"Ninon de l'Enclos?" suggested Yorke, without a smile.
"Ay, that's the name. Well, Mrs. Charles Carew, as you call her, was just like her, and a regular everlasting! She was not what you would call pretty, but very "taking" looking, and with a bloom and freshness on her as would have deceived any man. Her voice was like music itself, and she moved like a stag o' ten; and the Squire being always manly looking and swarthy, like yourself, there was really little difference between them to look at. I dare say she's gone all to pieces now, as women will do, while the Squire looks much the same as he did then."
"I have never even seen him," said the landscape-painter, moodily.
"Well, don't you stare at him, young master, when you do get that chance, that's all. Some comes down here merely to look at him, as if he was a show, and that puts him in a pretty rage, I promise you; though to get to know him, as I say, is easy enough, if you go the right way about it. If you were a good rider, for instance, and could lead the field one day when the hunting begins, he'd ask you to dinner to a certainty; or if you could drive stags—why, he would have given you a hundred pounds last midsummer, when we couldn't get the beasts to swim the lake. There's a pretty mess come o' that, by-the-by; for, out of the talk there was among the gentlemen about that difficulty, the Squire laid a bet as he would drive stags; not as we do, mind you, but in harness, like carriage-horses; and, cuss me, if he hasn't had the break out half a dozen times with four red deer in it, and you may see him tearing through the park, with mounted grooms and keepers on the right and left of him, all galloping their hardest, and the Squire with the ribbons, a-holloaing like mad! For my part, I don't like such pranks, and would much sooner not be there to see 'em. There will be mischief some day with it yet, for all that old Lord Orford, down at Newmarket some fifty years ago, used to do the same thing, they say. It ain't in nature that stags should be druv four-in-hand, even by Carew. However, the Squire won his wager; and we haven't seen none o' that wild work o' late weeks, though we may see it again any day."
"I have heard of that strange exploit," observed Yorke; "but as driving deer, even in the ordinary way, is not my calling, and as I am no great rider, even if I had a horse, I don't see how I am to introduce myself to your mad Squire, and yet I have a great fancy for his acquaintance. Do you think he'd buy any of these drawings, taken in his own park, from his own timber?" The young man touched a portfolio, already well stocked with studies of oak and beech. "Here is a sketch of the Decoy Pond, for instance, with the oldest tree in the chase beside it; would not that interest him, think you? You think not?"
"Well, young gentleman," said the keeper, frankly, "if I say no, it ain't that I mean any slight to your drawing. It's like the tree enough, for certain, with the very hoop of iron as I put round it with my own hands twenty years ago—and, by the same token, it will want another before this winter's out; but I don't think the Squire cares much for such matters. He might, maybe, just give a look at it, or he might bid you go to the devil for a paper-staining son of a—well—what you will. He does not care a farthing, bless 'ee, for all the great pictures in his own gallery, though they cost his grandfather a mint of money, and are certainly a fine sight—so far as the frames go. And, on the other hand, if he happens to be cross-grained that day, he might tear it up before you could say 'Hold,' and kick you down the Hall steps into the bargain, as he has done to many a one. That's where it is, you see, the Squire is so chancy."
"I don't think he would kick me down his Hall steps," said Yorke, grimly.
The keeper grinned. "Well, you see, nobody can tell that till it's tried. The Squire is a regular bruiser, I promise you, though I grant you are a strapping young fellow, and you have told me that you know how to use your fists. That's a great thing, mind you, for a man to ha' learnt; a deal better than Latin or such-like, in my opinion. Folks talk of life-preservers and pistols, but there's nothing like a good pair of well-handled fists when one has to tackle a poacher. I've been at Crompton, man and boy, these fifty years, and had a good many rough-and-tumbles with that sort, and I have never had the worst of it yet. It prevents bloodshed on both sides; for if you haven't no shooting-iron, there's few Englishmen, poachers or not, who will draw trigger on you; and as for a bludgeon, it's as likely to be in my hand as another's after the first half minute."
"Is there much poaching now at Crompton?" inquired Yorke, mechanically. It would have been plain to any less obtuse observer than his companion that he no longer gave him his attention.
"Well, no; nothing to be called serious has happened lately; though I dare say we shall have some scrimmages as the winter comes on; there's allus a good deal of what I calls hanky-panky work in the fawn season. Women and children—especially children—will come into the park, under pretense o' picking up sticks; and they'll put away a new dropped fawn in their bundles, if they get the chance; and then they take it home, to be reared until it grows up, and can be sold for venison."
"I should have thought there would have been no market for such a commodity—that is, in the case of people such as you describe," observed Yorke, yawning.
"Market!" echoed the keeper, contemptuously; "there'd be a market to-morrow morning for the whole herd o' our wild-cattle, if they were stolen to-night; there'd be a market for a rhinoceros or a halligator, if we happened to keep 'em, bless 'ee, as easy as for a sucking pig! But I don't call that poaching—I mean the fawn-stealing. It's the professionals from the Midland towns as come by tens and twenties at a time as is our trouble. We generally gets wind of 'em beforehand, and then out we all goes, and Squire with us—for he dearly loves a fight—and then there's broken crowns and bloody noses; but, thank God, there's been no murder done, at least, not in my time, at Crompton. And that reminds me, Sir, that it's time for me to start on my evening rounds."
"Well, when you next have any news of such an incursion, Grange, I hope you will let me make one of your party," said Yorke, good-humoredly. "I can hit out straight from the shoulder; and perhaps I might get to know the Squire that way."
"And as likely a road to lead you into his good graces, Sir," said the keeper, rising, "as any I know. Are you for a walk round the park this fine evening, Sir?"
"No; not to-night, thank you, Grange. I have got to fill in this sketch a bit that I took this morning."
"Then, good-night, Sir, for I sha'n't return before daylight."
But it was not till long after the keeper had taken his departure that Richard Yorke turned hand or eye to his unfinished drawing. He sat staring straight before him with steadfast eyes and thoughtful face, for hours, murmuring to himself disjointed sentences; and ever and anon he started up and paced the little room with rapid strides. "He shall see me, and know me, too," muttered he, at last, between his clenched teeth, "though it should cost one of us our lives. She shall not say I came down to this wilderness, like some hunted beast to covert, for nothing."
CHAPTER III.
THE NIGHT-WATCH.
It was an easy thing enough, as Walter Grange had said, to make acquaintance with Carew of Crompton, and possible even to become his bosom friend at a short notice, for his friendships, all made in wine, at play, or in the hunting-field, were soon cemented; but then, if the introduction was effected in an unpropitious time or manner, it was like enough to end in affront or downright insult. A gulf might be fixed just where you wanted a causeway, and of this—though he had feigned to inquire about it so innocently of the honest park-keeper—Richard Yorke was well aware. He had, as has been hinted, come down to Crompton with the express view of throwing himself in the way of its eccentric master, and to do so opportunely, and he was content to bide his time. Thus, though the autumn had far advanced, and the time had come for men of his craft to hasten from the dropping, dripping woods, no longer fair, to hive at home their sweet