horse-hair sofa had a noble cover of deer-skin; the foot-stool and the
fire-rug were made of furs, or skins that would have fetched their price
elsewhere, and been held rare, although once worn by British beast or
"varmint." The walls were stuck with antlers, and the very handle of the
bell-rope was the fore-foot of a stag. Each of these had its story; and
nothing pleased the old man better than to have a listener to his
long-winded tales of how and where and when the thing was slain. All
persons whose lives are passed in the open air, and in comparative
solitude, seem in this respect to be descendants of Dame Quickly; their
wearisome digressions and unnecessary preciseness as to date and place
try the patience of all other kinds of men, and this was the chief cross
which Grange's lodger had to bear as an offset to the excellence of his
quarters. It must be confessed that he did not bear it meekly. To stop
old Walter in mid-talk--without an open quarrel--was an absolute
impossibility; but his young companion would turn the stream of his
discourse, without much ceremony, from the records of slaughter into
another channel (almost as natural to it)--the characteristics and
peculiarities of his master Carew. Of this subject, notwithstanding that
that other made him fret and fume so, Yorke never seemed to tire.

"I should like to know your master," he had said, half musingly, after
listening to one of these strange recitals, soon after his arrival; to
which Grange had answered, laughing: "Well, Squire's a very easy one to
know. He picks up friends by every road-side, without much troubling
himself as to who they are, I promise you."

The young man's face grew dark with anger; but the idea of self-respect,
far less of pride, was necessarily strange to a servant of Carew's. So
Grange went on, unconscious of offense: "Now, if you were a young
woman," he chuckled, "and as good-looking as you are as a lad, there