A TALK WITH THE SQUIRE.
Harry proved how hungry he was by eating a huge dinner. He had the
old dining-room to himself, and sipped his brandy and water there by a
pleasant fire of coal and spluttering wood. With a button or two
undone, he gazed drowsily into the fire, with his head thrown back and
his eyes nearly closed; and the warmth of the fire and the glow of the
alcohol flushed his cheeks and his nose and his forehead to a brilliant
crimson.
Harry had had a hard day’s riding. Some agitations, great variety of
air, and now, as we have seen, a hearty dinner and many glasses of
brandy and water, and a hot fire before him. Naturally he fell
asleep.
He dreamed that the old Squire was dead and buried. He forgot all
about the little boy at Carwell, and fancied that he, Harry Fairfield,
draped in the black mantle with which the demure undertaker hangs the
mourners in chief, had returned from the funeral, and was seated in
the old “oak parlour,” just in all other respects as he actually was.
As he sat there, Master of Wyvern at last, and listening, he thought,
to the rough tick of the old clock in the hall, old Tom Ward seemed to
him to bounce in, his mulberry-coloured face turned the colour of
custard, his mouth agape, and his eyes starting out of their sockets.
“Get up, Master Harry,” the old servant seemed to say, in a woundy
tremor, “for may the devil fetch me if here baint the old master back
again, and he’s in the blue room callin’ for ye.”
“Ye lie!” gasped Harry, waking up in a horror.
“Come, ye, quick, Master Harry, for when the Squire calls it’s ill
tarrying,” said now the real voice of Tom Ward.
“Where?”
“In the blue chamber.”
“Where--where am I?” said Harry, now on his feet and looking at Tom
Ward. “By jingo, Tom, I believe I was dreaming. You gave me a hell of
a fright, and is he there really? Very well.”
And Harry walked in and found the old Squire of Wyvern standing with
his back to the fire, tall, gaunt, and flushed, and his eyes looking
large with the glassy sheen of age.
“Well, why didn’t ye tell me the news, ye fool?” said the Squire, as
he entered. “D----n ye, if it hadn’t a bin for Tom Ward I shouldn’t a
heerd nout o’ the matter. So there’s a brat down in Carwell
Grange--ha, ha!--marriage is honourable, I’ve heerd tell, but
housekeepin’s costly. ’Tis the old tune on the bagpipe. That’s the way
to beggar’s bush. When marriage gets into the saddle repentance gets
up at the crupper. Why the devil didn’t ye tell me the news? Why
didn’t ye tell me, ye d----d wether-head?”
“So I would ’a told ye to-night, but I fell asleep after dinner. It’s
true enough, though, and there’s doctors, and nurses, and caudles, and
all sorts.”
“Well for Charlie he’s out of the way--dead mice feels no cold, you
know, and she’s a bad un--Alice Maybell’s a bad un. The vicar was a
thankless loon, and she’s took after him. She went her own gait, and
much good it did her. Sweetheart and honey bird keeps no house, and
the devil’s bread is half bran. She’ll learn a lesson now. I was too
good to that huzzy. Put another man’s child in your bosom, they say,
and he’ll creep out at your sleeves. She’s never a friend now. She’s
lost Charlie and she’s lost me. Well might the cat wink when both her
eyes were out. She’d like well enough to be back here again in
Wyvern--d----n her. She knows who was her best friend by this time.
Right well pleased wi’ herself, I’ll be bound, the day she gi’ed us
the slip and ran off with the fool Charlie--down in the mouth, I
warrant her now, the jade. I dare say the parson’s down at the Grange
every day to pray wi’ my lady and talk o’ resignation. When all their
rogueries breaks down they take to cantin’ and psalm singin’, and
turns up their eyes, the limmers, and cries the Lord’s will be done.
Welcome death, quoth the rat, when the trap fell. Much thanks to ’em
for takin’ what they can’t help. Well, she’s a bad un--a
black-hearted, treacherous lass she proved, and Charlie was a soft
fellow and a mad fellow, and so his day’s over, and I was just a daft
old fool, and treated accordin’. But time and thought tames all, and
we shall all lie alike in our graves.”
“And what’s the boy like?” the old man resumed. “Is he like Charlie?”
“He was asleep, and the room dark, so there was no good trying to see
him,” said Harry, inventing an excuse.
“Not a bit, dark or light, not a bit; he’s Ally’s son, and good won’t
grow from that stock--never. As the old bird crows, so crows the
young, and that foreign madam, I hear, swears she was married first to
poor Charlie, and what’s that to me?--not that spoonful of punch.
She’s up in limbo, and if her story be true, why then that boy of
Ally’s ain’t in the runnin’, and his mother, bless her heart, needn’t
trouble her head about Wyvern, nor be wishin’ the old Squire, that was
good to her, under the sod, to make way for her son, and then there’s
you to step in and claim my shoes, and my chair, and cellar key, and
then Madam--what’s her name--Van Trump, or something, will out wi’ a
bantling, I take it, and you’ll all fight it out, up and down--kick,
throttle, and bite--in the Court of Chancery, or where ye can, and
what is’t to me who wins or who loses? Not that bit o’ lemon-peel, and
if you think I’m a going to spend a handful o’ money in law to clear
up a matter that don’t concern me, no more than the cat’s whisker,
you’re a long way out in your reckonin’--be me soul ye are, for I’ll
not back none o’ ye, and I won’t sport a shillin’--and I don’t care a
d----n. Ye’ll fight the battle o’er my grave, and ye’ll take Wyvern
who can, and ’twill cost ye all round a pretty penny. Ye’ll be sellin’
your shirts and your smocks, and ye’re pretty well in for it, and ye
can’t draw back. Well lathered is half shaved, and it won’t break my
heart, I promise you.”
And the old man chuckled and hooted, and wagged his head fiercely as
he declaimed, in his own way, upon the row that was coming.
“Don’t ye spare one another for my sake. Take Wyvern who can. I’ll
keep my hands in my pockets, I promise ye. What have I to do wi’
other folks’ windmills?”
So the old Squire stormed on more serenely than he had done for a long
time.
“Make another tankard o’ that thing, Tom; make a big one, and brew it
well, and fetch a rummer for yourself, lad.”
“Beggar’s breed for rich men to feed,” resumed the Squire. “A son at
the Grange o’ Carwell, no less! Well, I ’a taken enough, and too much,
on my shoulders in my day, and ’tis often the least boy carries the
biggest fiddle. She’s a sly lass--Alice. She’ll find fools enough to
help her. I ’a done wi’ her--she’s a bad un. Look at that harpsichord
thing there she used to play on,” he pointed to the piano. “I got that
down from Lunnon for her to jingle tunes at as long as she liked, and
I’d a had it smashed up and pitched in the river, only ’twould a made
her think I cared enough about her to take that trouble about her
lumber. She turned her back on me when she liked, and I’ll not turn my
face on her when she lists. A graceless huzzy she was and is, and
grace lasts but beauty blasts, and so let it be for me. That’s enough.
I take it there’s no more to tell. So take ye a candle if ye’re
sleepy, man, no use dawdlin’ sluggard’s guise, loath to bed, and loath
to rise,” and so, with a gruff nod, he dismissed him, and in came Tom
Ward with the punch before very long.
“That’s good, Tom; that’ll warm yer ribs. How long a’ you been here?
Wyvern always, but a long time in the house, Tom, a long time wi’ the
family. ’Tis sixty years ago, Tom. I remember you in our livery,
Isabel and Blue--them’s the old colours. They don’t know the name
now--_salmon_, they calls it. We ’a seen Christmas pretty often in the
old house. We’ll not see many more, I’m thinking. The tale’s nigh
done. ’Twasn’t bad times wi’ ye here, Tom; we can’t complain; we ’a
had our share, and after cheese comes nothing, as the old folks used
to say. Take the rummer and sit ye down by the door, Tom. There’s
Master Harry. I’d rather ha’ a glass wi’ you, Tom, than a dozen wi’
him, a d----d pippin’-squeezing rascal. Tom, ain’t he a sneak, and no
Fairfield, Tom, ain’t he, ain’t he, d---- ye?”
“I won’t say that all out, sir. He’s a tall, handsome lad, and Master
Harry can sit down and drink his share like a man.”
“Like a beast, ye mean. He never tells ye a pleasant story, nor laughs
like a man, and what liquor he swallows, it goes into a bad skin, Tom.
He’s not hot and hearty in his cups, like a Fairfield; he has no good
nature, Tom; he’s so close-fisted and cunnin’. I hate them fellows
that can’t buy at the market and sell at the fair, and drink when he’s
drinkin’; d---- him, he’s always a watching to _do_ ye, just like his
mother; a screw she was, and her son’s like her, crooked to sell, and
crooked to buy. I hate him sober, Tom, and I hate him drunk. Bring
your glass here, old lad; a choice mug-full ye’ve brewed to-night.
Hold it straight, you fool!
“What was I sayin’? The old things is out o’ date, Tom; the world’s
changin’, and ’tain’t in nature, Tom, to teach old dogs tricks. I do
suppose there’s fun goin’, though I don’t see it, and the old folks
beginning to be in the way, as they were always, and things won’t
change for us. We were brave lads, we Fairfields, but there’s no one
to come now. There won’t be no one after me in Wyvern house. To the
wrestlin’ on Wyvern Fair Green when I was a boy, I mind the time when
lords and ladies id come ridin’ down for twenty miles round, and all
the old stock o’ the country, some on horseback, and some in coaches,
and silks and satins, to see the belt played for and singlestick and
quarter-staves. They were manly times, Tom, and a Fairfield ever first
in the field, and--what year is this? ay, I was twenty the week before
that day--’tis sixty-four years ago--when I threw Dick Dutton over my
shoulder and broke his collar-bone, and Dutton was counted the best
man they ever brought down here, and Meg Weeks--ye’ll mind Meg Weeks
wi’ the hazel eyes--was lookin’ on; and the wrestlin’s gone, and not a
man left in the country round that could tell a quarter-staff from a
flail; and when I’m gone to my place in the churchyard, there’s not a
Fairfield in Wyvern no longer, for I don’t count Harry one, he’s not a
Fairfield, by no chance, and never was. Charlie had it in him,
handsome Charlie. I seen many a turn in him like me, I did; and that
Captain Jolliffe’s died only t’other day that he shot in the arm at
Tewkesbury only twenty years ago for sayin’ a wry word o’ me; old
Morton read it yesterday, he says, in the Lun’on paper. But it’s all
over wi’ Charlie, and--stand up, Tom, and fill yer glass, and we’ll
drink to him.”
Old Tom Ward was the first to speak after.
“Hot blood and proud, sir, and a bit wild, when he was young; more
than that, there’s nout to be said by any. A brave lad, sir, and the
good-naturedest I ever see. He shouldn’t be buried where he is, alone.
I don’t like that, nohow. He wouldn’t a done so by you, Squire; he
liked ye well; he liked every one that was ever kind to him. I mind
how he cried after poor Master Willie. They two was very like and
loving. Master Willie was tall, like him, and handsome.”
“Don’t ye be talkin’ o’ them at all, ye fool,” broke in the Squire,
violently, “stop that, and hold your tongue, Tom. D---- you, do you
think I’m foolish? Light my candle, and get ye to bed, the tankard’s
out; get ye to bed, ye d----d old fool,” and he shook the old servant
hard by the hand as he spoke.