IN WHICH THE SQUIRE LOSES HIS GOLD-HEADED CANE.
The sun, as I have said, was sinking among the western clouds with a
melancholy glare; Captain Fairfield was pacing slowly to and fro upon
the broad terrace that extends, with a carved balustrade, and many a
stone flower-pot, along the rear of the old house. The crows were
winging their way home, and the air was vocal with their faint cawings
high above the gray roof, and the summits of the mighty trees, now
glowing in that transitory light. His horse was ready saddled, and his
portmanteau and other trifling effects had been despatched some hours
before.
“Is there any good in bidding him good-bye?” hesitated the Captain.
He was thinking of descending the terrace steps at the further end,
and as he mounted his horse, leaving his valedictory message with the
man who held it. But the spell of childhood is not easily broken when
it has been respected for so many after-years. The Captain had never
got rid of the childish awe which began before he could remember. The
virtues are respected; but such vices as pride, violence, and
hard-heartedness in a father, are more respected still.
Charles could approach a quarrel with that old despot; he could stand
at the very brink, and with a resentful and defiant eye scan the
abyss; but he could not quite make up his mind to the plunge. The old
beast was so utterly violent and incalculable in his anger that no one
could say to what weapons and extremities he might be driven in a
combat with him, and where was the good in avowed hostilities? Must
not a very few years, now, bring humiliation and oppression to an end?
Charles Fairfield was saved the trouble of deciding for himself,
however, by the appearance of old Squire Harry, who walked forth from
the handsome stone door-case upon the terrace, where his son stood
ready for departure.
The old man was walking with a measured tread, holding his head very
high, with an odd flush on his face, and a sardonic smile, and he was
talking inaudibly to himself. Charles saw in all this the signs of
storm. In the old man’s hand was a letter firmly clutched. If he saw
his son, who expected to be accosted by him, he passed him by with as
little notice as he bestowed on the tall rose-tree that grew in the
stone pot by his side.
The Squire walked down the terrace, southward, towards the steps, the
wild sunset sky to his right, the flaming windows of the house to his
left. When he had gone on a few steps, his tall son followed him.
Perhaps he thought it better that Squire Harry should be informed of
his intended departure from his lips than that he should learn it from
the groom who held the bridle of his horse.
The Squire did not descend the steps, however; he stopped short of
them, and sat down in one of the seats that are placed at intervals
under the windows. He leaned with both hands on his cane, the point of
which he ground angrily into the gravel; in his fingers was still
crumpled the letter. He was looking down with a very angry face,
illuminated by the wild western sky, shaking his head and muttering.
The tall, brown Captain stalked towards him, and touched his hat,
according to his father’s reverential rule.
“May I say a word, sir?” he asked.
The old man stared in his face and nodded fiercely, and with this
ominous invitation he complied.
“You were pleased, sir,” said he, “yesterday to express an opinion
that, with the income I have, I ought to support myself, and no longer
to trouble Wyvern. It was stupid of me not to think of that
myself--very stupid--and all I can do is to lose no time about it; and
so I have sent my traps away, and am going to follow now, sir; and I
couldn’t go, of course, sir, without saying farewell to you and----”
He was on the point of adding--“thanking you for all your kindness;”
but he recollected himself. _Thank_ him, indeed! No, he could not
bring himself to that. “And I am leaving now, sir, and good-bye.”
“Ho, turning your back on Wyvern, like all the rest! Well, sir, the
world’s wide, you can choose your road. I don’t ask none o’ ye to stay
and see me off--not I. I’ll not be without some one when I die to shut
down my eyes, I dare say. Get ye gone.”
“I thought, sir--in fact I was quite convinced,” said Charles
Fairfield, a little disconcerted, “that you had quite made up your
mind, as I have mine, sir.”
“So I had, sir--so I had. Don’t suppose I care a rush, sir, who
goes--not a d--d rush--not I. Better an empty house than a bad
tenant.”
Up rose the old man as he spoke, “Away with them, say I; bundle ’em
out--off wi’ them, bag and baggage; there’s more like ye--read
_that_,” and he thrust the letter at him like a pistol, and leaving it
in his hand, turned and stalked slowly up the terrace, while the
Captain read the following note:--
“Sir,--I hardly venture to hope that you will ever again think of me
with that kindness which circumstances compel me so ungratefully to
requite. I owe you more than I can ever tell. I began to experience
your kindness in my infancy, and it has never failed me since. Oh,
sir, do not, I entreat, deny me one last proof of your
generosity--your _forgiveness_. I leave Wyvern, and before these lines
are in your hand, I shall have found another home. Soon, I trust, I
shall be able to tell my benefactor _where_. In the meantime may God
recompense you, as I never can, for all your goodness to me. I leave
the place where all my life has passed amid continual and unmerited
kindness with the keenest anguish. Aggravated by my utter inability at
present to repay your goodness by the poor acknowledgment of my
confidence. Pray, sir, pardon me; pray restore me to your good opinion,
or, at least if you cannot forgive and receive me again into your
favour, spare me the dreadful affliction of your detestation, and in
mercy try to forget
“Your unhappy, but ever grateful
“Alice Maybell.”
When Charles Fairfield, having read this through, raised his eyes,
they lighted on the old man, returning, and now within a few steps of
him.
“Well, there’s a lass for ye! I reared her like a child o’ my
own--better, kinder than ever child was reared, and she’s hardly come
to her full growth when she serves me like that. D--n ye, are ye
tongue-tied? _what_ do you think of her?”
“It would not be easy, sir, on that letter, to pronounce,” said
Charles Fairfield, disconcerted. “There’s nothing there to show what
her reasons are.”
“Ye’r no Fairfield--ye’r not, ye’r none. If ye were, ye’d know when
ye’r house was insulted; but ye’r none; ye’r a cold-blooded sneak, and
no Fairfield.”
“I don’t see that anything I could say, sir, would mend the matter,”
said the Captain.
“Like enough; but I’ll tell ye what I think of her,” thundered the old
man, half beside himself. And his language became so opprobrious and
frantic, that his son said, with a proud glare and a swarthy flush on
his face--
“I take my leave, sir; for language like that I’ll not stay to hear.”
“But ye’ll not take ye’r leave, sir, till I choose, and ye shall
stay,” yelled the old Squire, placing himself between the Captain and
the steps. “And I’d like to know why ye shouldn’t hear her called what
she is--a -- and a --.”
“Because she’s _my_ wife, sir,” retorted Charles Fairfield, whitening
with fury.
“She is, is she?” said the old man, after a long gaping pause. “Then
ye’r a worse scoundrel, ye black-hearted swindler, than I took you
for--and ye’ll take that--”
And trembling with fury, he whirled his heavy cane in the air. But
before it could descend, Charles Fairfield caught the hand that held
it.
“None o’ that--none o’ that, sir,” he said with grim menace, as the
old man with both hands and furious purpose sought to wrest the cane
free.
“Do you _want_ me to do it?”
The gripe of old Squire Harry was still powerful, and it required an
exertion of the younger man’s entire strength to wring the
walking-stick from his grasp.
Over the terrace balustrade it flew whirling, and old Squire Harry in
the struggle lost his feet, and fell heavily on the flags.
There was blood already on his temple and white furrowed cheek, and he
looked stunned. The young man’s blood was up--the wicked blood of the
Fairfields--but he hesitated, stopped, and turned.
The old Squire had got to his feet again, and was holding giddily by
the balustrade. His hat still lay on the ground, his cane was gone.
The proud old Squire was a tower dismantled. To be met and foiled so
easily in a feat of strength--to have gone down at the first tussle
with the “youngster,” whom he despised as a “milksop” and a “Miss
Molly,” was to the old Hercules, who still bragged of his early
prowess, and was once the lord of the wrestling ring for five and
twenty miles round, perhaps for the moment the maddest drop in the cup
of his humiliation.
Squire Harry with his trembling hand clutched on the stone balustrade,
his tall figure swaying a little, had drawn himself up and held his
head high and defiantly. There was a little quiver in his white old
features, a wild smile in his eyes, and on his thin, hard lips,
showing the teeth that time had left him; and the blood that patched
his white hair trickled down over his temple.
Charles Fairfield was agitated, and felt that he could have burst into
tears--that it would have been a relief to fall on his knees before
him for pardon. But the iron pride of the Fairfields repulsed this
better emotion. He did, however, approach hurriedly, with an excited
and troubled countenance, and he said hastily--
“I’m awfully sorry, but it wasn’t my fault; you know it wasn’t. No
Fairfield ever stood to be struck yet; I only took the stick, sir.
D--n it, if it had been my mother I could not have done it more
gently. I could not help your tripping. I couldn’t; and I’m awfully
sorry, by ----, and you won’t remember it against me? Say you won’t.
It’s the last time you’ll ever see me in life, and there’s no use in
parting at worse odds than we need; and--and--won’t you shake hands,
sir?”
“I say, son Charlie, ye’ve spilled my blood,” said the old man. “May
God damn ye for it; and if ever ye come into Wyvern after this, while
there’s breath in my body I’ll shoot ye like a poacher.”
And with this paternal speech, Squire Harry turned his back and
tottered stately and grimly into the house.