THE FINAL MANDATE OF MAJOR BILLCORD.
Major Billcord was a short, puffy man, inclined to corpulency. The blow
of the son of toil, and his fall upon the sand, proved to be enough for
him. He was all foam and fury in consequence of his signal defeat.
Possibly he had thought that a poor dependent upon his bounty would not
dare to strike him; and, in truth, Paul felt that it was something like
treading upon the Bible.
He had attempted to take the stalwart youth by the collar, and had
struck him with his riding-whip in a tender place. The pain was nothing,
but the indignity was great; and Paul's impulse had led him farther than
he would have gone if he had considered what he was doing.
The major and his son picked themselves up, and for a moment they gazed
with something like wonder upon the victor in the unequal contest. But
all three of them had been beside themselves for the moment. Paul
realized what he had done; and so did his mother and sister, for they
came out of the cottage while father and son were getting up from the
ground.
"Woman, do you see what your son has done?" demanded Major Billcord, who
was the first to break the impressive silence.
"I am very sorry, sir," pleaded the poor woman, stepping between Paul
and his victims, in order to prevent him from doing them any further
mischief if he should be disposed to renew the combat.
"Sorry for it!" exclaimed the magnate, as if simple regret could atone
for a blow given by a plebeian to a patrician. "Is this the way you
bring up your son?"
"I am very sorry, Major Billcord, but he has been greatly provoked. By
your leave, sir, it was Mr. Walker that began it."
"It is false, marm! Your brute of a son struck the first blow; he has
confessed it to me," puffed the magnate.
"But Mr. Walker had first insulted my daughter; he had seized hold of
her, and was trying to force her into the boat when Paul interfered,"
Mrs. Bristol explained with as much meekness as the subject would
permit.
"Nonsense, woman! Seized hold of your daughter! Don't talk such stuff
to me. Walker did not mean to do her any harm," added Major Billcord
with the utmost contempt.
"I only asked her to let me row her about the bay in the boat," the
young gentleman explained.
"It was impertinent in her to refuse when my son honored her with his
notice," continued the major.
"I thought she had a right to choose her own company," said Mrs. Bristol
with proper humility.
"I have allowed you to live on my land for two years without a penny of
rent, woman; and this is the return I get for it," replied the great
man, in whose heart the poor woman's ingratitude was beginning to make
havoc.
"You have been very kind to us, Major Billcord, and we are very grateful
for all you have done for us. I am so sorry that this sad thing has
happened!" pleaded Mrs. Bristol.
"And still you try to fasten the blame on my son," retorted the
proprietor of Sandy Point and its surroundings.
"I am very sorry he meddled with Lily; if he hadn't done it, there would
have been no trouble, for Paul has always treated Mr. Walker with
respect."
"At it again!" exclaimed the major. "You will insist that my son was to
blame, simply because he was polite enough to invite your daughter to
take a row with him in the boat."
"She was not willing to go; and I didn't know that she was obliged to go
out on the lake with him. She declined his invitation, and Mr. Walker
tried to force her into the boat."
"It was not civil in her to decline the invitation, and I don't wonder
that Walker was a little vexed at her refusal. She is a pert minx, marm,
and has not been well brought up, or she would have known better than to
decline," added the magnate, bestowing a look of severity upon the fair
maiden.
Mrs. Bristol and Paul saw that it was useless to attempt to reason with
such a man, and they were silent. The major took out his handkerchief,
and wiped the perspiration from his face. Then he felt of his nose and
the region about his two eyes, between which the son of toil had planted
his hard fist. Doubtless there was a soreness in those parts, and
perhaps the visual organs of the father would be clothed in sable
wreaths by the next day.
"That boy must be punished, severely punished, for what he has done,"
the major resumed. "He has had the audacity to strike me in the
face,--me, the benefactor of the whole family!"
"Didn't you catch me by the throat, and hit me with your riding-whip,
sir?" asked Paul calmly and meekly.
"What if I did! Do you mean to put yourself on a level with me, you
young reprobate?" demanded the magnate, his wrath beginning to boil
again. "Woman, I say that boy must be severely punished for this," he
continued, turning to Mrs. Bristol again. "He must be whipped till he
can't stand up!"
"Who will whip him, sir?" asked the poor woman innocently.
"I will do it, if you don't, marm," replied the major savagely.
"I could not whip him, sir; he is a great deal stronger than I am; and,
if he is whipped at all, you must do it, sir;" but Mrs. Bristol seemed
to think there was something a little satirical in what she said.
"Then I will do it!" said the magnate, raising his riding-whip.
"Perhaps he will not allow you to whip him, sir," suggested Mrs.
Bristol; and even her anger appeared to be approaching the
boiling-point.
"The boy deserves to be severely punished. If he submits to the
whipping which Walker and I will give him, we may be willing to let the
matter drop where it is."
"You had better arrange it with Paul, sir. I should as soon think of
whipping Colonel Buckmill as my son," replied the poor woman with a
decided touch of satire in her tones and manner.
"If the young villain submits, very well."
"If you should begin to punish him, I have no doubt he will speak or act
for himself," she added.
"Bristol, you hear what has been said. Will you submit to the punishment
you deserve?" demanded the major severely, turning to the culprit.
"No, sir, I will not."
"Do you hear him, marm?"
"I do, sir; and he answers just as I supposed he would."
"Then you uphold him in his treacherous treatment of my son? Then you
countenance him in biting the hand that feeds him?"
Mrs. Bristol made no reply, for she did not wish to irritate the
powerful man unnecessarily. She looked at her son, and she was proud of
him.
"Bristol, you refuse to submit to the whipping you deserve?" demanded
Major Billcord, approaching the stout youth with the riding-whip
upraised.
"If you hit me with that whip, sir, I will knock you as far beyond the
middle of next week as I can," replied Paul firmly and quietly. "Your
son insulted my sister, and I treated him as he deserved, and just as I
would another time if he did the same thing. My sister is a poor girl,
but she is just as good as you are, and just as good as Mr. Walker is.
If she is insulted, sir, I will stand up against five hundred Billcords
as long as there is anything left of me."
"Is this your gratitude for what I have done for the family?" asked the
major, knitting his brow into a knot of wrinkles.
"Yes, sir; this is my gratitude. Do you think, because you allowed my
father to put his cottage on your land, that you and your son have the
right to insult my sister?" demanded Paul with considerable energy.
"No one insulted her, you young reprobate!" interposed the father. "Is a
civil and gentlemanly invitation an insult?"
"If he had stopped there, we should have had no trouble."
"But she refused the invitation."
"She had as much right to decline it as any lady in Westport would
have."
"Was it treating a member of my family properly, after all I have done
for you?" demanded the major more calmly, but with a terrible havoc in
his tender feelings.
"You have had a good deal to say about what you have done for us, Major
Billcord. The land on which that cottage stands," continued Paul,
pointing to it, "is not worth ten dollars. At ten per cent, the ground
rent would be one dollar a year, or two dollars for the two years it has
stood there. I have done work enough for you in the shape of errands,
taking care of your boat, and in other ways, to pay for the land twice
over. I have carried the first black bass of the season to your house,
when I could have sold the fish for a dollar apiece, for two years. As I
look at the question of gratitude, there is a balance of at least twenty
dollars in my favor; but I give it to you with all my heart, and I don't
claim the privilege of insulting your daughter for what I have done."
"You are a glib-talking puppy, and there is no more reason or common
sense in you than there is in a heifer calf. I have had enough of you,
and so has my son," responded the major, choking with wrath over the
unanswerable argument of the poor dependent.
"If you have had enough of me, you and Mr. Walker, I am satisfied to let
the matter drop where it is; but if Mr. Walker, or any other student of
the Chesterfield Collegiate Institute, insults my sister, I shall hit
him as hard as I can," replied Paul coolly.
"Woman, you have heard the insulting words of your son, and you uphold
him in his wickedness. I must take the next step. I will not have such a
vile reprobate on my land. I will not have you or your ungrateful
daughter on my territory. You are a tenant at will. That cottage must
not remain another day on my premises. Remove it at once. If it is here
at three o'clock to-morrow afternoon, I will give the students
permission to tumble it into the lake. Do you hear me, woman?" stormed
the major fiercely.
"I hear you, sir," replied Mrs. Bristol, covering her face with her
handkerchief, and beginning to weep bitterly.
"You needn't cry about it, marm. You and that graceless son of yours
have brought it on yourselves; and I think the students will enjoy the
fun of pitching the shanty into the lake."
"It is all the property I have in the world, Major Billcord," pleaded
the poor woman. "Give me a little time to remove the cottage, I implore
you!"
"Don't implore me, marm! Thank your wretch of a son for it. By three
o'clock to-morrow afternoon, if you haven't removed it in the mean time,
the shanty shall be rolled into the lake."
"I cannot get it through the woods to remove it," groaned Mrs. Bristol.
"That's your lookout, marm," said the major as he and Walk departed.
Mrs. Bristol seated herself on the lower step of the cottage, and
continued to weep bitterly.