THREE:"It was well she was here," returned he: "and now, remember��not a word of the drops! swear, simply, that the draught destroyed the infant." And, without awaiting her reply, he seized the pale and trembling Byles by the arm, and dragged him from the room into the passage. He then unlocked a door that had never been observed by either Byles or his wife, and, closing it after them, led the yeoman down a flight of dark steps, and, pausing a moment at the bottom to listen, he unlocked another door, and Byles found himself in a dark passage that branched from one of the entrances to the court-yard to some of the culinary offices. "Go you that way, and I will go this," said Calverley, "and, remember, you know nothing of the child's death." As he spoke, he darted from Byles, and gained the court-yard without further observation. He walked carelessly about, till a female domestic passing, he called to her, desiring her to go and ask Mary Byles if the young Lord Roland was ready to meet his parents, as they were momentarily expected. The woman departed, and he walked over to the gate between the front towers as if looking for the return of his lord. We love to be social,Catch Us On FORE:Reuben had never been spoken to like this by his daughter. He turned on her angrily, then suddenly changed his mind. For the first time he really saw what a fine girl she was��all that Alice was not. FORE:Sam obeyed; but whether owing to his trepidation or the slippery surface of the earth, he lost his footing and disappeared, uttering a cry of terror. Byles stood for an instant, irresolute whether to advance to the succour of his servitor, or leave him behind, for he apprehended that the cry would arouse the guardians of the Chase. Recollecting, however, that it would be as dangerous to abandon him as to attempt his extrication, he rushed forward to the spot where Sam had disappeared. The man had, in his fall, grasped the root of a tree from which the late heavy rains had washed the earth, and he lay suspended midway down. Byles hastily threw him a rope, with which he had intended to bind the animal on the barrow, and, with some difficulty, succeeded in dragging him up.In the spring of '99 old Jury died over at Cheat Land. His wife had died a year or two earlier��Reuben had meant to go over and see Alice, but the untimely calving of a new Alderney had put the idea entirely out of his head. On this occasion, however, he attended the funeral, with the other farmers of the district, and at[Pg 408] the churchyard gate had a few words with Alice before she went home. FORE:In addition to this annual exhibition of mirthful mummery, the town of Winchcombe was enlivened by a fair, periodically held, on the festival of All-hallows. The fair-green lay just beyond the town, enclosed on one side by the town walls, and on the opposite by an abrupt, wooded hill. All Winchcombe was in a bustle; the ale-houses were crowded with visitors, and the streets filled with strangers; young artizans or yeomen were escorting their favourite damsels to the fair, to shew their gallantry by purchasing some of the various articles so temptingly displayed, as presents for the maidens. Bodkins and fillets for the hair, and ribbons of every colour, except scarlet or crimson; and furs, principally cat-skin; and spices, and fine and coarse cloths of medley, and russets, and hoods, and mittens, and hose, were amongst the miscellaneous wares exhibited for sale.