Miss Cicely--"
I was expecting it: nevertheless I dropped my fork clumsily as I heard
the name, and for a few seconds the landlord's voice sounded like that
of a distant river as it ran on--
"And as Sir Felix wouldn't consent--for which nobody blamed him--
Squire Philip and Miss Cicely agreed to go off together one dark night.
But the old man found them out and stopped them in the nick of time and
got six inches of cold steel for his pains. However, he kept his girl,
and Squire Philip had to fly the country. He went off that same night,
they say: and wherever he went, he never came back."
"What became of him?"
"Ne'er a soul knows; for ne'er a soul saw his face again. Year after
year, old Parkyn, his tenant, took the rent of Tremenhuel out of his
right pocket and paid it into his left: and in time, there being no
heir, he just took over the property and stepped into Cardinnock's shoes
with a 'by your leave' to nobody, and there his grandson is to this
day."
"What became of the young lady--of Miss Cicely Williams?" I asked.
"Died an old maid. There was something curious between her and her only
brother who had helped to stop the runaway match. Nobody knows what it
was: but when Sir Felix died--as he did about ten years after--
she packed up and went somewhere to the North of England and settled.
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