Ch. 2: The Waiting Supper

CHAPTER I

Whoever had perceived the yeoman standing on Squire Everard's lawn in the
dusk of that October evening fifty years ago, might have said at first
sight that he was loitering there from idle curiosity. For a large five-
light window of the manor-house in front of him was unshuttered and
uncurtained, so that the illuminated room within could be scanned almost
to its four corners. Obviously nobody was ever expected to be in this
part of the grounds after nightfall.

The apartment thus swept by an eye from without was occupied by two
persons; they were sitting over dessert, the tablecloth having been
removed in the old-fashioned way. The fruits were local, consisting of
apples, pears, nuts, and such other products of the summer as might be
presumed to grow on the estate. There was strong ale and rum on the
table, and but little wine. Moreover, the appointments of the dining-
room were simple and homely even for the date, betokening a countrified
household of the smaller gentry, without much wealth or ambition--formerly
a numerous class, but now in great part ousted by the territorial
landlords.

One of the two sitters was a young lady in white muslin, who listened
somewhat impatiently to the remarks of her companion, an elderly,
rubicund personage, whom the merest stranger could have pronounced to be
her father. The watcher evinced no signs of moving, and it became
evident that affairs were not so simple as they first had seemed. The
tall farmer was in fact no accidental spectator, and he stood by
premeditation close to the trunk of a tree, so that had any traveller
passed along the road without the park gate, or even round the lawn to
the door, that person would scarce have noticed the other,
notwithstanding that the gate was quite near at hand, and the park little
larger than a paddock. There was still light enough in the western
heaven to brighten faintly one side of the man's face, and to show
against the trunk of the tree behind the admirable cut of his profile;
also to reveal that the front of the manor-house, small though it seemed,
was solidly built of stone in that never-to-be-surpassed style for the
English country residence--the mullioned and transomed Elizabethan.

The lawn, although neglected, was still as level as a bowling-green--which
indeed it might once have served for; and the blades of grass before the
window were raked by the candle-shine, which stretched over them so far
as to touch the yeoman's face in front.

Within the dining-room there were also, with one of the twain, the same
signs of a hidden purpose that marked the farmer. The young lady's mind
was straying as clearly into the shadows as that of the loiterer was
fixed upon the room--nay, it could be