ambition, love-sick Griffith grew another man, and began to forget that two days ago he was leaving the country and going to give up the whole game.

He found time to send Kate a loving letter, but no talk of marriage in it. He remembered she had asked him to give her time. Well, he would take her advice.