BY THE LIGHT OF THE MOON. 



* I DO wish to goodness somebody would take him away. There 

 will be mischief if he stops much longer. I never saw him like 

 this before.' 



' Who ?— like what, Mark ?' 



' Why, the Squire.' 



' What is the matter now ? Is he in one of his mad fits ? 

 Has he done any damage ?' 



' No. And that is the worst of it. When he takes it into his 

 head to wreck a dinner-service, or to play Aunt Sally with the 

 glass, I do not so much mind, so long as nobody is hurt. Such 

 amusement calms him, and he always pays the bill' 



The speakers were Mark Hartbrook and Jane, his wife, host 

 and hostess of the Whinridge Arms, Thornford. The scene of 

 their anxious interview, their own small snuggery behind the bar ; 

 the time of it, an evening in April. The Thornford Hunt meet- 

 ing had taken place that day, and it was now ' after dinner' with 

 the stewards and their friends in the principal room of the 

 Whinridge Arms. 



Hartbrook had abundant cause for anxiety. The Squire, of 

 whom he and his wife spoke, handsome Gustavus Whinridge of 

 Thornford Hall, was their landlord, and Mark's former master. 

 A warm-hearted generous-natured fellow, imbued with old world 

 ideas of honour, he was, unhappily for his personal peace and the 

 habitual comfort of those with whom he was brought in contact, 

 handicapped with a hot head and a spirit that brooked not the 

 least contradiction. For all his intermittent wildnesses — which 

 would of course have been harmonious traits in a character of 

 heroic mould, had he come into the world at the proper time, 

 three or four centuries earlier — there were few persons in and 

 about Thornford who did not speak affectionately of the Squire. 

 There was not his ' marrow' to be found in those parts as a sports- 

 man when he had youth to serve him ; and now he was grown 

 old and somewhat stiff in the joints he could, as his idolaters 

 expressed it, take his own part with the best of them. Although 



