u will be able to get Betty to
come--d'ye see?--after her mother has started; she'll have a reason for
not waiting for him. Bring her by the lower road--he'll go by the upper.
Your business is to make 'em miss each other--d'ye see?--but that's a
thing I couldn't write down.'

Five minutes after, Tupcombe was astride the horse and on his way--the
way he had followed so many times since his master, a florid young
countryman, had first gone wooing to King's-Hintock Court. As soon as he
had crossed the hills in the immediate neighbourhood of the manor, the
road lay over a plain, where it ran in long straight stretches for
several miles. In the best of times, when all had been gay in the united
houses, that part of the road had seemed tedious. It was gloomy in the
extreme now that he pursued it, at night and alone, on such an errand.

He rode and brooded. If the Squire were to die, he, Tupcombe, would be
alone in the world and friendless, for he was no favourite with Mrs.
Dornell; and to find himself baffled, after all, in what he had set his
mind on, would probably kill the Squire. Thinking thus, Tupcombe stopped
his horse every now and then, and listened for the coming husband. The
time was drawing on to the moment when Reynard might be expected to pass
along this very route. He had watched the road well during the
afternoon, and had inquired of the tavern-keepers as he came up to each,
and he was convinced that the premature descent of the stranger-husband
upon his young mistress had not been made by this highway as yet.

Besides the girl's mother, Tupcombe was the only member of the household
who suspected Betty's tender feelings towards young Phelipson, so
unhappily generated on her return from school; and he could therefore
imagine, even better than her fond father, what would be her emotions on
the sudden announcement of Reynard's advent that evening at
King's-Hintock Court.

So he rode and rode, desponding and hopeful by turns. He felt assured
that, unless in the unfortunate event of the almost immediate arrival of
her son-in law at his own heels, Mrs. Dornell would not be able to hinder
Betty's departure for her father's bedside.

It was about nine o'clock that, having put twenty miles of country behind
him, he turned in at the lodge-gate nearest to Ivell and King's-Hintock
village, and pursued the long north drive--itself much like a turnpike
road--which led thence through the park to the Court. Thoug