At dead of night Alice was very ill, and Tom was called up to ride across Cressley Common for the Wykeford doctor. Worse and worse she grew. In this unknown danger—without the support of a husband s love or consolation—“the pains of hell gat hold of her,” the fear of death was upon her. Glad was she in her lonely terrors to hear the friendly voice of Doctor Willett as he came up the stairs, with a heavy, booted step, in hurried conversation with old Dulcibella Crane, who had gone down to meet him on hearing the sound of his arrival. In lower tones the doctor put his questions when he had arrived in his patient’s room, and his manner became stern, and his measures prompt, and it was plain that he was very much alarmed.

Alice Fairfield was in danger—in so great danger that he would have called in the Hatherton doctor, or any other, to share his responsibility, if the horse which Tom drove had not had as much as he could do that night in the long trot—and partly canter—to Wykeford and back again to the Grange.

Alice’s danger increased, and her state became so alarming that the doctor was afraid to leave his patient, and stayed that night at the Grange.

In the morning he sent Tom to Hatherton with a summons for his brother physician, and now this quaint household grew thoroughly alarmed.

The lady was past the effort of speaking, almost of thinking, and lay like a white image in her bed. Old Dulcibella happily had charge of the money, not much, which Alice had for present use; so the doctors had their fees, and were gone, and Doctor Willett, of Wykeford, was to come again in the evening, leaving his patient, as he said, quieter, but still in a very precarious state.

When the Wykeford doctor returned he found her again too ill to think of leaving her. At midnight Tom was obliged to mount, and ride away to Hatherton for the other doctor.

Before the Hatherton doctor had reached the Grange, however, a tiny voice was crying there—a little spirit had come, a scion of the Fairfield race.

Mrs. Tarnley wrote to Harry Fairfield to Wyvern to announce the event, which she did thus:—

“Sir,

“Master Harey, it has came a sirprise. Missis is this mornin’ gev burth to a boy and air; babe is well, but Missis Fairfield low and dangerous.

“Your servant,

“Mildred Tarnley.”

Dulcibella, without consulting Mildred, any more than Mildred did her, wrote also a letter, gentler and more gracious, but certainly no better spelled. When these reached Wyvern, Harry was from home.

It was not till four days had passed that Harry Fairfield arrived in the afternoon.

He had thrown his horse’s bridle to Tom in the stable yard, and appeared suddenly before Mildred Tarnley in the kitchen door.

“Well, how’s the lady in the straw?” inquired Harry, looking uncomfortable, but smiling: his best. “How is Miss Alice?”

“Mrs. Fairfield’s very bad, and the doctor han’t much hopes of her. She lies at God’s mercy, sir.”

“She’ll be better, you’ll find. She’ll be all right soon. And when was it—you put no date to your note?”

“On Friday, I think. We’re so put about here I scarce know one day from t’other.”

“She’ll be better. Is anyone here with her?”

“A nurse from Hatherton.”

“No one else? I thought Lady Wyndale might a’ come.”

“I was goin’ to send over there, but Doctor Willett said no.”

“Did he? Why?”

“Not yet a bit; he says she’d be in his way and no use, and maybe worrit her into a fever.”

“Very like,” said Harry; “and how’s the boy—isn’t it a boy?”

“Boy—yes, sir, a fine thumpin’ baby—and like to do well, and will prove, belike, a true, open-handed Fairfield, and a brave Squire o’ Wyvern.”

“Well, that’s as it may be. I’ll not trouble him. I have more than enough to my share as it is—and there’s some things that’s better never than late, and I’ll live and die a bachelor. I’ve more years than my teeth shows.”

And Harry smiled and showed his fine teeth.

“There’s Fairfields has took a wife later than you,” said she, eyeing him darkly.

“Too wise, old girl. You’ll not catch me at that work. Wives is like Flanders’ mares, as the Squire says, fairest afar off.”

“Hey?” snarled old Mildred, with a prolonged note.

“No, lass, I don’t want, nohow, to be Squire o’ Wyvern—there’s more pains than gains in it; always one thing or t’other wrong—one begs and t’other robs, and ten cusses to one blessin’. I don’t want folks to say o’ me as they does of some—Harry’s a hog, and does no good till he dies.”

“Folk do like an estate, though,” said Mildred, with another shrewd look.

“Ay, if all’s straight and clear, but I don’t like debts and bother, and I a’ seen how the old boy’s worried that way till he’s fit to drown himself in the pond. I can do something, buyin’ or sellin’; and little and often, you know, fills the purse.”

Mildred was silent.

“They do say—I mean, I knows it for certain, there is a screw loose—and you know where, I think—but how can I help that—The Dutchwoman, I know, can prove her marriage to poor Charlie, but never you blab—no more will I. There was no child o’ that marriage—neither chick nor child, so, bein’ as she is, ’tis little to her how that sow’s handled. ’T would be a pity poor Charlie’s son should lose his own; and ye may tell Alice I’m glad there’s a boy, and that she’ll ha’ no trouble from me, but all the help I can, and that’s a fact, and that’s God’s truth.”

“Well, well, that is queer!—I never heard man speak as you speak.”

There was a cynical incredulity in Mildred Tarnley’s tone.

“Listen, now—here we be alone, eh?” said he, looking round.

“Ye may say so,” she said, with a discontented emphasis.

“I’d tell you a thing in a minute, old Tarnley, only they say old vessels must leak. Will you be staunch? Will ye hold your tongue on’t if I tell you a thing?”

“Ay,” said Mildred.

“Because one barking dog sets all the street a barking, ye know,” he added.

“Ye know me well. Master Harry. I could hold my tongue always when there was need.”

“And that’s the reason I’m going to talk to you,” said Harry, “and no one knows it, mind, but yourself, and if it gets out I’ll know who to blame.”

“’T won’t get out for me,” said Mildred, looking hard at him.

“One devil drubs another, they say, and if the young Squire upstairs has a foot in the mud I’ve one in the mire,” said Harry. “If his hat has a hole, my shoe has another. And ’tis a bad bargain where both are losers.”

“Well, I can’t see it nohow. I don’t know what you’re drivin’ at; but I think you’re no fool. Master Harry; ye never was that, and it’s a cunning part, I’ve heered, to play the fool well.”

And Harry did look very cunning as she cited this saw, and for a moment also a little put out. But he quickly resumed, and staring in her face surlily, said he,——

“Well, I am cunnin’; I hope I am; and you’re a little bit that way yourself, old Mildred; no fool, anyhow, that ever I could see.

“Crafty I may be, I ha’ lived years and seen folk enough to make me, but my heart weren’t set never on pelf.

‘A thousand pounds and a bottle of hay

Is all one at doom’s-day.’”

“So it is,” said he, “but there’s a good many days ’twixt this and doom’s-day yet and money’ll do more than my lord’s letter, any place, and I’ll not deny I’d like Wyvern well enough if my hand was free to lay on it. But I a’ thought it well over, and it wouldn’t fit me nohow. I can’t.”

“Ye’re the first Fairfield I ever heered say that Wyvern wouldn’t fit him,” said she.

“Is that beer in the jug?” he asked, nodding toward a brown jug that stood on the dresser.

“Yes, sir. Would ye like a drink?”

“Ay, ............