TOM BARLEY HAS A SCENE WITH THE MISER.
Meanwhile Miser Farebrother and Tom Barley were "having it out"
upstairs in the miser's room. Jeremiah Pamflett had put a very strong
case before Miser Farebrother. He said that every time he came down to
Parksides, Tom Barley laid wait for him and threatened to take his
life.
"It's no fault of mine," said Jeremiah, "that I'm not as strong as that
hulking vagabond, who makes any amount of money by robbing you. If you
like to be robbed, I've nothing to say to it. Nobody loses anything but
yourself. But I can't be coming regularly down here in fear of my life.
You couldn't expect me to."
In short, Jeremiah indirectly gave Miser Farebrother to understand that
if he retained Tom Barley in his employ he would have to come more
often to London to look through the books and papers; and that he,
Jeremiah Pamflett, would have to come less often to Parksides. Jeremiah
was cunning enough to know that he was on safe ground in making this
declaration. He had felt his way before he had arrived at it, and the
miser was furious. It was impossible for him to go more often to
London; there was no one he could trust but Jeremiah, and, in the light
of a possible rupture, he placed an exaggerated value upon his clerk's
services.
"He drew a knife upon me," said Jeremiah, "as I was coming here,
because he saw me escorting Miss Farebrother home. She was in the
village making purchases, and I thought it my duty to protect her."
"Quite right, quite right," said Miser Farebrother. "She ought to be
much obliged to you."
"She was," said Jeremiah.
"Making purchases, eh?" exclaimed Miser Farebrother. "What was she
purchasing--eh? You don't know? What's that you say? Oh, Tom Barley!
I'll soon settle with him. They all rob me--everybody, everybody! You
are the only one I can trust--the only one, the only one!"
"There's nothing I wouldn't do for you," said Jeremiah, fervently. "I'd
work my fingers off----"
"There, there!" said Miser Farebrother, fretfully. "Don't make
protestations. I hate them. It is your interest to do your duty. I pay
you well for it."
"You do; and I am grateful," said Jeremiah, feeling in his heart as if
he would like to strangle his master. "But you don't care for that sort
of thing, and I'll not say anything more."
"No; don't, don't!" groaned the miser. "Go; and send Tom Barley up to
me."
Jeremiah nodded, and went out of the room. Miser Farebrother's eyes
followed him; and when the door was closed, he groaned:
"He's as bad as the rest, I believe; but I've not been able to find him
out. Is he cunninger and cleverer than I am? Curse my bones! Why can't
I buy a new set? There isn't an honest man in the whole world. If
Phoebe had been a boy instead of a girl, I might have had a little
peace of mind; but as it is, I'm robbed right and left--right and left!
Who's that at the door? Come in, can't you? Oh, it's you, Tom Barley?"
"Yes, it's me," said Tom. "What do you want of me?"
"Speak respectfully," screamed the miser.
"I am, though I've got no particular call to," said Tom. Truth to tell
he was not in an amiable temper, what with his hunger, and his rags,
and his meeting with Jeremiah. "You sent for me. What do you want? And
mind this--I don't stir hand or foot till I get something to eat."
Miser Farebrother became suddenly quite cool. It was generally the case
when an antagonist he had in his power was before him.
"Something to eat, eh? You scoundrel! you have the stomach of an
ostrich."
"I wish I had," said Tom; "then I could fill it with stones and rusty
nails. As it is, I can't get those things down. I give you warning----"
"What!" cried Miser Farebrother; "you give me warning?"
"Yes; not to call hard names, or mayhap I'll throw them back at you."
"Do you dare to speak to me in that manner," said the miser, "after all
I've done for you?"
Tom Barley looked ruefully at his rags of clothes, and said, with
unconscious humour, "Yes, you have done for me; there's no mistake
about that. I remember you promised to make my fortune. I look as if it
was made!"
"And whose fault is it," said Miser Farebrother, "that you're a
pauper--whose fault but your own? That is, if what you say is true. But
it isn't. You've got money rolled up in bundles somewhere--my money,
that you've robbed me of."
Tom Barley burst out laughing. "Who has told you that cock-and-bull?"
he asked. "I'd like to give him half to prove it. I'm thinking of
buying Buckingham Palace, I am. I've got money enough to pay for it
rolled up in bundles."
"Hold your tongue," said the miser, "and listen to me."
"Go ahead," said Tom Barley.
"When I first took you into my service," the miser commenced--
"At twopence a week," interposed Tom. "The Bank of England's breaking
down with my savings."
"It was my intention to make a man of you," continued the miser; and
again Tom Barley interrupted him.
"The Lord Almighty did that while you was thinking of it."
"But," proceeded the miser, "I soon found out that I had taken a
hopeless case in hand; I soon discovered that a clodhopper you were and
a clodhopper you would remain, till you took your place in the
workhouse as a regular. Then I lost interest in you, and let you go
your way."
"In a minute or two," said Tom Barley, "I've got a couple of words to
say to you that I don't go out of this room without saying."
"I allowed you to remain on my estate, and gave you your meals, and
paid you so much a week."
"Why not say so little, instead of so much?" asked Tom, who, driven by
necessity and despair, was coming out in a new light.
"The work you did I could have had done for a song----"
"The Lord forbid," said Tom, "that I should have heard you sing it! It
would have given me the gripes. I've got 'em now."
"But I kept you on out of charity, and I told you that you were at
liberty to earn money elsewhere whenever you could pick up an odd job."
"My experience is," he said, "that there's about five million evens to
one odd."
"The result of my kindness and liberality is that you are as you are,
an idle, skulking, thieving vagabond."
"Have you done?" asked Tom.
"Not yet. I have had a serious complaint made against you, and I intend
to take notice of it in a practical way. You have threatened the life
of my clerk, Mr. Jeremiah Pamflett, a most estimable young man, in whom
I place implicit confidence. You lie in ambush for him, and he goes in
terror of you."
"That's the best thing I've heard yet," said Tom Barley, rubbing his
hands gleefully.
"Such a state of things is no longer to be endured, and I shall put an
end to it. Tom Barley, I discharge you from my service."
"Is that all?"
"That is all. I wash my hands of you. As to your conduct toward my
clerk, I warn you to be very careful. A watch will be set upon you, and
if you repeat your threats you will have to put up with the
consequences."
"I'll do that; it's a matter between this Jeremiah of yours and me. As
to threatening his life, that I've never done. A long while ago I got
him thrashed--I didn't do it myself; I was too big--for insulting your
daughter, and if ever he insults her again, and I get to know it, he'll
be thrashed again. As to being turned from your service, I'll put up
with it. Whatever I do I can't be worse off than I am. But you said
something else. You said I've got money rolled up in bundles somewhere,
and that I've robbed you of it. Now out with it like a man; you did say
it!"
"Yes, I did," snarled Miser Farebrother.
"What I've got to say to that is, that you're a liar! I ain't given to
hard words, but when I'm drove to it I use 'em; and my answer to your
charge is, you're a liar! Straight from the shoulder, master: you're a
liar!"
Upon that Tom marched out of the room, with erect head and angry eye;
but when he got half-way down the staircase his look softened and his
head drooped, for Phoebe stood before him. While he was in the presence
of Miser Farebrother, asserting his manhood, he had not thought of her.
She had heard the angry voices of her father and Tom, and she had
waited to learn the cause. She beckoned Tom to follow her, and they
were presently in the little room which she could call her own.
"Oh, Tom," she said, "what is it?"
"Well, miss," he replied, "I hardly like to say, but you'd get to know
it if I didn't tell you. Your father and me's had a difference, all
along of that clerk of his, Jeremiah, Mrs. Pamflett's white-livered
son. He's been telling your father stories about me which ain't true.
Don't believe 'em when you hear 'em--don't!"
"I won't, Tom."
"Thank you, miss. I'm going to leave Parksides, miss."
"Oh, Tom!"
"Your father's discharged me. If he hadn't, I don't know what I should
have done, because--look at me, miss--I ain't fit to be seen."
"Oh, Tom, I am so sorry! How I shall miss you!"
"I feel that bad over it, because of you, that I can't express. But it
ain't my fault."
"I am sure it is not, Tom. Have you thought what you shall do?"
"Well, miss, I'm going to London, to be a policeman, if they'll take me
on. It ain't my idea: it's somebody else's. And perhaps if I get to be
a policeman, I'll be put on somewhere near Camden Town. I don't ask for
anything better, miss; for then I shall be near where you will be
sometimes, and I can look after you. Don't speak to me, miss, don't
look at me, for I feel like breaking down. Good-bye, Miss Phoebe,
good-bye, and God bless you!"
And, choking with tears, the honest fellow rushed away.