Rachel came swiftly down the staircase, her footfall making
scarcely any sound upon the shallow polished steps.

"Tom!" she exclaimed, in a voice full of repressed feeling, "how
can you delay drinking here, when your father upstairs is dying,
and is asking for you?"

"Dying, quotha!" returned the young man, with a foolish laugh;
"methinks I have heard that tale somewhat too often to be scared by
it now, sweet sister!" and he patted her shoulder with a gesture
from which she instinctively recoiled.

"Tom, have you no heart? He will not last the night through. Got
you not our messages, sent hours ago? How can you show yourself so
careless--so cruel? But tarry no longer now you are here. He has
asked for you twice. Take care lest you dally too long!"

Something in Rachel's face and in her manner of speaking seemed to
make an impression upon the young roisterer. Tom was not drunk,
although he had been spending the day with comrades who seasoned
every sentence with an oath, and flavoured every pastime with
strong drink. A man with a weaker head might have been overcome by
the libations in which he had indulged, but Tom was a seasoned
vessel by that time, and he could stand a good deal.

He was in a noisy and reckless mood, but he had the command of his
faculties. He saw that his sister was speaking with conviction, and
he prepared to do her bidding.

At the same time, Tom was not seriously alarmed about his father.
The Squire's long illness had bred in him a sort of disbelief in
any fatal termination. He had made up his mind that women and
doctors were all fools together, and frightened themselves for
nothing. He had resolved against letting himself be scared by their
long faces and doleful prognostications, and had gone on in his
wonted courses with reckless bravado. He was not altogether an
undutiful son. He had some affection for both father and mother.
But his affection was not strong enough to keep him from following
out his own wishes. He had long been a sort of leader amongst the
young men of the place and neighbourhood, and he enjoyed the
reputation he held of being a daring young blade, not far inferior
in prowess and recklessness to those young bloods about town,
reports of whose doings sometimes reached the wilds of Essex,
stirring up Tom Tufton's ambition to follow in their wake.

He always declared that he meant no harm, and did no harm, to any.
The natives of the place were certainly proud of him, even