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The Baronet was testy thinking over all this, and looked on Feltram's message as an impertinence and the money as his own. Let us now see how Sir Bale Mardykes' pocket fared. Sulkily enough at the close of the week he turned his back on Heckleston racecourse, and took the road to Golden Friars. He was in a rage with his luck, and by no means satisfied with himself; and yet he had won something.
By her will she bequeathed the estates to "her cousin, also a kinsman of the late Sir Bale Mardykes her husband," William Feltram, on condition of his assuming the name and arms of Mardykes, the arms of Feltram being quartered in the shield. Thus was oddly fulfilled the prediction which Philip Feltram had repeated, that the estates of Mardykes were to pass into the hands of a Feltram.
There were candles lighted, and a good fire burnt in the grate; tea-things stood on a little table near the fire, and the two sisters were talking, Lady Mardykes appearing more collected, and only they two in the room. "Have you seen him, Maud?" cried Lady Mardykes, rising and hastily approaching her the moment she entered. "Yes, dear; and talked with him, and " "Well?"
The cold gleam of the lake in the moon which had begun to shine out now met their gaze; and the familiar outline of Snakes Island, its solemn timber bleak and leafless, standing in a group, seemed to watch Mardykes Hall with a dismal observation across the water.
It made her very uncomfortable. In a few minutes more, however, with a team of fresh horses, they were again rapidly passing the distance between them and Mardykes Hall. About two miles on, their drivers pulled-up, and they heard a voice talking with them from the roadside.
It was not till the morning, when she went to her window to look out upon the now tranquil scene, that she discovered what, being a stranger to the house, she had quite forgotten, that this room was at a great height some thirty feet from the ground. Another story was that of good old Mr. Randal Rymer, who was often a visitor at the house in the late Lady Mardykes' day.
And having tired of her, he took in his head to marry a lady of the Barnets, and it behoved him to be shut o' her and her children; and so she nor them was seen no more at Mardykes Hall. And the eldest, a boy, was left in care of my grandfather's father here in the George." "That queer Philip Feltram that's travelling with Sir Bale so long is a descendant of his?" said the Doctor.
It was my last hope, strange as it seems; and O, would to God I could think it! But there is nothing of that kind. Wait till you have seen him. There is a frightful calmness about all he says and does; and his directions are all so clear, and his mind so perfectly collected, it is quite impossible." And poor Lady Mardykes again burst into a frantic agony of tears. Sir Bale in the Gallery
I wish I could blow them asunder with a charge of duck-shot, and I shouldn't be stifled by them long. But I suppose, as we can't get rid of them, the next best thing is to admire them. We are pretty well married to them, and there is no use in quarrelling." "I know you don't think so, Sir Bale, ha, ha, ha! You wouldn't take a good deal and spoil Mardykes Hall."
He cast a wild look towards Mardykes Hall and Snakes Island, and applying himself to his oar, told Sir Bale to take his also; and nothing loath, the Baronet did so. It was slow work, for the boat was not built for speed; and by the time they had got about midway, the sun went down, and twilight and the melancholy flush of the sunset tints were upon the lake and fells.
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