_Colin seeks an interview with Squire Lupton. An unexpected adventure
takes place, which raises him to the station of a hero, and promises
great things to come._
When Colin arrived at Kiddal Hall, Mr. Lupton was quietly reposing
himself on a small couch placed near the widely-opened window of his
drawing-room, and inhaling the fragrance of the great “wicked weed” from
a long Turkish pipe, whose voluminous folds lay like a sleeping serpent
on the ground beside him. At some distance from him, close to the door,
and unperceived by the squire, stood an individual of short stature,
dressed in a coat that reached nearly to his knees; inexpressibles that
descended to the same point, blue worsted stockings, and laced-up boots.
His hat was placed upon its crown on the floor beside him, as though the
owner, in so disposing of it, meditated a stay of some duration.
“Is that Mr. Lupton?” demanded a gruff voice.
“Who the d----l is that?” exclaimed the squire, puffing the smoke away
from his mouth, and looking eagerly in the direction whence the voice
proceeded.
“Nay--nay, now!” was the reply he received, “it signifies nothing to you
who _I_ am, for if a man gets justice done him for his crimes, what can
it matter to him whose hand does it?”
“How did you come in here, fellow?” again asked the squire.
“Never mind asking me how I got here,” replied the little old man; “that
is my business and not yours. I _am_ here, and that is enough.”
“But, what are you?--who are you?--for what purpose have you come here?”
“Well--well! if you ask me what I am, I can tell you; I am _a father_.
And, if I were to tell you what you are, sir, I should say you are an
unprincipled man, and unworthy of your station: a man that, because he
has power in his hands, can insult poverty, and betray it to ruin, under
the pretence of doing it a service. Does your recollection extend as far
back as sixteen or eighteen years ago?”
Instead of answering this question, Mr. Lup-ton laid aside his pipe,
rose from his seat, and advanced towards the little man in the middle
of the room, extending his hand in an authoritative manner. “Come, come,
fellow! go away. Save me the trouble of putting you out.”
“_You_ put _me_ out, sir!” tauntingly replied his strange visiter; “it
is more than you dare undertake to do if all your servants were about
you; and, as it is, remember there is not one. Keep your hands off me,
or I shall make you repent it. You have touched too much of my blood
already; and now I have called for some of yours. Look to yourself.
I 'll be fair with you.”
As he thus spoke he drew something from the pocket of his long coat,
which Mr. Lupton thought, from the slight glance he caught of it in
the twilight, to be a pistol. The sight nerved him to desperation, and
suddenly he sprung forwards to strike or seize the man before him.
But the latter was too expert; he slipped aside, and Mr. Lupton fell
forwards with the impetus of his motion, almost to the ground. The
cocking of the pistol and the opening of the room-door were heard at the
same instant. Flash went the deadly powder, slightly illuminating the
apartment, and showing a _third_ party standing against the old man in
the long coat, who had struck the pistol aside with his hand, and thus
diverted what otherwise would have proved a deadly aim. That third
person was Colin. He had reached the hall a minute or two before; and
one of the servants who knew him, had conducted him up-stairs, under
the belief that the squire was alone,--for the old man had obtained
admittance secretly. While in the passage outside, however, they
overheard the latter part of the conversation just related, which
induced Colin to rush in, and thus was he instrumental in saving the
life of his own father--though unknown to himself--from the deadly
hand--equally unknown to him--of his own grandfather!
Jerry Clink had recently returned from New South Wales; and during all
the years of his banishment had kept
“The patient watch, the vigil long,
Of him who treasures up a wrong.”
No sooner did he find that the pistol had failed in its intended work,
and that Mr. Lupton, who was a powerful man, was again upon his legs,
than he dashed Colin furiously aside, and retreated towards the window.
The squire followed him, and was himself followed also by Colin and
the servant. They endeavoured to pin the old man in a corner, but their
first efforts did not succeed. He strove to rush between them, and to
escape at the door. Lights now glanced along the passage, and on the
staircase. Other servants were hurrying forwards, having been brought
up by the report of fire-arms. Escape that way was now impossible. What
could he do? There was the window--the only chance. Nobody so much as
dreamed that he would go out there, for it was twenty feet or more from
the ground. He approached it. The resolution and the action were one. In
an instant his body darkened the open space as he leaped through, and
he was gone! The spectators stood still some moments,--for into mere
spectators did this daring and desperate leap transform them all.
They then ran to the window. There lay a dark substance on the ground
beneath,--it moved,--it got up. They watched it; and, in the height of
their amazement, never thought of running out to seize it. Jerry looked
up and laughed with derision in their faces as he hastened off. Some
of them now ran down stairs in pursuit. It was deep twilight, and the
desperado was speedily out of sight. He had crossed the lawn, and got
into the woods. They followed with guns and staves, but Jerry Clink was
safe.
“And what young man is this?” asked Mr. Lupton, as he turned to gaze
at Colin, and by the lights which now shone in the apartment beheld
a noble, open countenance, and a pair of bold, dark eyes, whose look
brought a flush of heat up in the squire's face, and made him for
a moment dream that he gazed into a mirror, so much were they the
counterpart of his own. “Whoever you are,” pursued the squire, “I owe
you much for this brave interposition. I am indebted to you, young man,
perhaps for my life; certainly for sound bones and a whole skin. Sit
down--sit down a moment. But stop; this will do at present.” And he drew
out his purse containing nearly ten guineas, and tendered it to Colin,
“Take this, until I can do something better for you.”
“No, sir, thank you,” replied the youth. “I do not want money: and if I
did, I could not take it for only doing right. I came to speak to you,
sir, about something else, if you will allow me.”
“Not take it!” exclaimed Mr. Lupton, in astonishment,--“then you were
not born in Yorkshire, were you?”
“Yes, sir, I was,” answered he: “I was born and brought up in this
village, though you do not know me.”
“Indeed! Why, I do not remember to have remarked you before. Who are
you? What is your name?”
“Colin Clink, sir, is my name.”
The squire sat down and turned away his face, so that the lad could not
see it, as he asked, in an altered and somewhat tremulous voice, if Mrs.
Clink, that kept the shop, was his mother?
“Yes, sir,” replied Colin, “she is; but I never knew my father.”
Mr. Lupton was for some moments silent. He placed his elbow on the back
of his chair, and his open hand over his eyes, as if to screen them.
Something had touched his bosom suddenly; but the lad knew not what.
At length, and evidently with some effort, though without changing his
position in the least, Mr. Lupton said, “I cannot talk with you now,
young man: that fellow has ruffled me. Take that purse, and come again
some other time. I shall be from home nearly three weeks. Come again
this day three weeks, and I shall have something of importance to talk
to you about. Take particular notice, now, and be punctual. But what are
you doing? and where do you live?”
Colin satisfied him on both these particulars. The squire continued,
“Then come as I have appointed, and your situation shall be exchanged
for a better. I will make your fortune: but I cannot talk now. Come
again, my boy,--come again.”
Colin stood a few moments in silent suspense as to the course to
be pursued. The unexpected event which had taken place had entirely
defeated the purpose for which he had ventured to Kiddal Hall, while the
squire's language half confounded him. Should he speak again? He dared
not, except to express his thanks; retiring therefore from the room, he
left the squire's purse untouched upon the table.
Colin reached Whinmoor shortly before ten o'clock.
When Mr. Lupton arose from his reverie, and strode across the room,
his foot struck against the bullet that had been discharged from Jerry
Clink's pistol. He looked up to the wall; and, though the blow which
at the critical moment Colin had struck diverted it from himself, the
squire saw, with a strange sensation, for which he could not account,
that it had passed through the canvass, and near the bosom of his wife's
picture.