THE SQUIRE'S GRANDSONS.
WHILST the Squire had been giving old Bluff his deserts in the farm
parlour, his three grandsons—none other than the boys whose mother Dick
had thought so beautiful—had left the grounds by a winding path that
skirted the plantation and emerged on to a fieldway leading into the
road a few hundred yards above the farm. Turning to the left hand of
the farm, this road ran round the foot of a piece of rising ground.
Probably the man who first made a cart-track there, found it pay better
to go a little way round than to make his beasts drag their burdens
over the hill. But there was a shorter cut for pedestrians almost
opposite the pathway from the Manor House; and for this the boys were
bound.
Just as they were in the act of crossing the stile, who should come
round the bend but the Squire, whose next business took him up that
very road. The boys saw him at once. Two of them—the two taller
ones—ran forward to meet him, the other following at his quickest
pace. The Squire was a favourite with his grandsons. He was such a boy
amongst them, although he had been born over eighty years before them;
and yet withal he was so grand and courtly.
Will and Sigismund dashed forward, but the Squire looked beyond them
to the cripple, who was exerting himself manfully to show equal
appreciation of his aged relative.
"Bravo, Hal, bravo!" cried he, applauding with his gold-headed cane.
Will and Sigismund faced about, looking half-ashamed, as if they felt
it was almost mean to have taken such an advantage of their afflicted
brother. But the Squire did not exactly intend that. It would have been
altogether too hard for boys with strong legs to give up using them
because their brother limped on irons. It was rather that the Squire
had a very tender spot in his heart for Hal, and that he saw in the
boy's brave, invincible spirit an earnest of what the man would be.
"God grant that he may grow to be a man!" he often uttered in his
heart. And it really seemed that Hal was growing stronger year by year.
Meanwhile Hal, flushed and out of breath, was up with them.
"Where are you going, grandfather?" asked he eagerly, as he swung
himself round to walk by the Squire's side, Sigismund making way for
him.
"Up to the cottages by the wood gate," replied his grandfather, laying
one hand on his shoulder. "Almost out of bounds for you, eh?"
But Hal shook his head. "Why, I've been right into the wood, you know;
last autumn, nutting."
"Ah, to be sure!" acquiesced the old gentleman.
"But what are you going there for, grandfather?" questioned Hal, who
was noted for his inquisitive spirit. Impertinent, some good people
would have said; but not so his grandfather.
"How can a boy learn what he doesn't know, if he may not ask a
question?" he would say. "A spirit of inquiry is one of the first
requisites to learning." So now he answered without reserve.
"To see about having one put in repair for Farmer Bluff," said he.
"For Farmer Bluff?"
The question was from all three at once.
The Squire nodded gravely. "For Farmer Bluff," repeated he. "He has to
leave the Manor Farm."
"To leave?"
"Why, grandfather?"
This was Hal's question. Hal always came straight to the point, as if
he had a right to know; and his grandfather seldom, if ever, put him
off.
"Because," answered he, "the time has arrived when he must make way for
a better man."
"But surely, grandfather," said Hal, "you won't turn him away, after
all the years he has been bailiff. Why! Ever since mother first brought
us to live with you."
"Ay, and before that," broke in the Squire regretfully. "When I thought
your poor father would have been Squire after me. Twenty-seven years
Farmer Bluff has lived on that farm; but—"
"But it isn't fair to turn him out because he's getting old,
grandfather," interrupted Hal, with a bold familiarity that no one else
would have dared to use towards the old gentleman.
"Tut, tut, lad," rejoined the Squire. "Who said was because he was too
old?"
"Well, grandfather," put in Sigismund, who according to size would be
the next youngest to Hal, "you said 'a better man.'"
"Better doesn't always mean younger," said Hal eagerly; "does it,
grandfather?"
"Nor does younger mean better," returned the Squire. "I always like to
think of my eighty-four years as a token of God's favour."
"Good people generally live to be old, don't they?" suggested
Sigismund, straying from the point at issue. "In the Bible they did."
"Steady living is conducive to longevity;" replied the old man.
"That is to say, those who live sober, temperate lives give their
constitutions the fairest chance of withstanding natural decay, and of
escaping the ravages of disease by which so many are prematurely cut
off."
"Is that why Farmer Bluff has the gout?" queried Hal. "Because he has
been intemperate?"
"Very likely," replied the Squire. "It is quite certain that at the
present time he is aggravating the complaint and forfeiting my esteem
by the childish obstinacy with which he persists in drinking beer, when
he knows it is as good as drinking so many pains and twinges. But you
mustn't run away with the notion that God always rewards virtue with
long life; for that is not His greatest gift."
Hal asked no more questions just then. They had crossed the stile
during this conversation, and were climbing the pathway up the hill
towards the wood, where there was plenty to claim the attention of boys.
Larks were rising from the tussocks; finches darted in and out the
hedge; and as they got nearer to the wood, wild rabbits, all tail,
frisked about their burrows. Once or twice a grey rat ran out of
his hole, and sat upon his haunches in the track, staring stupidly
before him until they were quite close; then doubling suddenly, and
disappearing in the ditch.
Will and Sigismund were full of excitement, running and jumping and
leaping; but Hal kept by his grandfather, swinging himself along at an
even pace that agreed very well with the old gentleman's step; and so
they reached the gate of the wood, and the cottages in one of which the
Squire intended his bailiff to live rent free.
There was already a noise of carpenters at work, and a cheery sound of
men talking over their saws and planes. Hal followed his grandfather
inside, and went round, listening with great interest to all that
passed between him and the workmen. But the other boys stayed outside,
overrunning the garden, and talking to the gamekeeper, who lived next
door. Finally they strayed into the wood, which was only separated from
the garden by a ditch, dry summer and winter alike. By the time the
Squire had finished giving his orders, they were quite out of sight and
hearing.
At length, the Squire sent the keeper down the clearing after them. Hal
was standing by his side, resting on his crutches. The Squire, looking
down at him, saw that his face wore a thoughtful look, and fancied he
was tired.
"Better go inside and sit down on Champion's sawstool," suggested he
kindly; "it's a long way back, and you and I aren't so young as those
two madcaps. Eh?"
At that instant, however, Will and Sigismund appeared, talking gaily to
the man as they advanced.
The Squire beckoned, and they set forward at a run, giving the stout
old Velveteens a good view of their soles, and leaving him to follow at
his sober pleasure. But Hal had already seized his opportunity.
"Grandfather," said he, moving nearer.
The old man faced about.
"Grandfather, I was wondering if I could make Farmer Bluff see how
silly it is to keep on having gout?"
"To keep on drinking beer?—Hardly," quoth the Squire, "since his doctor
fails. People usually believe their medical man, if anybody, when they
are in pain."
"And I mean," added Hal, anxious to gain his point before the others
came up, "if he left off having gout, should you still be obliged to
turn him out of the Manor Farm?"
"Why, no," answered the Squire; "not if he showed himself capable of
doing his duty as bailiff of the estate. But the fact is, I can't be
Squire and bailiff too at my age; and if I could, I shouldn't long be
able to, because—things don't go on for ever and a day, Hal."
Just then the other two boys cleared the ditch, and bounded up, with a
ready apology for having kept their grandfather waiting; then, passing
in at the back door, they all went through to the road again.
On reaching the front door, the Squire suddenly remembered something he
had meant to say, and stepped back again. Hal waited with him, but Will
and Sigismund ran straight out.
In the middle of the road a boy was standing, looking this way and
that, as if undecided in which direction to go. Seeing two lads his own
age, he at once advanced.
"Can you tell me where I am?" asked he.
"By the gate of the wood," answered Will, pointing past the cottages to
the red-painted gate.
"Is this beyond the common?" asked the boy.
"Most certainly," was Will's reply.
"Then I'm where I've no business," rejoined the boy, who was none other
than Dick Crozier. On leaving his new acquaintance, Bill the Kicker, he
had wandered on by the right-hand road, until his way had met that of
the Squire and his grandsons by the cottages.
Apart from Hal, Dick did not recognise them as the Manor House boys.
Hal no sooner appeared in the doorway, however, than their identity
flashed upon him. The next minute, the Squire himself emerged, tapping
the ground briskly with his cane as he walked, as an indication that
time was short and they must get forward without delay.
Perceiving Will in conversation with a strange boy, he stopped short;
whereupon Will explain that Dick had lost his way.
The Squire inquired where he came from, but this Will had not yet
asked; so the Squire turned to Dick himself.
"Your name, my boy?" asked he.
Dick had no sooner recognised Hal than it flashed upon him that the
grand old gentleman with the gold-headed cane was none other than the
Squire himself; and although not more troubled with bashfulness than
most boys of his age, he was just a trifle flustered at the discovery.
Nevertheless, he answered straightforwardly enough,—
"Crozier, sir."
"Crozier; a son of my new tenant, surely?" said the Squire in his
courtly way. "I am always pleased to make the acquaintance of a tenant,
Master—"
"Dick, sir."
"Master Dick; and as we're all going one way, we will proceed together,
if you please."
So they set off, Dick and Hal walking on either side of the Squire, the
other two a pace or two in front.
[Illustration]