Randal Leslie, on leaving Audley, repaired to Frank's lodgings, and after
being closeted with the young guardsman an hour or so, took his way to
Limmer's hotel, and asked for Mr. Hazeldean. He was shown into the
coffee-room, while the waiter went up stairs with his card, to see if the
Squire was within, and disengaged. The _Times_ newspaper lay sprawling on
one of the tables, and Randal, leaning over it, looked with attention into
the column containing births, deaths, and marriages. But in that long and
miscellaneous list, he could not conjecture the name which had so excited
Mr. Egerton's interest.
"Vexatious!" he muttered; "there is no knowledge which has power more
useful than that of the secrets of men."
He turned as the waiter entered, and said that Mr. Hazeldean would be glad
to see him.
As Randal entered the drawing-room, the Squire shaking hands with him,
looked towards the door as if expecting some one else, and his honest face
assumed a blank expression of disappointment when the door closed, and he
found that Randal was unaccompanied.
"Well," said he bluntly, "I thought your old school-fellow, Frank, might
have been with you."
"Have not you seen him yet, sir?"
"No, I came to town this morning; travelled outside the mail; sent to his
barracks, but the young gentleman does not sleep there--has an apartment of
his own; he never told me that. We are a plain family, the
Hazeldeans--young sir; and I hate being kept in the dark, by my own son
too."
Randal made no answer, but looked sorrowful. The Squire, who had never
before seen his kinsman, had a vague idea that it was not quite polite to
entertain a stranger, though a connection to himself, with his family
troubles, and so resumed good-naturedly:
"I am very glad to make your acquaintance at last, Mr. Leslie. You know, I
hope, that you have good Hazeldean blood in your veins?"
_Randal_, (smilingly).--"I am not likely to forget that; it is the boast of
our pedigree."
_Squire_, (heartily.)--"Shake hands again on it, my boy. You don't want a
friend, since my grandee of a half-brother has taken you up; but if ever
you should, Hazeldean is not very far from Rood. Can't get on with your
father at all, my lad--more's the pity, for I think I could have given him
a hint or two as to the improvement of his property. If he would plant
those ugly commons--larch and fir soon come into profit, sir; and there are
some low lands about Rood that would take mighty kindly to draining."
_Randal._--"My poor father lives a life so retired, and you cannot wonder
at it. Fallen trees lie still, and so do fallen families."
_Squire._--"Fallen families can get up again, which fallen trees can't."
_Randal._--"Ah, sir, it often takes the energy of generations to repair
the thriftlessness and extravagance of a single owner."
_Squire_, (his brow lowering.)--"That's very true. Frank _is_ d----d
extravagant; treats me very coolly, too--not coming; near three o'clock. By
the by, I suppose he told you where I was, otherwise how did you find me
out!"
_Randal_, (reluctantly.)--"Sir, he did; and, to speak frankly, I am not
surprised that he has not yet appeared."
_Squire._--"Eh?"
_Randal._--"We have grown very intimate."
_Squire._--"So he writes me word--and I am glad of it. Our member, Sir
John, tells me you are a very clever fellow, and a very steady one. And
Frank says that he wishes he had your prudence, if he can't have your
talents. He has a good heart, Frank," added the father, relentingly. "But,
zounds, sir, you say you are not surprised he has not come to welcome his
own father?"
"My dear sir," said Randal, "you wrote word to Frank that you had heard
from Sir John and others, of his goings-on, and that you were not satisfied
with his replies to your letters."
"Well."
"And then you suddenly come up to town."
"Well."
"Well. And Frank is ashamed to meet you. For, as you say, he has been
extravagant, and he has exceeded his allowance; and, knowing my respect for
you, and my great affection for himself, he has asked me to prepare you to
receive his confession and forgive him. I know I am taking a great liberty.
I have no right to interfere between father and son; but pray--pray think I
mean for the best."
"Humph!" said the Squire, recovering himself very slowly, and showing
evident pain. "I knew already that Frank had spent more than he ought; but
I think he should not have employed a third person to prepare me to forgive
him. (Excuse me--no offence.) And if he wanted a third person, was not
there his own mother? What the devil!--(firing up)--am I a tyrant--a
bashaw--that my own son is afraid to speak to me? Gad, I'll give it him?"
"Pardon me, sir," said Randal, assuming at once that air of authority which
superior intellect so well carries off and excuses. "But I strongly advise
you not to express any anger at Frank's confidence in me. At present I have
influence over him. Whatever you may think of his extravagance, I have
saved him from many an indiscretion, and many a debt--a young man will
listen to one of his own age so much more readily than even to the kindest
friend of graver years. Indeed, sir, I speak for your sake as well as for
Frank's. Let me keep this influence over him; and don't reproach him for
the confidence he placed in me. Nay, let him rather think that I have
softened any displeasure you might otherwise have felt."
There seemed so much good sense in what Randal said, and the kindness of it
seemed so disinterested, that the Squire's native shrewdness was deceived.
"You are a fine young fellow," said he, "and I am very much obliged to you.
Well, I suppose there is no putting old heads upon young shoulders; and I
promise you I'll not say an angry word to Frank. I dare say, poor boy, he
is very much afflicted, and I long to shake hands with him. So, set his
mind at ease."
"Ah, sir," said Randal, with much apparent emotion, "your son may well love
you; and it seems to be a hard matter for so kind a heart as yours to
preserve the proper firmness with him."
"Oh, I can be firm enough," quoth the squire--"especially when I don't see
him--handsome dog that he is--very like his mother--don't you think so?"
"I never saw his mother, sir."
"Gad! Not seen my Harry! No more you have; you must come and pay us a
visit. We have your grandmother's picture, when she was a girl, with a
crook in one hand and a bunch of lilies in the other. I suppose my
half-brother will let you come?"
"To be sure, sir. Will you not call on him while you are in town?
"Not I. He would think I expected to get something from the Government.
Tell him the ministers must go on a little better, if they want my vote for
their member. But go. I see you are impatient to tell Frank that all's
forgot and forgiven. Come and dine with him here at six, and let him bring
his bills in his pocket. Oh, I shan't scold him."
"Why, as to that," said Randal, smiling, "I think (forgive me still) that
you should not take it too easily; just as I think that you had better not
blame him for his very natural and praiseworthy shame in approaching you,
so I think, also, that you should do nothing that would tend to diminish
that shame--it is such a check on him. And therefore, if you can contrive
to affect to be angry with him for his extravagance, it will do good."
"You speak like a book, and I'll try my best."
"If you threaten, for instance, to take him out of the army, and settle him
in the country, it would have a very good effect."
"What! would he think it so great a punishment to come home and live with
his parents?"
"I don't say that; but he is naturally so fond of London. At his age, and
with his large inheritance, _that_ is natural."
"Inheritance!" said the Squire, moodily--"inheritance! he is not thinking
of that, I trust? Zounds, sir, I have as good a life as his own.
Inheritance!--to be sure the Casino property is entailed on him; but, as
for the rest, sir, I am no tenant for life. I could leave the Hazeldean
lands to my ploughman, if I chose it. Inheritance, indeed!"
"My dear sir, I did not mean to imply that Frank would entertain the
unnatural and monstrous idea of calculating on your death; and all we have
to do is to get him to sow his wild oats as soon as possible--marry, and
settle down into the country. For it would be a thousand pities if his town
habits and tastes grew permanent--a bad thing for the Hazeldean property,
that. And," added Randal, laughing, "I feel an interest in the old place,
since my grandmother comes of the stock. So, just force yourself to seem
angry, and grumble a little when you pay the bills."
"Ah, ah, trust me," said the Squire, doggedly and with a very altered air,
"I am much obliged to you for these hints, my young kinsman." And his stout
hand trembled a little as he extended it to Randal.
Leaving Limmer's, Randal hastened to Frank's rooms in St. James's Street.
"My dear fellow," said he, when he entered, "it is very fortunate that I
persuaded you to let me break matters to your father. You might well say he
was rather passionate; but I have contrived to soothe him. You need not
fear that he will not pay your debts."
"I never feared that," said Frank changing color; "I only fear his anger.
But, indeed, I feared his kindness still more. What a reckless hound I have
been! However, it shall be a lesson to me. And my debts once paid, I will
turn as economical as yourself."
"Quite right, Frank. And, indeed, I am a little afraid that when your
father knows the total, he may execute a threat that would be very
unpleasant to you."
"What's that?"
"Make you sell out, and give up London."
"The devil!" exclaimed Frank, with fervent emphasis; "that would be
treating me like a child."
"Why, it _would_ make you seem rather ridiculous to your set, which is not
a very rural one. And you, who like London so much, and are so much the
fashion."
"Don't talk of it," cried Frank, walking to and fro the room in great
disorder.
"Perhaps on the whole, it might be well not to say all you owe, at once. If
you named half the sum, your father would let you off with a lecture; and
really I tremble at the effect of the total."
"But how shall I pay the other half?"
"Oh, you must save from your allowance; it is a very liberal one; and the
tradesmen are not pressing."
"No--but the cursed bill-brokers"--
"Always renew to a young man of your expectations. And if I get into an
office, I can always help you, my dear Frank."
"Ah, Randal, I am not so bad as to take advantage of your friendship," said
Frank warmly. "But it seems to me mean, after all, and a sort of a lie,
indeed, disguising the real state of my affairs. I should not have listened
to the idea from any one else. But you are such a sensible, kind, honorable
fellow."
"After epithets so flattering, I shrink from the responsibility of advice.
But apart from your own interests, I should be glad to save your father the
pain he would feel at knowing the whole extent of the scrape you have got
into. And if it entailed on you the necessity to lay by--and give up
hazard, and not be security for other men--why it would be the best thing
that could happen. Really, too, it seems hard on Mr. Hazeldean, that he
should be the only sufferer, and quite just that you should bear half your
own burdens."
"So it is, Randal; that did not strike me before. I will take your counsel;
and now I will go at once to Limmer's. My dear father! I hope he is looking
well?"
"Oh, very. Such a contrast to the sallow Londoners! But I think you had
better not go till dinner. He has asked me to meet you at six. I will call
for you a little before, and we can go together. This will prevent a great
deal of _gene_ and constraint. Good-bye till then.--Ha!--by the way, I
think if I were you, I would not take the matter too seriously and
penitentially. You see the best of fathers like to keep their sons under
their thumb, as the saying is. And if you want at your age to preserve your
independence, and not be hurried off and buried in the country, like a
school-boy in disgrace, a little manliness of bearing would not be amiss.
You can think over it."
The dinner at Limmer's went off very differently from what it ought to have
done. Randal's words had sunk deep, and rankled sorely in the Squire's
mind; and that impression imparted a certain coldness to his manner which
belied the hearty, forgiving, generous impulse with which he had come up to
London, and which even Randal had not yet altogether whispered away. On the
other hand, Frank, embarrassed both by the sense of disingenuousness, and a
desire "not to take the thing too seriously," seemed to the Squire
ungracious and thankless.
After dinner, the Squire began to hum and haw, and Frank to color up and
shrink. Both felt discomposed by the presence of a third person; till, with
an art and address worthy of a better cause, Randal himself broke the ice,
and so contrived to remove the restraint he had before imposed, that at
length each was heartily glad to have matters made clear and brief by his
dexterity and tact.
Frank's debts were not in reality, large; and when he named the half of
them--looking down in shame--the Squire, agreeably surprised, was about to
express himself with a liberal heartiness that would have opened his son's
excellent heart at once to him. But a warning look from Randal checked the
impulse; and the Squire thought it right, as he had promised, to affect an
anger he did not feel, and let fall the unlucky threat, "that it was all
very well once in a way to exceed his allowance; but if Frank did not, in
future, show more sense than to be led away by a set of London sharks and
coxcombs, he must cut the army, come home, and take to farming."
Frank imprudently exclaimed, "Oh, sir, I have no taste for farming. And
after London, at my age, the country would be so horribly dull."
"Aha!" said the Squire, very grimly--and he thrust back into his
pocket-book some extra bank-notes which his fingers had itched to add to
those he had already counted out. "The country is terribly dull, is it?
Money goes there not upon follies and vices, but upon employing honest
laborers, and increasing the wealth of the nation. It does not please you
to spend money in that way: it is a pity you should ever be plagued with
such duties."
"My dear father--"
"Hold your tongue, you puppy. Oh, I dare say, if you were in my shoes, you
would cut down the oaks, and mortgage the property--sell it, for what I
know--all go on a cast of the dice! Aha, sir--very well, very well--the
country is horribly dull, is it? Pray, stay in town."
"My dear Mr. Hazeldean," said Randal, blandly, and as if with the wish to
turn off into a joke what threatened to be serious, "you must not interpret
a hasty expression so literally. Why, you would make Frank as bad as Lord
A----, who wrote word to his steward to cut down more timber; and when the
steward replied, 'There are only three signposts left on the whole estate,'
wrote back, '_They've_ done growing, at all events--'down with them.' You
ought to know Lord A----, sir; so witty; and Frank's particular friend."
"Your particular friend, Master Frank? Pretty friends!"--and the Squire
buttoned up the pocket, to which he had transferred his note-book, with a
determined air.
"But I'm his friend, too," said Randal, kindly; "and I preach to him
properly, I can tell you." Then, as if delicately anxious to change the
subject, he began to ask questions upon crops, and the experiment of bone
manure. He spoke earnestly, and with _gusto_, yet with the deference of one
listening to a great practical authority. Randal had spent the afternoon in
cramming the subject from agricultural journals and Parliamentary reports;
and, like all practised readers, had really learned in a few hours more
than many a man, unaccustomed to study, could gain from books in a year.
The Squire was surprised and pleased at the young scholar's information and
taste for such subjects.
"But, to be sure," quoth he, with an angry look at poor Frank, "you have
good Hazeldean blood in you, and know a bean from a turnip."
"Why, sir," said Randal, ingenuously, "I am training myself for public
life; and what is a public man worth if he do not study the agriculture of
his country?"
"Right--what is he worth? Put that question, with my compliments, to my
half-brother. What stuff he did talk, the other night, on the malt tax, to
be sure!"
"Mr. Egerton has had so many other things to think of, that we must excuse
his want of information upon one topic, however important. With his strong
sense, he must acquire that information, sooner or later; for he is fond of
power; and, sir,--knowledge is power!"
"Very true;--very fine saying," quoth the poor Squire, unsuspiciously, as
Randal's eye rested upon Mr. Hazeldean's open face, and then glanced
towards Frank, who looked sad and bored.
"Yes," repeated Randal, "knowledge is power;" and he shook his head wisely,
as he passed the bottle to his host.
Still, when the Squire, who meant to return to the Hall next morning, took
leave of Frank, his heart warmed to his son; and still more for Frank's
dejected looks. It was not Randal's policy to push estrangement too far at
first, and in his own presence.
"Speak to poor Frank--kindly now, sir--do;" whispered he, observing the
Squire's watery eyes, as he moved to the window.
The Squire rejoiced to obey--thrust out his hand to his son--"My dear boy,"
said he, "there, don't fret--pshaw!--it was but a trifle after all. Think
no more of it."
Frank took the hand, and suddenly threw his arm round his father's broad
shoulder.
"Oh, sir, you are too good--too good." His voice trembled so, that Randal
took alarm, passed by him, and touched him meaningly.
The Squire pressed his son to his heart--heart so large, that it seemed to
fill the whole width under his broadcloth.
"My dear Frank," said he, half blubbering, "it is not the money; but, you
see, it so vexes your poor mother; you must be careful in future; and,
zounds, boy, it will be all yours one day; only don't calculate on it; I
could not bear _that_--I could not, indeed."
"Calculate!" cried Frank. "Oh, sir, can you think it!"
"I am so delighted that I had some slight hand in your complete
reconciliation with Mr. Hazeldean," said Randal, as the young men walked
from the hotel. "I saw that you were disheartened, and I told him to speak
to you kindly."
"Did you? Ah, I am sorry he needed telling."
"I know his character so well already," said Randal, "that I flatter myself
I can always keep things between you as they ought to be. What an excellent
man!"
"The best man in the world!" cried Frank, heartily; and then as his accent
drooped, "yet I have deceived him. I have a great mind to go back--"
"And tell him to give you twice as much money as you had asked for. He
would think you had only seemed so affectionate in order to take him in.
No, no, Frank; save--lay by--economize; and then tell him that you have
paid half your own debts. Something high-minded in that."
"So there is. Your heart is as good as your head. Good night."
"Are you going home so early? Have you no engagements?"
"None that I shall keep."
"Good night, then."
They parted, and Randal walked into one of the fashionable clubs. He neared
a table, where three or four young men (younger sons, who lived in the most
splendid style, heaven knew how) were still over their wine.
Leslie had little in common with these gentlemen; but he forced his nature
to be agreeable to them, in consequence of a very excellent piece of
worldly advice given to him by Audley Egerton. "Never let the dandies call
you a prig," said the statesman. "Many a clever fellow fails through life,
because the silly fellows, whom half a word well spoken could make his
_claqueurs_, turn him into ridicule. Whatever you are, avoid the fault of
most reading men: in a word, don't be a prig!"
"I have just left Hazeldean," said Randal--"what a good fellow he is!"
"Capital," said the honorable George Borrowwell. "Where is he?"
"Why, he is gone to his rooms. He has had a little scene with his father, a
thorough, rough country squire. It would be an act of charity if you would
go and keep him company, or take him with you to some place a little more
lively than his own lodgings."
"What! the old gentleman has been teasing him?--a horrid shame! Why, Frank
is not expensive, and he will be very rich--eh?"
"An immense property," said Randal, "and not a mortgage on it; an only
son," he added, turning away.
Among these young gentlemen there was a kindly and most benevolent whisper,
and presently they all rose, and walked away towards Frank's lodgings.
"The wedge is in the tree," said Randal to himself, "and there is a gap
already between the bark and the wood."