The snow lay thick round Maxfield Manor. Though it had been falling
scarcely an hour, it had already transfigured the dull old place from a
gloomy pile of black and grey into a gleaming vision of white. It
lodged in deep piles in the angles of the rugged gables, and swirled up
in heavy drifts against the hall-door. It sat heavily on the broad ivy-
leaves over the porch, and blotted out lawn, path, and flowerbed in a
universal pall of white velvet. The wind-flattened oaks in the park
were become tables of snow; and away over the down, to the edge of the
cliff itself, the dazzling canopy stretched, making the gulls as they
skimmed its surface in troubled flight appear dingy, and the uneasy
ocean beyond more than ever grey and leaden.
And the snow was falling still, and promised to make a night of it. At
least so thought one of the inmates of the manor-house as he got up from
his music-stool and casually looked out of the fast-darkening window,
thanking his stars that it mattered little to him, in his cosy bachelor-
den, whether it went on a night or a fortnight. This complacent
individual was a man at whom one would be disposed to look twice before
coming to any definite conclusion respecting him. At the first glance
you might put him down for twenty-five; at the second, you would wonder
whether you had possibly made a slight miscalculation of twenty years.
His keen eyes, his smooth face, his athletic figure, his somewhat
dandified dress were all in favour of the young man. The double line
across his brow, the enigmas about his lips, the imperturbable gravity
of his features bespoke the elder. Handsome he was not--he was hardly
good-looking, and the nervous twitch of his eyebrow as it came down over
his single eye-glass constantly disfigured him. What was his temper,
his character, his soul, you might sit for a month before him and never
discover. But from his deep massive chest, his long arms, his lithe
step, and the poise of his head upon his broad shoulders, you would
probably conclude that his enemy, if he had one, would do well not to
frequent the same dark lane as Mr Frank Armstrong.
This afternoon, as he draws his curtain and lights his lamp, he is
passably content with himself and the world; for he has just discovered
a new volume of Schumann that takes his fancy. He has no quarrel,
therefore, with the snow, except that by its sudden arrival it will
probably hold his promising pupil, Master Roger, prisoner for the night
at Castleridge, where he and his mother have driven for dinner. The
tutor has sufficient interest in his work to make him regret this
interruption of his duties, but for the present he will console himself
with Schumann. So he returns to his music-stool--the one spot in
creation where he allows that he can be really happy--and loses himself
in a maze of sweet sound.
So engrossed is he in his congenial occupation, that he is quite unaware
of the door behind him opening and a voice saying--
"Beg pardon, sir, but the master wants you."
Raffles, the page-boy, who happened to be the messenger, was obliged to
deliver his summons three times--the last time with the accompaniment of
a tap on the tutor's shoulder--before that _virtuoso_ swung round on his
stool and demanded--
"What is it, Raffles?"
"Please, sir, the master wants you hinstanter."
Mr Armstrong was inclined to compliment Raffles on his Latin, but on
second thoughts (the tutor's second thoughts murdered a great number of
his good sayings) he considered that neither the page nor himself would
be much better for the jest, and spared himself.
He nodded to the messenger to go, and closing the piano, screwed his
eye-glass in his eye, ready to depart.
"Please, sir," said Raffles at the door, "the governor he's dicky to-
day. You'd best have your heye on 'im."
"Thank you, Raffles; I will," said the tutor, going out.
He paced the long passage which led from his quarters to the oak hall,
whistling _sotto voce_ a bar or two of the Schumann as he went; then his
manner became sombre as he crossed the polished boards and entered the
passage beyond which led to his employer's library.
Old Roger Ingleton was sitting in the almost dark room, staring fixedly
into the fire. There was little light except that of the flickering
embers in his dim, worn face. Though not yet seventy, his spare form
was bent into the body of an old, old man, and the hands, which feebly
tapped the arms of the chair on which they rested, were the worn-out
members of a man long past his work. He saw little and heard less; nor
was he ever to be met outside the confines of his library, or, in summer
weather, the sunny balcony on to which it opened. Only when he talked
were you able to realise that this worn-out body did not belong to a
Tithonus, but to a man whose inward faculties were still alert and
vigorous, whatever might be said of his outward failure. Could he but
have been accommodated with the physical frame of a man of fifty, he had
spirit enough to fill it, and become once more what he was twenty years
ago, a complete man.
"Sit down, Armstrong," said he, when presently his dim eyes and ears
became aware of the tutor's presence. "There's no need to light the
lamp, and you need not trouble to talk, for I should not be able to hear
you."
The tutor shook the eye-glass out of his eye, and seated himself at a
corner of the hearth in silence.
Mr Ingleton, having thus prepared his audience, looked silently into
the fire for another half-hour, until the room was dark, and all the
tutor could see was a wan hand fidgeting uneasily on the arm of the
chair.
Then with a weary effort the Squire turned his head and began, as if
continuing a conversation.
"I have not been unobservant, Armstrong. You came at a time when Roger
needed a friend. So far you have done well by him, and I am content
with my choice of a tutor. What contents me more is to think you are
not yet tired of your charge. I rather envy you, Armstrong. I came to
grief where you succeeded. I once flattered myself I could bring up a
boy--he happened to be my son, too--but--"
Here the old man resumed his gaze into the fire, and the room was as
silent as the grave for a quarter of an hour. The tutor began to be
uneasy. Perhaps he had yearnings for his piano and Schumann. For all
that, he sat like a statue and waited. At last the Squire moved again.
"I dreaded a repetition of that, Armstrong. Had he lived--" Here he
stopped again abruptly.
The tutor waited patiently for five minutes and then screwed his eye-
glass into his eye.
As he did so, the old man uttered a sound very like a snore. Mr
Armstrong gave an imperceptible shrug of his shoulders and inwardly
meditated a retreat, when the sound came through the darkness again.
There was something in it which brought the tutor suddenly to his feet.
He struck a match and hastily lit a candle.
Squire Ingleton sat there just as he had sat an hour ago when the tutor
found him, except that the hand on the chair-arm was quiet, and his chin
sunk a little deeper in his chest. The tutor passed the candle before
the old man's face, and then, scarcely less pallid than his master, rang
the bell.
"Raffles," said he, as the page entered, "come here, quick. The Squire
is ill."
"I said he was dicky," gasped the boy. "I knowed it whenever--"
"Hold your tongue, sir, and help me lift him to the sofa."
Between them they moved the stricken man to the couch, where he lay
open-eyed, speechless, appealing.
"We must get Dr Brandram, Raffles."
"That'll puzzle you," said the boy, "a night like this, and the two
'orses at Castleridge."
"Is there any chance of your mistress returning to-night?"
"Not if Tom Robbins knows it. He's mighty tender of his 'orses, and a
night like this--"
"Go and fetch the housekeeper at once," said the tutor.
Raffles vanished.
Mr Armstrong was not the man to lose his head on an emergency, but now,
as he bent over the helpless paralytic, and tried to read his wants in
the eyes that looked up into his, he found it needed a mighty effort to
pull himself together and resolve how to act.
He must go for the doctor, five miles away. There was no one else about
the place who could cover the ground as quickly. But if he went, he
must leave the sufferer to the tender mercies of Raffles and the
housekeeper--a prospect at which Mr Armstrong shuddered; especially
when the latter self-important functionary entered, talking at large,
and proposing half a dozen contradictory specifics in the short passage
from the door to the sick-couch.
Mr Armstrong only delayed to suggest meekly that his impression was
that a warm bath would, under the circumstances, be of benefit, and
then, not waiting for the contemptuous "Much you know about it" which
the suggestion evoked, he set off.
It was no light task on a night like this to plough through the snow for
five miles in search of help, and the lanes to Yeld were, even in open
weather, none of the easiest. But the tutor was not the kind of man to
trouble himself about difficulties of that sort, provided only he could
find the doctor in, and transport him in a reasonable time to Maxfield.
As he passed the stables, he glanced within, on the off-chance of
finding a horse available. But the place was empty, and not even a
stable-boy could be made to hear his summons.
So he tramped out into the road, where the snow lay a foot deep, and
with long strides carved his way through it towards Yeld. Half a mile
on he overtook a country cart, heavily laden and stuck fast in the snow.
"Ah! Hodder," said he to the nonplussed old man in charge, "you may as
well give it up."
"So I are without your telling," growled the countryman.
"Very well; I want your horse for a couple of hours. The Squire's ill,
and I have to fetch the doctor."
And without another word, and heedless of the ejaculations of the
bewildered Hodder, he began to loose the animal's girths.
"I'm blamed if you have a hair of him," said the yokel.
"I don't want one. Here!" and he pitched him a half-crown. The man
gaped stupidly at the unharnessing of his beast, and began to pump up
for another protest.
But before the words were ready, Mr Armstrong had led the horse out of
the shafts and had vaulted on his bare back.
"Eh," sputtered Hodder, "may I--"
"Good-bye and thanks," said the tutor, clapping his heels to the
animal's flanks; "you shall have him back safe."
And he plunged away, leaving the gaping son of the soil, with his half-
crown in his hand, to the laborious task of hoisting his lower jaw back
into its normal position.
Dr Brandram, in whose medical preserves Maxfield Manor lay, was
solacing himself with an after-dinner pipe in his little cottage at
Yeld, when the tutor, crusted in snow from head to foot, broke
unceremoniously on his privacy. An intuition told the doctor what was
the matter before even his visitor could say--
"The Squire has had a stroke. Come at once."
The doctor put down his pipe, and, with a sigh, kicked off his cosy
slippers.
"He has chosen a bad night, Armstrong. How are the roads?"
"A foot deep. Shall you drive or ride?"
"I never ride."
"You'll need both horses to get through, and I can lend you a spent
third."
"Thank you. How did he look?"
"He knew what had happened, I think, but could not speak or move."
"Of course. Suppose you and I do the latter, and postpone the former
till we are under weigh."
In less than ten minutes, the doctor's gig was trundling through the
snow, with three horses to drag it, and Mr Armstrong in charge of the
reins.
"Yes," said the doctor, "he's been leading up to this for a long time,
as you have probably observed."
"I can't say I have," said Mr Armstrong.
"Ah! well, you've only known him a year. I knew him twenty years ago."
"Ah!" replied the tutor, chirruping encouragement to the horses.
"Roger Ingleton's life twenty years ago was a life to make an insurance
company cheerful," said the doctor.
"What changed it?"
"He had a scape-grace son. They fell out--there was a furious quarrel--
and one day the father and son--ugh!--fought, with clenched fists, sir,
like two--two costermongers!--and the boy did not get the best of it.
He left home, and no wonder, and was never heard of since. Faugh! it
was a sickening business."
"That explains what he was saying this afternoon about a son he had
once. He was telling me about it when he was struck."
"Ay! that blow has been owing him for twenty years. It is the last
round of the fight, Armstrong. But," continued he, "this is all a
secret. No one knows it at Maxfield. I doubt if your pupil so much as
imagines he ever had a brother."
"He has never mentioned it to me," said the tutor.
"No need that he should know," said the doctor. "Let the dead bury his
dead."
"Is he dead, then?"
"Before the Squire married again," said the doctor, "the poor boy went
straight to the dogs, and they made an end of him. There! let's talk of
something else. I don't know why I tell you what has never passed my
lips for twenty years."
"I wish you hadn't," said Mr Armstrong shortly, whipping up his horses.
The two men remained silent during most of that cold, laborious journey.
The doctor's few attempts at conversation fell flat, and he took refuge
finally in his pipe. As for the tutor, he had his hands full, steering
his team between the lane-side ditches, and thinking of the wrecked life
that lay waiting at the journey's end.
It was nearly ten o'clock before the dim lights of Maxfield Manor showed
ahead. The snow on the home-drive was undisturbed by the wheels of any
other vehicle. The mother and son had not returned, at any rate, yet.
As the two men entered, the hall was full of scared domestics, talking
in undertones, and feeding on the occasional bulletin which the
privileged Raffles was permitted to carry from the sick-room to the
outer world.
At the sight of the doctor and Mr Armstrong, they sneaked off
grudgingly to their own territories, leaving Raffles to escort the
gentlemen to the scene of the tragedy.
Old Roger Ingleton lay on the sofa, with eyes half-closed, upturned to
the ceiling; alive still, but no more. Cups and wine-glasses on the
table near told of the housekeeper's fruitless experiments at
restoration, and the inflamed countenance of that ministering angel
herself spoke ominously of the four hours during which the sufferer's
comfort had been under her charge.
The tutor, after satisfying himself that his mission had not been too
late, retired to the fireplace, where he leaned dismally, and watched
through his eye-glass the doctor's examination.
After a few minutes, the latter walked across to him.
"Did you say Mrs Ingleton and the boy will not be back till the
morning?"
"Probably not."
"If so, they will be too late; he will not last the night."
"I will fetch them," said Mr Armstrong quietly.
"Good fellow! you are having a night of it. I shall remain here; so you
can take whichever of my horses you like. The mare will go best."
"Thanks!" said the tutor, pulling himself together for this new task.
Before he quitted the room, he stepped up to the couch and bent for a
moment over the helpless form of his employer. There was no recognition
in the glazed eyes, and the hand, which he just touched with his own,
was nerveless and dead already.
With a silent nod to the doctor Mr Armstrong left the room, and was
presently once more ploughing on horseback through the deep snow.
It was well this man was a man of iron and master of himself, or he
might have flagged under this new effort, with the distressing prospect
awaiting him at his journey's end.
As it was, he urged doggedly forward, forgetful of the existence of such
an individual as Frank Armstrong, and dwelling only on the dying man
behind and the mourners ahead.
The clock was chiming one in Castleridge Church when at length he reined
up his spent horse at the stable entrance to the Grange. Here for a
weary quarter of an hour he rang, called, and whistled before the
glimmer of a lantern gave promise of an answer.
To the stable-boy's not altogether polite inquiry, Mr Armstrong
replied, "Mr Ingleton of Maxfield is ill. Call Robbins, and tell him
to put the horses in immediately, to take his mistress and Mr Roger
home; and get some one in the house to call them. Don't delay an
instant."
This peremptory speech fairly aroused the sleepy stable-boy, and in a
few minutes Mr Armstrong was standing in the hall of the Grange talking
to a footman.
"Take me up to his room," said he, pushing the bewildered servant before
him up the staircase.
The man, not at all sure that he was not in the grip of an armed
burglar, ascended the stair in a maze, not daring to look behind him.
At the end of a corridor he stopped.
"Is that the room? Give me the lamp! Go and tell your master to get
up. Say a messenger has come with bad news from Maxfield; and look
here--put some wraps in the carriage, and have some coffee or wine ready
in the hall in ten minutes."
The fellow, greatly reassured by this short parley, went off to fulfil
his instructions, while the tutor, with what was very like a sigh,
opened the door and entered his pupil's bedroom.
Roger Ingleton, minor, lay sound asleep, with his arms behind his head
and a smile on his resolute lips. As the light of the lamp fell on his
face, it looked very pale, with its frame of black curly hair and the
deep fringe of its long eyelashes; but the finely-chiselled nostrils and
firm mouth redeemed it from all suspicion of weakness. Even as he slept
you might judge this lad of nineteen had a will of his own hidden up in
the delicate framework of his body, and resembled his father at least in
this, that his outer man was too narrow a tenement for what it
contained. Almost at the first flash of the light his big black eyes
opened, and he started to a sitting posture, bewildered, scared.
"Oh! why, hullo, Armstrong! what's the matter?"
"I'm sorry to disturb you, Roger, but--"
The boy bounded out of bed and stood facing his tutor in his night-
dress.
"But I want you to dress as sharp as you can. Your father is unwell."
"Unwell?" repeated the boy, shivering. "You do not mean he is dead?"
"No--no; but ill. He has had a stroke. Dr Brandram is with him. I
thought it better not to wait till the morning before fetching you."
"Mother--does she know?"
"By this time."
"Why ever did we not go back?" groaned the boy. "Is there _any_ hope,
Armstrong?"
"Some--yes. Go to your mother and tell her so. The carriage will be
ready in five minutes."
In five minutes the boy and his mother descended to the hall, where
already their host and hostess were down to bid them farewell. It was
difficult to imagine that the slender dark-eyed handsome woman, who
stood there and looked round for a moment so white and trembling and
bewildered, was really the mother of the young man on whose arm she
leant. Even under a blow such as this Mrs Ingleton belied her age by a
decade. She was still on the sunny side of forty. You and I might have
doubted if she was yet thirty.
Captain Curtice and his wife had the true kindness to attempt no words
as they sympathisingly bade their visitors farewell. When the hall-door
opened and let in the cold blast, the poor lady staggered a moment and
clung closer to her son's side. Then abandoning composure to the wintry
winds, she found her best refuge in tears, and let herself be led to the
carriage.
The tutor helped to put her in, and looked inquiringly at his pupil.
"Come in too, please," said the latter; "there is room inside."
Mr Armstrong would fain have taken his seat beside Robbins on the box.
He hated scenes, and tears, and tragedies of all sorts. But there was
something in his pupil's voice which touched him. He took his place
within, and prayed that the moments might fly till they reached
Maxfield.
Scarcely a word was spoken. Once Roger hazarded a question, but it was
the signal for a new outburst on his mother's part; and he wisely
desisted, and leant back in his corner, silent and motionless. As for
the tutor, with the front seat to himself, he nursed his knee, and gazed
fixedly out of the window the whole way.
What weeks those two hours seemed! How the horses laboured, and panted,
and halted! And how interminably dismal was the dull muffled crunching
of the wheels through the snow!
At length a blurred light passed the window, and the tutor released his
knee and put up his eye-glass.
"Here we are," said he; "that was the lodge."
Roger slowly and reluctantly sat forward, and wrapped his mother's shawl
closer round her.
Raffles stood on the door-step, and in the hall beyond Mr Armstrong
could see the doctor standing.
As he stepped out, the page touched him on the arm.
"No 'urry," whispered he; "all over!"
Whereupon the tutor quietly crept away to the seclusion of his own room.