"I don't believe it! No Fleming ever was such a fool."
"But he was angry with me," said Alvar. "He might have stabbed me out
of revenge."
"Nonsense! we don't live in Ireland, nor in Spain either! They'll never
forgive you, of course, to their dying day, but they won't put you in
the right by breaking the law--we're too far north for that."
"Fletcher doesn't belong to these parts, you know," said Cherry; "He
might take up an idea. I do think it most unlikely that a boy brought
up like Chris would commit such an act. Besides, we saw him down here.
When was the fire seen?"
"I do not know," said Alvar; "but Fletcher said that he was there."
"It can't be," said Cheriton; "I cannot believe it. But they'll never
get over the boy being taken up at all. Why on earth did they never let
us know what was going on! I wish I had been there."
"Yes; a fire, and for us never to know of it!" said Jack, regretfully.
"I think that Chris is a bad boy, and that he has done it," said Alvar.
"But I do not care about the hay. What does that matter?"
"Why, the rick was worth forty pounds," said Cherry.
"I do not care for forty pounds. I care that I shall be obeyed," said
Alvar.
A great deal more discussion followed, chiefly between Alvar and Jack;
the latter at last relieving his mind of much of the good advice which
he had long been burning to bestow. He showed Alvar his errors at
length, and in the clearest language. Alvar took it very coolly, and
without much more interest than if it had been an essay. He was not, as
they would have expected, enraged at the burnt rick; indeed Cheriton
could not help fancying that he regarded it as a justification of his
violence towards Chris. As usual, it was the sense of Cheriton's
opposing view rather than the thing itself that annoyed him.
"Don't worry yourself, Cherry," said Jack, as he wished him good-night.
"I'll go the first thing in the morning and find out the rights of it."
Accordingly, before either of his brothers appeared, Jack started off
through wind and rain, and investigated the story of the burnt rick.
He returned in high feather, and found them still at breakfast; for
Alvar by no means held his father's opinion as to the merits of early
rising.
"Well," said Jack, "it's clear that Chris had nothing to do with it. He
left home at half-past four, went straight to old Bill's cottage, where
Alice Fisher gave him some tea, and where no doubt they indulged in a
good crack, left them at half-past five, and came straight up here with
the note for Alvar, when you saw him."
"Yes," said Cherry, "I looked at the clock when I came over to the
fire."
"Well, then, John Kitson saw the rick on fire exactly at half-past five,
he heard the church clock strike; so if you and Alvar go over to Hazelby
to-morrow, and prove that Chris came here on his way from old Bill's at
that time, you can set it all to rights in a moment. And if that idiot
Fletcher had sent for you--for Alvar--last night, poor Chris would never
have been suspected."
"Well, Jack, you have done a good morning's work," said Cherry, much
relieved.
"Yes. Give me some coffee, I had hardly any breakfast," said Jack,
cutting himself some cold beef. "It is such a cold morning, too."
"And who did set the rick on fire, then?" said Cherry.
"Ah, that's not so clear. Fletcher and Jos Green had a shindy a day or
two ago, and that lad is capable of anything; but, after all, it may
have been an accident."
Alvar all this time had eaten his breakfast in silence. He did not
disbelieve Jack's evidence, but perhaps he hardly felt its force, and
the sense of having been nearly concerned in committing an injustice,
did not strike him as forcibly as it did the others. He felt, perhaps
not unnaturally, a sense of intense irritation against the whole Fleming
family, and a wish never to hear their names again. Besides, Jack was
openly triumphant, and he could not doubt that Cherry was secretly so.
The conversation dropped therefore, and Alvar, as the weather
brightened, ordered his horse and went out. Jack retreated to his
books; and presently came the vicar, to hear the rights of the story
about Chris Fleming.
Cheriton said as little as he could, declaring that the arrest had been
an entire mistake, which they much regretted, and that Alvar would take
care that it was set right to-morrow.
"Have you heard of the outbreak of reforming zeal at Elderthwaite?"
asked Mr Ellesmere.
"Yes," said Cheriton, colouring. "Miss Seyton told me about it, and
besides, Clements was full of it when I saw him last. You see some new
blood has come into the place, and there is a violent reaction, of
course only among the few."
"Yes. Clements came to consult me about writing to the bishop. They
want to have a curate; but I am afraid the old parson has set all his
strength against it, and there are plenty to back him up. Besides, I
don't see how the payment could be managed, as, of course, Miss Seyton
will not act against her uncle. I told Clements to have patience; but a
good deal of ill-feeling is cropping up. I wish you would go over and
see if you can smooth things down a little."
"Do you think I could?"
"Why, yes; you always take Elderthwaite abuses under your protection.
You would be the only curate to please the parson and his parishioners,
too!"
Mr Ellesmere spoke entirely in jest, and was exceedingly surprised when
Cheriton answered seriously,--
"Indeed, I have thought so;" and then proceeded, at greater length than
he had done with Jack, to unfold his project. He did not try to
prepossess the vicar in its favour, nor touch on his home difficulties,
save by saying that an idle life at Oakby would not suit him. He said
plainly that he felt that only the peculiar circumstances of
Elderthwaite, and his own independent means, could justify such a step
in one who believed himself likely to have but little time and less
strength before him. Would Mr Ellesmere explain the whole state of the
case to the bishop, and ask--other matters being satisfactory--would he
ordain him if the next spring he found himself capable of doing
anything.
"And would this really content you, Cherry?" said Mr Ellesmere. "It
would be clerical work in its most unattractive form, among, I should
say, very unattractive people?"
"Not to me," said Cheriton. "It would not be a distasteful life to me."
"And then the climate here--"
"That the doctors shall decide next spring," said Cherry, smiling.
"I don't see my way to it, my boy," said Mr Ellesmere, struck by his
fragile look. "You must not run risks, and you would take
responsibilities upon you which would make each particular risk seem
unavoidable." Cheriton evidently did not see his way to a reply. His
face fell. The vivid, vigorous nature, checked at every turn, was ever
striving after a fresh outlet. The instinct to be up and doing, to put
his hand to everything that came to it, could not be stifled by loss and
disappointment, or even by want of physical health and strength. After
a pause he said, in an altered voice,--
"There are things that make it seem as if that did not much matter. I
mean it is my own concern _now_. A short life and a busy one is better
than a few more months, or years even, like mine."
"I do not think your life has ever been useless yet, Cherry, even under
the limitations that have been laid on it," said Mr Ellesmere, quietly.
Cheriton sat looking into the fire in silence, then he turned round and
smiled with much of his old playful defiance, though there was a deeper
undercurrent.
"You can keep a look-out on me all the winter, and tell the Elderthwaite
reformers that they don't know what may happen, if they will only have
patience. Then next spring I'll come and ask your advice again, and if
you make out a very good case against me, why, _I'll give in_."
He uttered the last words slowly, and Mr Ellesmere fully understood all
that they implied. He feared that the question might be answered for
him before next spring.
Cherry himself felt that he had not taken a very favourable moment for
putting forward his designs, for he was neither looking nor feeling
well; and could hardly point to himself as a proof of the suitability of
his native climate. Still the communication had given a certain point
to look forward to, and was an individual interest apart from the
confusing worry of affairs at Oakby. If, after the present crisis had
subsided, Alvar still held to his intention of going to the sea with
him, their old friendliness would soon supersede the present irritation.
Then, afterwards, he would go to London, break up his arrangements
there, and see the Stanforths, and would then spend Christmas with his
grandmother. In the meantime he would be exceedingly prudent; and
having regard both to the bad weather and to the charge of interference,
would leave Alvar to go by himself to Hazelby to-morrow.
Alvar's ride had been interrupted by an encounter with Edward Fleming,
full of resentment, by no means unnatural, though it was by this time
somewhat unreasonable, for he could hardly help believing that the
accusation against Chris had been intentional. A very sturdy and
recalcitrant north-countryman he showed himself, respectful indeed in
word to the squire, but intensely conscious of his injuries, and giving
the squire very plainly to understand that a full explanation before all
the magistrates at Hazelby, not to say a full apology, was no more than
his duty, and fully to be expected of him. It was an unfortunate
meeting. An appeal to Alvar's generosity and protection would have been
instantly responded to; but the one form of pride roused the other, and
stirred up the fear of dictation in his mind. He looked down at the
sullen, resolute face of the young farmer with an expression of intense
haughtiness, a look which, on the dark foreign face, seemed utterly
hateful to Fleming, and said, as he made his horse move on,--
"That is as I shall please."
"If you let my brother be wronged, sir," said Fleming, "mark me, you'll
repent it. 'Tis not the way your father would treat an old tenant, nor
your brother either. A dog had his rights at their hands."
And in a rage, intensified by his consciousness of Alvar's scorn, he
flung off with a sense of injury which would have led an Irishman to
fire a shot, but which, in the English farmer, meant opposing the squire
in Church and State, disobliging him on every private and parochial
question, taking on every occasion the other side, and carrying on this
line of conduct till his dying day.
He was young, too, and, as he had remarked to Cheriton, had education,
and he might confide his grievance to the county paper. But he was both
too proud and too generous to appeal again to Cheriton; and, besides, he
never supposed for a moment that the squire would withhold his evidence.
But Alvar's wrath was hot within him. As master against servant, as
head of the family against his juniors, above all, as gentleman against
peasant, he felt bound to assert himself and his authority. No one
should threaten him into begging off the boy who had insulted him, and
whose family had so defied him. He would not yield to any one's view of
his duty. Let the insolent boy have a few weeks more of suspense; what
did it matter? When the real trial came he would condescend to give
evidence in his favour (_subpoenas_ did not at that moment occur to his
mind), and would explain to the judge why he had chosen to delay his
evidence. Then every one would see with what vigour he could administer
his estate; and perhaps he would, to please Cheriton, then of his own
free will confer some benefit on the Flemings which would make
everything smooth.
Of course Alvar was not so foolish as his intentions, but all his past
negligence had resulted in an amount of present ignorance of his
surroundings which made such a scheme appear possible to him. It did
strike him that Cheriton might take the matter into his own hands, and
go to Hazelby himself; but so great a point had been made of his own
going that he hardly knew how far this would supersede the need for it,
and he did not mean to provoke a discussion.
Circumstances favoured him; Jack was going to dine and sleep at Ashrigg,
he himself had another dinner engagement, and on the next day he had
really promised to go early and shoot with Lord Milford. Cheriton had
forgotten all about this, and, anxious not to irritate Alvar, said
nothing about the magistrates' meeting during the short time they were
together.