"Quiet, you brute!" exclaimed the Squire,
with his customary garnish of strong expletive. "Welcome to Crompton,
Mr.--I forget your name; or rather you forgot, I think, to favor me with
it."
"My name is Richard Yorke, Sir."
"Yorke, Yorke--that sounds easterly. You are of the Cambridgeshire
stock, I reckon, are you not?"
"No, Sir," returned the other, with a slight tremor in his voice, which
he could not control; "I come from nearer home. Your wife's first
husband was called Yorke, if you remember, and I bear his name,
although I am her lawful son, by you, Sir."
CHAPTER V.
AT CROMPTON.
After the bold avowal made at the conclusion of the last chapter,
Richard Yorke and his father (for such indeed he was) stood confronting
one another, for near a minute, without a word. A tempest of evil
passions swept over Carew's swarthy face, and his eyes flashed with a
fire that seemed to threaten personal violence. The bull-dog, too, as
though perceiving his master's irritation with the stranger, began to
growl again; and this, perhaps, was fortunate for the young man, as
affording a channel for the Squire's pent-up wrath. With a great oath,
leveled alike at man and brute, he raised his foot, and kicked the
latter to the other side of the room.
"Impudent bastard!" cried he; "how dare you show your face beneath my
roof?"
"How _dare_ I?" responded the young man, excitedly, and with his
handsome face aglow.
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