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LANGBARROW HALL

CHAPTER I

MRS. DODD, of Langbarrow Hall Farm, was resting after her morning's work. The midday meal was cleared, and the blue flags were dried dull again after the "siding up" wash. Her son Matthew was down on the mosses lifting turnips, and his wife was busy in an outhouse plucking chickens for the Farbiggin Saturday market.

The Dodd family was inseparably connected with the de Renegils, for there had been Dodds at the Hall Farm for long generations.

Mrs. Dodd was now over sixty, and though at her husband's death she had relegated her authority to her eldest son, she still exercised the privileges accorded to old age, a resolute will and a caustic tongue.

She was moreover the foster mother of Sir Alan de Renegil, the present baronet, as no one who had been ten minutes in her company could fail to realize, and she made no secret regarding her preference for him over "any o' t' others!" As Mr. Simon de Renegil, Sir Alan's brother, a banker living on the adjoining property of Netherbeck was the only "other," the preference was perhaps a trifle invidious.

"He's sure to come afore long!" she murmured to herself, as she sat in the chimney nook, busily knitting a pair of coarse stockings for her grandson Joe.

Stooping to catch a dropped stitch by the light from the flaming wood, she did not hear the footsteps on the roughly paved yard, nor notice the darkened doorway.

"Hullo, Mammy! And how are you after all this time?" Mrs. Dodd looked up with a start, and every deepest wrinkle united in penciling the smile that broke over the plain, heavy-complexioned face of the old

woman.

Dropping her knitting, she lifted herself from the chair, and met Sir Alan with outstretched arms.

"You see I have been true to my promise-I've fetched her!"

He strode over the flags, and she clutched his extended hand between her horny palms. Then she looked eagerly into the face of his bride.

She met a cordial smile from a bright, girlish face, and heard a clear voice speaking from a delicately shaped mouth.

"How do you do, Mrs. Dodd? My husband told me that you would be one of the first friends I should have the pleasure of seeing!"

Mrs. Dodd dropped the baronet's massive hand, and took the ungloved, soft-fingered one of Maud de Renegil.

"Your husband! husband!" she chuckled. "Eye, eye, my lady!" she cried in her high-pitched voice. "Eye, eye! So you've settled t' lad at last! Well-and he's picked a bonny one! But he always was for a wellshaped lass, let alone a mare! Eye, eye, he's done right this time. A bright eye and a bonny face and a civil tongue-them's the sort that makes good gentry! He'll have telt you who I is?" The question was asked proudly. "But I'se forgettin' my manners! Come, sit yourselves down. Yon lad was always at home with his Mammy, my lady, and his missus must be t' same!"

Maud de Renegil took the offered chair-the comfortable high-backed one of shining oak, and cushioned with red rep, which Mrs. Dodd had vacated.

The baronet seated himself on the window-sill, and insisted that Mrs. Dodd should take the arm-chair on the other side of the fireplace.

"Oh, eye, Mammy! of course I told her! Why, if it hadn't been for you, I should have flown away an angel to the skies long ago! Perhaps it would have been as well-all things considered. I owe you a grudge for bein' here after all!"

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"Get along, Sir Alan, lad! And thee with a wife on thy arm! But he's none lying, my lady! Eh, dear-to think on it!" and the old woman leaned back in her chair, and slowly rocked herself backward and forward.

Sir Alan looked at his wife, and raised his eyes slightly. He was pretty certain what was coming.

"Eye, eye!" she continued, " and when my own was dead, lying in its coffin so bonny and so quiet, and me very near heartbroken, they brought me him-your master, my lady—and he's been my lad ever since!"

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The old woman sighed. The long-past sorrow struggled into dreary life again as she looked into the deep sympathizing eyes of the questioner.

"My own-my lady. They buried him by all t' Dodds in t' churchyard, and old David Lewthwaite read t' service. He's dead and all. He was a proper parson, and a right Westmoreland man beside. Not same as yon feller they have now, as bides t' most on his time filled wi' beer and a' maks!"

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Come, come, Mammy!" interrupted Sir Alan, solemnly, "you must not speak evil of your parson!"

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Speak evil?" retorted she, turning to eye him.

"And what for shouldn't I speak evil of sic a feller? I like a bit o' religion mysell, and I'se not against a glass o' beer, but folk has no call to think as a parson wi' a red face and doddery legs will set folk in t' right road for glory-and he's none Westmoreland neither!"

"It is just because the poor man was born in Kent that you are against him! Mammy, I am ashamed of you!"

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Now, then, Sir Alan, lad, it's not altogether yon, though I must say as there's nowt like t' old spot. But I telt our parson t' same-right to his face!"

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'And you don't suppose you did the least bit of good?"

"Good? for sure not! Was there ever anybody yet as did other folk good by telling them what they thought on them? But it did me a gay lump of good! It settled me for a bit!"

"The same sort of effect, Maud, as when she tells me what she thinks of me!"

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'Get out, Sir Alan, lad! But I tell you I seed t' parson on t' bridge in t' forend of t' year, and he says ter❜ble polite like, for he's gentry is t' parson, and never picks wha he speaks to Good afternoon, Mrs. Dodd, I hope I see you well?'"

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I'se a deal better nor some folk, parson! says I; ""and if only thoo could keep thisell out of t' Swingin' Gate-happen thoo'd have a chance o' livin' as long as old Margery Dodd!'"

"Poor man! And what did he say?"

"Nowt! He nobbut laughs, and whistles to his whelps, and sets off down t' road."

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Well, Mammy! I never thought you set up for bein' a preacher!"

"Nay-what yon was no preachin'! I'se none o'

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