Chapter Six.

Chapter Six.Claud Wilton, aged twenty, with his thin pimply face, long narrow jaw, and closely-cropped hair, which was very suggestive of brain fever or imprisonment, stood leering at his father, his appearance in no wise supporting his mother’s high encomiums as he indulged in a feeble smile, one which he smoothed off directly with his thin right hand, which lingered about his lips to pat tenderly the remains of certain decapitated pimples which redly resented the passage over them that morning of an unnecessary razor, which laid no stubble low.The Vicar of the Parish had said one word to his lady re Claud Wilton—a very short but highly expressive word that he had learned at college. It was “cad,”—and anyone who had heard it repeated would not have ventured to protest against its suitability, for his face alone suggested it, though he did all he could to emphasise the idea by adopting a horsey, collary, cuffy style of dress, every article of which was unsuited to his physique.“Has Henry Dasent gone?”“Yes, guvnor, and precious glad to go. You were awfully cool to him, I must say. He said if it wasn’t for his aunt he’d never darken the doors again.”“And I hope he will not, sir. He is no credit to your mother.”“But I think he means well, my dear,” said Mrs Wilton, plaintively. “It is not his fault. My poor dear sister did spoil him so.”“Humph! And she was not alone. Look here, Claud, I will not have him here. I have reasons for it, and he, with his gambling and racing propensities, is no proper companion for you.”“P’raps old Garstang says the same about me,” said the young man, sulkily.“Claud, my dear, for shame,” said Mrs Wilton. “You should not say such things.”“I don’t care what John Garstang says; I will not have his boy here. Insolent, priggish, wanting in respect to me, and—and—he was a deal too attentive to Kate.”“Oh, my dear, did you think so?” cried Mrs Wilton.“Yes, madam, I did think so,” said her husband with asperity, “and, what was ten times worse, you were always leaving them together in your blundering way.”“Don’t say such things to me, dear, before Claud.”“Then don’t spend your time making mistakes. Just come, have you, sir?”“Oh, yes, father, just come,” said the young man, with an offensive grin.“You heard more than you said, sir,” said the Squire, “so we may as well have a few words at once.”“No, no, no, my dear; pray, pray don’t quarrel with Claud now; I’m sure he wants to do everything that is right.”“Be quiet, Maria,” cried the Squire, angrily.“All right, mother; I’m not going to quarrel,” said the son.“Of course not I only want Claud to understand his position. Look here, sir, you are at an age when a bo—, when a man doesn’t understand the value of money.”“Oh, I say, guv’nor! Come, I like that.”“It’s quite true, sir. You boys only look upon money as something to spend.”“Right you are, this time.”“But it means more, sir—power, position, the respect of your fellows—everything.”“Needn’t tell me, guv’nor; I think I know a thing or two about tin.”“Now, suppose we leave slang out of the matter and talk sensibly, sir, about a very important matter.”“Go on ahead then, dad; I’m listening.”“Sit down then, Claud.”“Rather stand, guv’nor; stand and grow good, ma.”“Yes, my dear, do then,” said Mrs Wilton, smiling at her son fondly. “But listen now to what papa says; it really is very important.”“All right, mother; but cut it short, father, my horse is waiting and I don’t want him to take cold.”“Of course not, my boy; always take care of your horse. I will be very brief and to the point, then. Look here, Claud, your cousin, Katherine—”“Oh! Ah, yes; I heard she was ill. What does the Doctor say?”“Never mind what the Doctor says. It is merely a fit of depression and low spirits. Now this is a serious matter. I did drop hints to you before. I must be plain now about my ideas respecting your future. You understand?”“Quite fly, dad. You want me to marry her.”“Exactly. Of course in good time.”“But ain’t I ‘owre young to marry yet,’ as the song says?”“Years do not count, my boy,” said his father, majestically. “If you were ten years older and a weak, foolish fellow, it would be bad; but when it is a case of a young man who is bright, clever, and who has had some experience of the world, it is different.”Mrs Wilton, who was listening intently to her husband’s words, bowed her head, smiled approval, and looked with the pride of a mother at her unlicked cub.But Claud’s face wrinkled up, and he looked inquiringly at his elder.“I say, guv’nor,” he said, “does this mean chaff?”“Chaff? Certainly not, sir,” said the father sternly. “Do I look like a man who would descend to—to—to chaff, as you slangly term it, my own son?”“Not a bit of it, dad; but last week you told me I was the somethingest idiot you ever set eyes on.”“Claud!”“Well, he did, mother, and he used that favourite word of his before it. You know,” said the youth, with a grin.“Claud, my dear, you shouldn’t.”“I didn’t, mother; it was the dad. I never do use it except in the stables or to the dogs.”“Claud, my boy, be serious. Yes, I did say so, but you had made me very angry, and—er—I spoke for your good.”“Yes, I’m sure he did, my dear,” said Mrs Wilton.“Oh, all right, then, so long as he didn’t mean it. Well, then, to cut it short, you both want me to marry Kate?”“Exactly.”“Not much of a catch. Talk about a man’s wife being a clinging vine; she’ll be a regular weeping willow.”“Ha! ha! very good, my boy,” said Wilton, senior; “but no fear of that. Poor girl, look at her losses.”“But she keeps going on getting into deeper misery. Look at her.”“It only shows the sweet tenderness of her disposition, Claud, my dear,” said his mother.“Yes, of course,” said his father, “but you’ll soon make her dry her eyes.”“And she really is a very sweet, lovable, and beautiful girl, my dear,” said Mrs Wilton.“Tidy, mother; only her eyes always look as red as a ferret’s.”“Claud, my dear, you shouldn’t—such comparisons are shocking.”“Oh, all right, mother. Very well; as I am such a clever, man-of-the-world sort of a chap, I’ll sacrifice myself for the family good. But I say, dad, she really has that hundred and fifty thou—?”“Every shilling of it, my boy, and—er—really that must not go out of the family.”“Well, it would be a pity. Only you will have enough to leave me to keep up the old place.”“Well—er—I—that is—I have been obliged to mortgage pretty heavily.”“I say, guv’nor,” cried the young man, looking aghast; “you don’t mean to say you’ve been hit?”“Hit? No, my dear, certainly not,” cried Mrs Wilton.“Oh, do be quiet, ma. Father knows what I mean.”“Well, er—yes, my boy, to be perfectly frank, I have during the past few years made a—er—two or three rather unfortunate speculations, but, as John Garstang says—”“Oh, hang old Garstang! This is horrible, father; just now, too, when I wanted to bleed you rather heavily.”“Claud, my darling, don’t, pray don’t use such dreadful language.”“Will you be quiet, ma! It’s enough to make a fellow swear. Are you quite up a tree, guv’nor?”“Oh, no, no, my boy, not so bad as that. Things can go oh for years just as before, and, er—in reason, you know—you can have what money you require; but I want you to understand that you must not look forward to having this place, and er—to see the necessity for thinking seriously about a wealthy marriage. You grasp the position now?”“Dad, it was a regular smeller, and you nearly knocked me out of time. I saw stars for the moment.”“My dearest boy, what are you talking about?” asked Mrs Wilton, appealingly.“Oh, bother! But, I say, guv’nor, I’m glad you spoke out to me—like a man.”“To a man, my boy,” said the father, holding out his hand, which the son eagerly grasped. “Then now we understand each other?”“And no mistake, guv’nor.”“You mustn’t let her slip through your fingers, my boy.”“Likely, dad!”“You must be careful; no more scandals—no more escapades—no follies of any kind.”“I’ll be a regular saint, dad. I say, think I ought to read for the church?”“Good gracious me, Claud, my dear, what do you mean?”“White choker, flopping felt, five o’clock tea, and tennis, mother. Kate would like that sort of thing.”Wilton, senior, smiled grimly.“No, no, my boy, be the quiet English gentleman, and let her see that you really care for her and want to make her happy. Poor girl, she wants love and sympathy.”“And she shall have ’em, dad, hot and strong. A hundred and fifty thou—!”“Would clear off every lien on the property, my boy, and it would be a grand thing for my poor deceased brother’s child.”“You do think so, don’t, you, my dear?” said Mrs Wilton, mentally extending a tendril, to cling to her husband, “because I—”“Decidedly, decidedly, my dear,” said the Squire, quickly. “Thank you, Claud, my boy,” he continued. “I shall rely upon your strong common sense and judgment.”“All right, guv’nor. You give me my head. I’ll make it all right. I’ll win the stakes with hands down.”“I do trust you, my boy; but you must be gentle, and not too hasty.”“I know,” said the young man with a cunning look. “You leave me alone.”“Hah! That’s right, then,” said the Squire, drawing a deep breath as he smiled at his son; but all the same his eyes did not look the confidence expressed by his words.

Claud Wilton, aged twenty, with his thin pimply face, long narrow jaw, and closely-cropped hair, which was very suggestive of brain fever or imprisonment, stood leering at his father, his appearance in no wise supporting his mother’s high encomiums as he indulged in a feeble smile, one which he smoothed off directly with his thin right hand, which lingered about his lips to pat tenderly the remains of certain decapitated pimples which redly resented the passage over them that morning of an unnecessary razor, which laid no stubble low.

The Vicar of the Parish had said one word to his lady re Claud Wilton—a very short but highly expressive word that he had learned at college. It was “cad,”—and anyone who had heard it repeated would not have ventured to protest against its suitability, for his face alone suggested it, though he did all he could to emphasise the idea by adopting a horsey, collary, cuffy style of dress, every article of which was unsuited to his physique.

“Has Henry Dasent gone?”

“Yes, guvnor, and precious glad to go. You were awfully cool to him, I must say. He said if it wasn’t for his aunt he’d never darken the doors again.”

“And I hope he will not, sir. He is no credit to your mother.”

“But I think he means well, my dear,” said Mrs Wilton, plaintively. “It is not his fault. My poor dear sister did spoil him so.”

“Humph! And she was not alone. Look here, Claud, I will not have him here. I have reasons for it, and he, with his gambling and racing propensities, is no proper companion for you.”

“P’raps old Garstang says the same about me,” said the young man, sulkily.

“Claud, my dear, for shame,” said Mrs Wilton. “You should not say such things.”

“I don’t care what John Garstang says; I will not have his boy here. Insolent, priggish, wanting in respect to me, and—and—he was a deal too attentive to Kate.”

“Oh, my dear, did you think so?” cried Mrs Wilton.

“Yes, madam, I did think so,” said her husband with asperity, “and, what was ten times worse, you were always leaving them together in your blundering way.”

“Don’t say such things to me, dear, before Claud.”

“Then don’t spend your time making mistakes. Just come, have you, sir?”

“Oh, yes, father, just come,” said the young man, with an offensive grin.

“You heard more than you said, sir,” said the Squire, “so we may as well have a few words at once.”

“No, no, no, my dear; pray, pray don’t quarrel with Claud now; I’m sure he wants to do everything that is right.”

“Be quiet, Maria,” cried the Squire, angrily.

“All right, mother; I’m not going to quarrel,” said the son.

“Of course not I only want Claud to understand his position. Look here, sir, you are at an age when a bo—, when a man doesn’t understand the value of money.”

“Oh, I say, guv’nor! Come, I like that.”

“It’s quite true, sir. You boys only look upon money as something to spend.”

“Right you are, this time.”

“But it means more, sir—power, position, the respect of your fellows—everything.”

“Needn’t tell me, guv’nor; I think I know a thing or two about tin.”

“Now, suppose we leave slang out of the matter and talk sensibly, sir, about a very important matter.”

“Go on ahead then, dad; I’m listening.”

“Sit down then, Claud.”

“Rather stand, guv’nor; stand and grow good, ma.”

“Yes, my dear, do then,” said Mrs Wilton, smiling at her son fondly. “But listen now to what papa says; it really is very important.”

“All right, mother; but cut it short, father, my horse is waiting and I don’t want him to take cold.”

“Of course not, my boy; always take care of your horse. I will be very brief and to the point, then. Look here, Claud, your cousin, Katherine—”

“Oh! Ah, yes; I heard she was ill. What does the Doctor say?”

“Never mind what the Doctor says. It is merely a fit of depression and low spirits. Now this is a serious matter. I did drop hints to you before. I must be plain now about my ideas respecting your future. You understand?”

“Quite fly, dad. You want me to marry her.”

“Exactly. Of course in good time.”

“But ain’t I ‘owre young to marry yet,’ as the song says?”

“Years do not count, my boy,” said his father, majestically. “If you were ten years older and a weak, foolish fellow, it would be bad; but when it is a case of a young man who is bright, clever, and who has had some experience of the world, it is different.”

Mrs Wilton, who was listening intently to her husband’s words, bowed her head, smiled approval, and looked with the pride of a mother at her unlicked cub.

But Claud’s face wrinkled up, and he looked inquiringly at his elder.

“I say, guv’nor,” he said, “does this mean chaff?”

“Chaff? Certainly not, sir,” said the father sternly. “Do I look like a man who would descend to—to—to chaff, as you slangly term it, my own son?”

“Not a bit of it, dad; but last week you told me I was the somethingest idiot you ever set eyes on.”

“Claud!”

“Well, he did, mother, and he used that favourite word of his before it. You know,” said the youth, with a grin.

“Claud, my dear, you shouldn’t.”

“I didn’t, mother; it was the dad. I never do use it except in the stables or to the dogs.”

“Claud, my boy, be serious. Yes, I did say so, but you had made me very angry, and—er—I spoke for your good.”

“Yes, I’m sure he did, my dear,” said Mrs Wilton.

“Oh, all right, then, so long as he didn’t mean it. Well, then, to cut it short, you both want me to marry Kate?”

“Exactly.”

“Not much of a catch. Talk about a man’s wife being a clinging vine; she’ll be a regular weeping willow.”

“Ha! ha! very good, my boy,” said Wilton, senior; “but no fear of that. Poor girl, look at her losses.”

“But she keeps going on getting into deeper misery. Look at her.”

“It only shows the sweet tenderness of her disposition, Claud, my dear,” said his mother.

“Yes, of course,” said his father, “but you’ll soon make her dry her eyes.”

“And she really is a very sweet, lovable, and beautiful girl, my dear,” said Mrs Wilton.

“Tidy, mother; only her eyes always look as red as a ferret’s.”

“Claud, my dear, you shouldn’t—such comparisons are shocking.”

“Oh, all right, mother. Very well; as I am such a clever, man-of-the-world sort of a chap, I’ll sacrifice myself for the family good. But I say, dad, she really has that hundred and fifty thou—?”

“Every shilling of it, my boy, and—er—really that must not go out of the family.”

“Well, it would be a pity. Only you will have enough to leave me to keep up the old place.”

“Well—er—I—that is—I have been obliged to mortgage pretty heavily.”

“I say, guv’nor,” cried the young man, looking aghast; “you don’t mean to say you’ve been hit?”

“Hit? No, my dear, certainly not,” cried Mrs Wilton.

“Oh, do be quiet, ma. Father knows what I mean.”

“Well, er—yes, my boy, to be perfectly frank, I have during the past few years made a—er—two or three rather unfortunate speculations, but, as John Garstang says—”

“Oh, hang old Garstang! This is horrible, father; just now, too, when I wanted to bleed you rather heavily.”

“Claud, my darling, don’t, pray don’t use such dreadful language.”

“Will you be quiet, ma! It’s enough to make a fellow swear. Are you quite up a tree, guv’nor?”

“Oh, no, no, my boy, not so bad as that. Things can go oh for years just as before, and, er—in reason, you know—you can have what money you require; but I want you to understand that you must not look forward to having this place, and er—to see the necessity for thinking seriously about a wealthy marriage. You grasp the position now?”

“Dad, it was a regular smeller, and you nearly knocked me out of time. I saw stars for the moment.”

“My dearest boy, what are you talking about?” asked Mrs Wilton, appealingly.

“Oh, bother! But, I say, guv’nor, I’m glad you spoke out to me—like a man.”

“To a man, my boy,” said the father, holding out his hand, which the son eagerly grasped. “Then now we understand each other?”

“And no mistake, guv’nor.”

“You mustn’t let her slip through your fingers, my boy.”

“Likely, dad!”

“You must be careful; no more scandals—no more escapades—no follies of any kind.”

“I’ll be a regular saint, dad. I say, think I ought to read for the church?”

“Good gracious me, Claud, my dear, what do you mean?”

“White choker, flopping felt, five o’clock tea, and tennis, mother. Kate would like that sort of thing.”

Wilton, senior, smiled grimly.

“No, no, my boy, be the quiet English gentleman, and let her see that you really care for her and want to make her happy. Poor girl, she wants love and sympathy.”

“And she shall have ’em, dad, hot and strong. A hundred and fifty thou—!”

“Would clear off every lien on the property, my boy, and it would be a grand thing for my poor deceased brother’s child.”

“You do think so, don’t, you, my dear?” said Mrs Wilton, mentally extending a tendril, to cling to her husband, “because I—”

“Decidedly, decidedly, my dear,” said the Squire, quickly. “Thank you, Claud, my boy,” he continued. “I shall rely upon your strong common sense and judgment.”

“All right, guv’nor. You give me my head. I’ll make it all right. I’ll win the stakes with hands down.”

“I do trust you, my boy; but you must be gentle, and not too hasty.”

“I know,” said the young man with a cunning look. “You leave me alone.”

“Hah! That’s right, then,” said the Squire, drawing a deep breath as he smiled at his son; but all the same his eyes did not look the confidence expressed by his words.

Chapter Seven.“Why, there then, my precious, you are ever so much better. You look quite bright this morning.”“Do I, ’Liza?” said Kate sadly, as she walked to her bedroom window and stood gazing out at the sodden park and dripping trees.“Ever so much, my dear. Mr Leigh has done you a deal of good. I do wonder at finding such a clever gentlemanly Doctor down in an out-of-the-way place like this. You like him, don’t you?”The girl turned slowly and gazed at the speaker, her brow contracting a little at the inner corners of her straight eyebrows, which were drawn up, giving her face a troubled expression.“I hardly thing I do, nurse, dear; he is so stern and firm with me. He seems to talk to me as if it were all my fault that I have been so weak and ill; and he does not know—he does not know.”The tears rose to her eyes, ready to brim over as she spoke.“Ah! naughty little girl!” cried the woman, with mock anger; “crying again! I will not have it. Oh! my own pet,” she continued, changing her manner, as she passed her arm lovingly about the light waist and tenderly kissed her charge. “Please, please try. You are so much better. You must hold up.”“Yes, yes, nurse, I will,” cried the girl, making an effort, and kissing the homely face lovingly.“And what did I tell you? I’m always spoken of as your maid now—lady’s maid. It must not be nurse any longer.”“Ah!” said Kate, with the wistful look coming in her eyes again; “it seems as if all the happy old things are to be no more.”“No, no, my dear; you must not talk so. You not twenty, and giving up so to sadness! You must try and forget.”“Forget!” cried the girl, reproachfully.“No, no, not quite forget, dear; but try and bear your troubles like a woman now. Who could forget dear old master, and your poor dear mother? But would they like you to fret yourself into the grave with sorrow? Would they not say if they could come to you some night, ‘Never forget us, darling; but try and bear this grief as a true woman should’?”“Yes,” said the girl, thoughtfully, “and I will. But I don’t feel as if I could be happy here.”The maid sighed.“Uncle is very kind, and my aunt is very loving in her way, but I feel as if I want to be alone somewhere—of course with you. I have lain awake at night, longing to be back home.”“But that is impossible now, darling. Cook wrote to me the other day, and she told me that the house and furniture had been sold, and that the workmen were in, and—oh, what a stupid woman I am. Pretty way to try and comfort you!”“It’s nothing, ’Liza. It’s all gone now,” said the girl, smiling piteously.“That’s nice and brave of you; but I am very stupid, my dear. There, there, you will try and be more hopeful, and to think of the future?”“Yes, I will; but I’m sure I should be better and happier if I went away from here. Couldn’t we have a cottage somewhere—at the seaside, perhaps, and live together?”“Well, yes, you could, my dear; but it wouldn’t be nice for you, nor yet proper treatment to your uncle and aunt. Come, try and get quite well. So you don’t like Doctor Leigh?”“No, I think not.”“Nor yet Miss Jenny?”“Oh, yes, I like her,” said Kate, with animation. “She is very sweet and girlish. Oh, nurse, dear, I wish I could be as happy, and light-hearted as she is!”“So you will be soon, my darling. I don’t want to see you quite like her. You are so different; but she is a very nice girl, and by-and-by perhaps you’ll see more of her. You do want more of a companion of your own age. There goes the breakfast bell! What a wet, soaking morning; but it isn’t foggy down here like it used to be in the Square, and the sun shines more; and Miss Kate—”“Oh, don’t speak like that, nurse!”“But I must, my dear. I have to keep my place down here.”“Well, when we are alone then. What were you going to say?”“I want you to try and make me happy down here.”“I? How can I?”“By letting the sunshine come back into your face. You’ve nearly broken my heart lately, what with seeing you crying and being so ill.”“I’m going to try, nurse.”“That’s right. What’s that? Hail?”At that moment there was a tap at the door.“Nearly ready to go down, my darling?”The door opened, and Mrs Wilton appeared.“May I come in? Ah, quite ready. Come, that’s better, my pretty pet. Why, you look lovely and quite a colour coming into your face. Now, don’t she look nice this morning?”“Yes, ma’am; I’ve been telling her so.”“I thought we should bring her round. I am pleased, and you’re a very good girl. Your uncle will be delighted; but come along down, and let’s make the tea, or he’ll be going about like a roaring lion for his food. Oh! bless me, what’s that?”“That” was a sharp rattling, for the second time, on the window-pane.“Not hail, surely. Oh, you naughty boy,” she continued, throwing open the casement window. “Claud, my dear, you shouldn’t throw stones at the bedroom windows.”“Only small shot. Morning. How’s Kate? Tell her the breakfast’s waiting.”“We’re coming, my dear, and your cousin’s ever so much better. Come here, my dear.”Kate coloured slightly, as she went to the open window, and Claud stood looking up, grinning.“How are you? Didn’t you hear the shot I pitched up before?”“Yes, I thought it was hail,” said Kate, coldly.“Only number six. But come on down; the guv’nor’s been out these two hours, and gone to change his wet boots.”“We’re coming, my dear,” cried Mrs Wilton; “and Claud, my dear, I’m sure your feet must be wet. Go in and change your boots at once.”“Bother. They’re all right.”“Now don’t be obstinate, my dear; you know how delicate your throat is, and—There, he’s gone. You’ll have to help me to make him more obedient, Kate, my dear. I’ve noticed already how much more attention he pays to what you say. But there, come along.”James Wilton was already in the breakfast-room, looking at his letters, and scowling over them like the proverbial bear with the sore head.“Come, Maria,” he growled, “are we never to have any—Ah, my dear, you down to breakfast! This makes up for a wet morning,” and he met and kissed his niece, drew her hand under his arm, and led her to a chair on the side of the table nearest the fire. “That’s your place, my dear, and it has looked very blank for the past fortnight. Very, very glad to see you fill it again. I say,” he continued, chuckling and rubbing his hands, “you’re quite looking yourself again.”“Yes,” said Mrs Wilton, “but you needn’t keep all the good mornings and kisses for Kitty. Ah, it’s very nice to be young and pretty, but if Uncle’s going to pet you like this I shall grow quite jealous.” This with a good many meaning nods and smiles at her niece, as she took her place at the table behind the hissing urn.“You’ve been too much petted, Maria. It makes you grow too plump and rosy.”“James, my dear, you shouldn’t.”“Oh, yes, I should,” said her husband, chuckling. “I know Kitty has noticed it. But is that boy coming in to breakfast?”“Yes, yes, yes, my dear; but don’t shout so. You quite startle dear Kitty. Recollect, please, that she is an invalid.”“Bah! Not she. Going to be quite well again directly, and come for rides and drives with me to the farms. Aren’t you, my dear?”“I shall be very pleased to, Uncle—soon.”“That’s right. We’ll soon have some roses among the lilies. Ha! ha! You must steal some of your aunt’s. Got too many in her cheeks, hasn’t she, my dear—Damask, but we want maiden blush, eh?”“Do be quiet, James. You really shouldn’t.”“Where is Claud? He must have heard the bell.”“Oh, yes, and he, came and called Kitty. He has only gone to change his wet boots.”“Wet boots! Why, he wasn’t down till nine. Oh, here you are, sir. Come along.”“Did you change your boots, Claud?”“No, mother,” said that gentleman, seating himself opposite Kate.“But you should, my dear.”Wilton gave his niece a merry look and a nod, which was intended to mean, “You attend to me.”“Yes, you should, my dear,” he went on, imitating his wife’s manner; “and why don’t you put on goloshes when you go out?”Claud stared at his father, and looked as if he thought he was a little touched mentally.“Isn’t it disgusting, Kitty, my dear?” said Wilton. “She’d wrap him up in a flannel and feed him with a spoon if she had her way with the great strong hulking fellow.”“Don’t you take any notice of your uncle’s nonsense, my dear. Claud, my love, will you take Kitty’s cup to her?”“She’d make a regular molly-coddle of him. And we don’t want doctoring here. Had enough of that the past fortnight. I say, you’re going to throw Leigh overboard this morning. Don’t want him any more, do you?”“Oh, no, I shall be quite well now.”“Yes,” said her uncle, with a knowing look. “Don’t you have any more of it. And I say, you’ll have to pay his long bill for jalap and pilly coshy. That is if you can afford it.”“I do wish, my dear, you’d let the dear child have her breakfast in peace; and do sit down and let your cousin be, Claud, dear; I’m sure she will not eat bacon. It’s so fidgeting to have things forced upon you.”“You eat your egg, ma! Kitty and I understand each ether. She wants feeding up, and I’m going to be the feeder.”“That’s right, boy; she wants stamina.”“But she can’t eat everything on the table, James.”“Who said she could? She isn’t a stout elderly lady.”The head of the family looked at his niece with a broad smile, as if in search of a laugh for his jest, but the smile that greeted him was very wan and wintry.“Any letters, my dear?” said Mrs Wilton, as the breakfast went on, with Kate growing weary of her cousin’s attentions, all of which took the form of a hurried movement to her side of the table, and pressure brought to bear over the breakfast delicacies.The wintry look appeared to be transferred from Kate’s to her uncle’s face, but it was not wan; on the contrary, it was decidedly stormy.“Yes,” he said, with a grunt.“Anything particular?”“Yes, very.”“What is it, my dear?”“Don’t both—er—letter from John Garstang.”“Oh, dear me!” said Mrs Wilton, looking aghast; and her husband kicked out one foot for her special benefit, but as his leg was not eight feet long the shot was a miss.“Says he’ll run down for a few days to settle that little estate business; and that it will give him an opportunity to have a few chats with Kate here. You say you like Mr Garstang, my dear?”“Oh, yes,” said Kate, quietly; “he was always very nice and kind to me.”“Of course, my darling; who would not be?” said Mrs Wilton.“Claud, boy, I suppose the pheasants are getting scarce.”“Oh, there are a few left yet,” said the young man.“You must get up a beat and try and find a few hares, too. Uncle Garstang likes a bit of shooting. Used to see much of John Garstang, my dear, when you were at home?”“No, uncle, not much. He used to come and dine with us sometimes, and he was always very kind to me from the time I was quite a little girl, but my father and he were never very intimate.”“A very fine-looking man, my dear, and so handsome,” said Mrs Wilton.“Yes, very,” said her husband, dryly; “and handsome is as handsome does.”“Yes, my dear, of course,” said Mrs Wilton; and very little more was said till the end of the breakfast, when the lady of the house asked what time the guest would be down.“Asks me to send the dog-cart to meet the mid-day train. Humph! rain’s over and sun coming out. Here, Claud, take your cousin round the greenhouse and the conservatory. She hasn’t seen the plants.”“All right, father. Don’t mind me smoking, do you, Kitty?”“Of course she’ll say no,” said Wilton testily; “but you can surely do without your pipe for an hour or two.”“Oh, very well,” said Claud, ungraciously; and he offered his cousin his arm.She looked surprised at the unnecessary attention, but took it; and they went out through the French window into the broad verandah, the glass door swinging to after them.“What a sweet pair they’ll make, James, dear,” said Mrs Wilton, smiling fondly after her son. “How nicely she takes to our dear boy!”“Yes, like the rest of the idiots. Girl always says snap to the first coat and trousers that come near her.”“Oh, James, dear! you shouldn’t say that I’m sure I didn’t!”“You! Well, upon my soul! How you can stand there and utter such a fib! But never mind; it’s going to be easy enough, and we’ll get it over as soon as we decently can, if you don’t make some stupid blunder and spoil it.”“James, dear!”“Be just like you. But a nice letter I’ve had from John Garstang about that mortgage. Never mind, though; once this is over I can snap my fingers at him. So be as civil as you can; and I suppose we must give him some of the best wine.”“Yes, dear, and have out the china dinner service.”“Of course. But I wish you’d put him into a damp bed.”“Oh, James, dear! I couldn’t do that.”“Yes, you could; give him rheumatic fever and kill him. But I suppose you won’t.”“Indeed I will not, dear. There are many wicked things that I feel I could do, but put a Christian man into a damp bed—no!”“Humph! Well, then, don’t; but I hope that boy will be careful and not scare Kitty.”“What, Claud? Oh, no, my dear, don’t be afraid of that. My boy is too clever; and, besides, he’s beginning to love the very ground she walks on. Really, it seems to me quite a Heaven-made matter.”“Always is, my dear, when the lady has over a hundred thousand pounds,” said Wilton, with a grim smile; “but we shall see.”

“Why, there then, my precious, you are ever so much better. You look quite bright this morning.”

“Do I, ’Liza?” said Kate sadly, as she walked to her bedroom window and stood gazing out at the sodden park and dripping trees.

“Ever so much, my dear. Mr Leigh has done you a deal of good. I do wonder at finding such a clever gentlemanly Doctor down in an out-of-the-way place like this. You like him, don’t you?”

The girl turned slowly and gazed at the speaker, her brow contracting a little at the inner corners of her straight eyebrows, which were drawn up, giving her face a troubled expression.

“I hardly thing I do, nurse, dear; he is so stern and firm with me. He seems to talk to me as if it were all my fault that I have been so weak and ill; and he does not know—he does not know.”

The tears rose to her eyes, ready to brim over as she spoke.

“Ah! naughty little girl!” cried the woman, with mock anger; “crying again! I will not have it. Oh! my own pet,” she continued, changing her manner, as she passed her arm lovingly about the light waist and tenderly kissed her charge. “Please, please try. You are so much better. You must hold up.”

“Yes, yes, nurse, I will,” cried the girl, making an effort, and kissing the homely face lovingly.

“And what did I tell you? I’m always spoken of as your maid now—lady’s maid. It must not be nurse any longer.”

“Ah!” said Kate, with the wistful look coming in her eyes again; “it seems as if all the happy old things are to be no more.”

“No, no, my dear; you must not talk so. You not twenty, and giving up so to sadness! You must try and forget.”

“Forget!” cried the girl, reproachfully.

“No, no, not quite forget, dear; but try and bear your troubles like a woman now. Who could forget dear old master, and your poor dear mother? But would they like you to fret yourself into the grave with sorrow? Would they not say if they could come to you some night, ‘Never forget us, darling; but try and bear this grief as a true woman should’?”

“Yes,” said the girl, thoughtfully, “and I will. But I don’t feel as if I could be happy here.”

The maid sighed.

“Uncle is very kind, and my aunt is very loving in her way, but I feel as if I want to be alone somewhere—of course with you. I have lain awake at night, longing to be back home.”

“But that is impossible now, darling. Cook wrote to me the other day, and she told me that the house and furniture had been sold, and that the workmen were in, and—oh, what a stupid woman I am. Pretty way to try and comfort you!”

“It’s nothing, ’Liza. It’s all gone now,” said the girl, smiling piteously.

“That’s nice and brave of you; but I am very stupid, my dear. There, there, you will try and be more hopeful, and to think of the future?”

“Yes, I will; but I’m sure I should be better and happier if I went away from here. Couldn’t we have a cottage somewhere—at the seaside, perhaps, and live together?”

“Well, yes, you could, my dear; but it wouldn’t be nice for you, nor yet proper treatment to your uncle and aunt. Come, try and get quite well. So you don’t like Doctor Leigh?”

“No, I think not.”

“Nor yet Miss Jenny?”

“Oh, yes, I like her,” said Kate, with animation. “She is very sweet and girlish. Oh, nurse, dear, I wish I could be as happy, and light-hearted as she is!”

“So you will be soon, my darling. I don’t want to see you quite like her. You are so different; but she is a very nice girl, and by-and-by perhaps you’ll see more of her. You do want more of a companion of your own age. There goes the breakfast bell! What a wet, soaking morning; but it isn’t foggy down here like it used to be in the Square, and the sun shines more; and Miss Kate—”

“Oh, don’t speak like that, nurse!”

“But I must, my dear. I have to keep my place down here.”

“Well, when we are alone then. What were you going to say?”

“I want you to try and make me happy down here.”

“I? How can I?”

“By letting the sunshine come back into your face. You’ve nearly broken my heart lately, what with seeing you crying and being so ill.”

“I’m going to try, nurse.”

“That’s right. What’s that? Hail?”

At that moment there was a tap at the door.

“Nearly ready to go down, my darling?”

The door opened, and Mrs Wilton appeared.

“May I come in? Ah, quite ready. Come, that’s better, my pretty pet. Why, you look lovely and quite a colour coming into your face. Now, don’t she look nice this morning?”

“Yes, ma’am; I’ve been telling her so.”

“I thought we should bring her round. I am pleased, and you’re a very good girl. Your uncle will be delighted; but come along down, and let’s make the tea, or he’ll be going about like a roaring lion for his food. Oh! bless me, what’s that?”

“That” was a sharp rattling, for the second time, on the window-pane.

“Not hail, surely. Oh, you naughty boy,” she continued, throwing open the casement window. “Claud, my dear, you shouldn’t throw stones at the bedroom windows.”

“Only small shot. Morning. How’s Kate? Tell her the breakfast’s waiting.”

“We’re coming, my dear, and your cousin’s ever so much better. Come here, my dear.”

Kate coloured slightly, as she went to the open window, and Claud stood looking up, grinning.

“How are you? Didn’t you hear the shot I pitched up before?”

“Yes, I thought it was hail,” said Kate, coldly.

“Only number six. But come on down; the guv’nor’s been out these two hours, and gone to change his wet boots.”

“We’re coming, my dear,” cried Mrs Wilton; “and Claud, my dear, I’m sure your feet must be wet. Go in and change your boots at once.”

“Bother. They’re all right.”

“Now don’t be obstinate, my dear; you know how delicate your throat is, and—There, he’s gone. You’ll have to help me to make him more obedient, Kate, my dear. I’ve noticed already how much more attention he pays to what you say. But there, come along.”

James Wilton was already in the breakfast-room, looking at his letters, and scowling over them like the proverbial bear with the sore head.

“Come, Maria,” he growled, “are we never to have any—Ah, my dear, you down to breakfast! This makes up for a wet morning,” and he met and kissed his niece, drew her hand under his arm, and led her to a chair on the side of the table nearest the fire. “That’s your place, my dear, and it has looked very blank for the past fortnight. Very, very glad to see you fill it again. I say,” he continued, chuckling and rubbing his hands, “you’re quite looking yourself again.”

“Yes,” said Mrs Wilton, “but you needn’t keep all the good mornings and kisses for Kitty. Ah, it’s very nice to be young and pretty, but if Uncle’s going to pet you like this I shall grow quite jealous.” This with a good many meaning nods and smiles at her niece, as she took her place at the table behind the hissing urn.

“You’ve been too much petted, Maria. It makes you grow too plump and rosy.”

“James, my dear, you shouldn’t.”

“Oh, yes, I should,” said her husband, chuckling. “I know Kitty has noticed it. But is that boy coming in to breakfast?”

“Yes, yes, yes, my dear; but don’t shout so. You quite startle dear Kitty. Recollect, please, that she is an invalid.”

“Bah! Not she. Going to be quite well again directly, and come for rides and drives with me to the farms. Aren’t you, my dear?”

“I shall be very pleased to, Uncle—soon.”

“That’s right. We’ll soon have some roses among the lilies. Ha! ha! You must steal some of your aunt’s. Got too many in her cheeks, hasn’t she, my dear—Damask, but we want maiden blush, eh?”

“Do be quiet, James. You really shouldn’t.”

“Where is Claud? He must have heard the bell.”

“Oh, yes, and he, came and called Kitty. He has only gone to change his wet boots.”

“Wet boots! Why, he wasn’t down till nine. Oh, here you are, sir. Come along.”

“Did you change your boots, Claud?”

“No, mother,” said that gentleman, seating himself opposite Kate.

“But you should, my dear.”

Wilton gave his niece a merry look and a nod, which was intended to mean, “You attend to me.”

“Yes, you should, my dear,” he went on, imitating his wife’s manner; “and why don’t you put on goloshes when you go out?”

Claud stared at his father, and looked as if he thought he was a little touched mentally.

“Isn’t it disgusting, Kitty, my dear?” said Wilton. “She’d wrap him up in a flannel and feed him with a spoon if she had her way with the great strong hulking fellow.”

“Don’t you take any notice of your uncle’s nonsense, my dear. Claud, my love, will you take Kitty’s cup to her?”

“She’d make a regular molly-coddle of him. And we don’t want doctoring here. Had enough of that the past fortnight. I say, you’re going to throw Leigh overboard this morning. Don’t want him any more, do you?”

“Oh, no, I shall be quite well now.”

“Yes,” said her uncle, with a knowing look. “Don’t you have any more of it. And I say, you’ll have to pay his long bill for jalap and pilly coshy. That is if you can afford it.”

“I do wish, my dear, you’d let the dear child have her breakfast in peace; and do sit down and let your cousin be, Claud, dear; I’m sure she will not eat bacon. It’s so fidgeting to have things forced upon you.”

“You eat your egg, ma! Kitty and I understand each ether. She wants feeding up, and I’m going to be the feeder.”

“That’s right, boy; she wants stamina.”

“But she can’t eat everything on the table, James.”

“Who said she could? She isn’t a stout elderly lady.”

The head of the family looked at his niece with a broad smile, as if in search of a laugh for his jest, but the smile that greeted him was very wan and wintry.

“Any letters, my dear?” said Mrs Wilton, as the breakfast went on, with Kate growing weary of her cousin’s attentions, all of which took the form of a hurried movement to her side of the table, and pressure brought to bear over the breakfast delicacies.

The wintry look appeared to be transferred from Kate’s to her uncle’s face, but it was not wan; on the contrary, it was decidedly stormy.

“Yes,” he said, with a grunt.

“Anything particular?”

“Yes, very.”

“What is it, my dear?”

“Don’t both—er—letter from John Garstang.”

“Oh, dear me!” said Mrs Wilton, looking aghast; and her husband kicked out one foot for her special benefit, but as his leg was not eight feet long the shot was a miss.

“Says he’ll run down for a few days to settle that little estate business; and that it will give him an opportunity to have a few chats with Kate here. You say you like Mr Garstang, my dear?”

“Oh, yes,” said Kate, quietly; “he was always very nice and kind to me.”

“Of course, my darling; who would not be?” said Mrs Wilton.

“Claud, boy, I suppose the pheasants are getting scarce.”

“Oh, there are a few left yet,” said the young man.

“You must get up a beat and try and find a few hares, too. Uncle Garstang likes a bit of shooting. Used to see much of John Garstang, my dear, when you were at home?”

“No, uncle, not much. He used to come and dine with us sometimes, and he was always very kind to me from the time I was quite a little girl, but my father and he were never very intimate.”

“A very fine-looking man, my dear, and so handsome,” said Mrs Wilton.

“Yes, very,” said her husband, dryly; “and handsome is as handsome does.”

“Yes, my dear, of course,” said Mrs Wilton; and very little more was said till the end of the breakfast, when the lady of the house asked what time the guest would be down.

“Asks me to send the dog-cart to meet the mid-day train. Humph! rain’s over and sun coming out. Here, Claud, take your cousin round the greenhouse and the conservatory. She hasn’t seen the plants.”

“All right, father. Don’t mind me smoking, do you, Kitty?”

“Of course she’ll say no,” said Wilton testily; “but you can surely do without your pipe for an hour or two.”

“Oh, very well,” said Claud, ungraciously; and he offered his cousin his arm.

She looked surprised at the unnecessary attention, but took it; and they went out through the French window into the broad verandah, the glass door swinging to after them.

“What a sweet pair they’ll make, James, dear,” said Mrs Wilton, smiling fondly after her son. “How nicely she takes to our dear boy!”

“Yes, like the rest of the idiots. Girl always says snap to the first coat and trousers that come near her.”

“Oh, James, dear! you shouldn’t say that I’m sure I didn’t!”

“You! Well, upon my soul! How you can stand there and utter such a fib! But never mind; it’s going to be easy enough, and we’ll get it over as soon as we decently can, if you don’t make some stupid blunder and spoil it.”

“James, dear!”

“Be just like you. But a nice letter I’ve had from John Garstang about that mortgage. Never mind, though; once this is over I can snap my fingers at him. So be as civil as you can; and I suppose we must give him some of the best wine.”

“Yes, dear, and have out the china dinner service.”

“Of course. But I wish you’d put him into a damp bed.”

“Oh, James, dear! I couldn’t do that.”

“Yes, you could; give him rheumatic fever and kill him. But I suppose you won’t.”

“Indeed I will not, dear. There are many wicked things that I feel I could do, but put a Christian man into a damp bed—no!”

“Humph! Well, then, don’t; but I hope that boy will be careful and not scare Kitty.”

“What, Claud? Oh, no, my dear, don’t be afraid of that. My boy is too clever; and, besides, he’s beginning to love the very ground she walks on. Really, it seems to me quite a Heaven-made matter.”

“Always is, my dear, when the lady has over a hundred thousand pounds,” said Wilton, with a grim smile; “but we shall see.”

Chapter Eight.“I say, don’t be in such a jolly hurry. You’re all right here, you know. I want to talk to you.”“You really must excuse me now, Claud; I have not been well, and I’m going back to my room.”“Of course you haven’t been well, Kitty—I say, I shall call you Kitty, you know—you can’t expect to be well moping upstairs in your room. I’ll soon put you right, better than that solemn-looking Doctor. You want to be out in the woods and fields. I know the country about here splendidly. I say, you ride, don’t you?”“I? No.”“Then I’ll teach you. Get your old maid to make you a good long skirt—that will do for a riding-habit at first—I’ll clap the side-saddle on my cob, and soon show you how to ride like a plucky girl should. I say, Kitty, I’ll hold you on at first—tight.”The speaker smiled at her, and the girl shrank from him, but he did not see it.“You’ll soon ride, and then you and I will have the jolliest of times together. I’ll make you ride so that by this time next year you’ll follow the hounds, and top a hedge with the best of them.”“Oh, no, I have no wish to ride, Claud.”“Yes, you have. You think so now, because you’re a bit down; but you wait till you’re on the cob, and then you’ll never want to come off. I don’t. I say, you haven’t seen me ride.”“No, Claud; but I must go now.”“You mustn’t, coz. I’m going to rouse you up. I say, though, I don’t want to brag, but I can ride—anything. I always get along with the first flight, and a little thing like you after I’ve been out with you a bit will astonish some of them. I shall keep my eye open, and the first pretty little tit I see that I think will suit you, I shall make the guv’nor buy.”“I beg that you will not, Claud.”“That’s right, do. Go down on your poor little knees and beg, and I’ll get the mount for you all the same. I know what will do you good and bring the blood into your pretty cheeks. No, no, don’t be in such a hurry. I won’t let you go upstairs and mope like a bird with the pip. You never handled a gun, I suppose?”“No, never,” said Kate, half angrily now; “of course not.”“Then you shall. You can have my double-barrel that father bought for me when I was a boy. It’s light as a feather, comes up to the shoulder splendidly, and has no more kick in it than a mouse. I tell you what, if it’s fine this afternoon you shall put on thick boots and a hat, and we’ll walk along by the fir plantations, and you shall have your first pop at a pheasant.”“I shoot at a pheasant!” cried Kate in horror.“Shoo!” exclaimed Claud playfully. “Yes, you have your first shot at a pheasant. Shuddering? That’s just like a London girl. How horrid, isn’t it?”“Yes, horrible for a woman.”“Not a bit of it. You’ll like it after the first shot. You’ll be ready enough to shove in the cartridges with those little hands, and bring the birds down. I say, I’ll teach you to fish, too, and throw a fly. You’ll like it, and soon forget all the mopes. You’ve been spoiled; but after a month or two here you won’t know yourself. Don’t be in such a hurry, Kitty.”“Don’t hold my hand like that, Claud; I must really go now,” said Kate, whose troubled face was clouded with wonder, vexation, and something approaching fear. “I really wish to go into the house.”“No, you don’t; you want to stop with me. I shan’t have a chance to talk to you again, with old Garstang here. I say, I saw you come out to have this little walk up and down here. I was watching and came after you to show you the way about the grounds.”“It was very kind of you, Claud. Thank you; but let me go in now.”“Shan’t I don’t get a chance to have a walk with such a girl as you every day. I am glad you’ve come. It makes our house seem quite different.”“Thank you for saying so—but I feel quite faint now.”“More need for you to stop in the fresh air. You faint, and I’ll bring you to again with a kiss. That’s the sort of thing to cure a girl who faints.”She looked at him in horror and disgust, as he burst into a boisterous laugh.“I suppose old Garstang isn’t a bad sort but we don’t much like him here. I say, what do you think of Harry Dasent?”“I—I hardly know,” said Kate, who was trying her best to get back along the path by some laurels to where the conservatory door by the drawing-room stood open. “I have seen so little of him.”“So much the better for you. He’s not a bad sort of a fellow for men to know, but he’s an awful cad with girls. Not a bit of a gentleman. You won’t see much more of him, though, for the guv’nor says he won’t have him here. I say, a month ago it would have made me set up on bristles, because I want him for a mate, but I don’t mind now you’ve come. We’ll be regular pals, and go out together everywhere. I’ll soon show you what country life is. Oh, well, if you will go in now I won’t stop you. I’ll go and have the little gun cleaned up, and—I say, come round the other way; I haven’t shown you the dogs.”“No, no—not now, please, Claud. I really am tired out and faint.”He still kept her hand tightly under his arm, in spite of her effort to withdraw it, and followed her into the conservatory, which was large and well-filled with ornamental shrubs and palms.“Well, you do look a bit tired, dear, but it becomes you. I say, I am so glad you’ve come. What a pretty little hand this is. You’ll give me a kiss before you go?”She started from him in horror.“Nobody can’t see here. Just one,” he whispered, as he passed his arm round her waist; and before she could struggle free he had roughly kissed her twice.“Um-m-m,” exclaimed Mrs Wilton, in a soft simmering way. “Claud, Claud, my dear, shocking, shocking! Oh, fie, fie, fie! You shouldn’t, you know. Anyone would think you were an engaged couple.”“Aunt, dear!” cried Kate, in an agitated voice, as she clung to that lady, but no further words would come.“Oh, there, there, my dear, don’t look like that,” cried Mrs Wilton. “I’m not a bit cross. Why, you’re all of a flutter. I wasn’t blaming you, my dear, only that naughty Claud. It was very rude of him, indeed. Really, Claud, my dear, it is not gentlemanly of you. Poor Kate is quite alarmed.”“Then you shouldn’t have come peeping,” cried the oaf, with a boisterous laugh.“Claud! for shame! I will not allow it. It is not respectful to your mamma. Now, come in, both of you. Mr Garstang is here—with your father, Claud, my love; and I wish you to be very nice and respectful to him, for who knows what may happen? Kate, my dear, I never think anything of money, but when one has rich relatives who have no children of their own, I always say that we oughtn’t to go out of our way to annoy them. Henry Dasent certainly is my sister’s child, but one can’t help thinking more of one’s own son; and as Harry is nothing to Mr Garstang, I can’t see how he can help remembering Claud very strongly in his will.”“Doesn’t Claud wish he may get it!” cried that youth, with a grin. “I’m not going to toady old Garstang for the sake of his coin.”“Nobody wishes you to, my dear; but come in; they must be done with their business by now. Come, my darling. Why, there’s a pretty bloom on your cheeks already. I felt that a little fresh air would do you good. They’re in the library; come along. We can go in through the verandah. Don’t whistle, Claud, dear; it’s so boyish.”They passed together out of the farther door of the conservatory into the verandah, and as they approached an open window, a smooth bland voice said:“I’ll do the best I can, Mr Wilton; but I am only the agent. If I stave it off, though, it can only be for a short time, and then—Ah, my dear child!”John Garstang, calm, smooth, well-dressed and handsome, rose from one of the library chairs as Kate entered with her aunt, and held out both his hands: “I am very glad to see you again—very, very sorry to hear that you have been so ill. Hah!” he continued, as he scrutinised the agitated face before him in a tender fatherly way, “not quite right yet, though,” and he led her to a chair near the fire. “That rosy tinge is a trifle too hectic, and the face too transparently white. You must take care of her, Maria Wilton, and see that she has plenty of this beautiful fresh air. I hope she is a good obedient patient.”“Ve-ry, ve-ry, good indeed, John Garstang, only a little too much disposed to keep to her room.”“Oh, well, quite natural, too,” said Garstang, smiling. “What we all do when we are ailing. But there, we must not begin a discussion about ailments. I’m very glad to see you again, though, Kate, and congratulate you upon being here.”“Thank you, Mr Garstang,” she replied, giving him a wistful look, as a feeling of loneliness amongst these people made her heart seem to contract.“Well, Wilton, I don’t think we need talk any more about business?”“Oh, we’re not going to stay,” cried Mrs Wilton. “Come, Kate, my child, and let these dreadful men talk.”“By no means,” said Garstang; “sit still, pray. We shall have plenty of time for anything more we have to say over a cigar to-night, for I’ve come down to throw myself upon your hospitality for a day or two.”“Of course, of course,” said Wilton, quickly; “Maria has a room ready for you.”“Yes, your old room, John Garstang; and it’s beautifully aired, and just as you like it.”“Thank you, Maria. You aunt always spoils me, Kate, when I come down here. I look upon the place as quite an oasis in the desert of drudgery and business; and at last I have to drag myself away, or I should become a confirmed sybarite.”“Well, why don’t you?” said Claud. “Only wish I had your chance.”“My dear Claud, you speak with the voice of one-and-twenty. When you are double your age you will find, as I do, that money and position and life’s pleasures soon pall, and that the real enjoyment of existence is really in work.”“Walker!” said Claud, contemptuously.Garstang laughed merrily, and while Wilton and his wife frowned and shook their heads at their son, he turned to Kate.“It is of no use to preach to young people,” he said, “but what I say is the truth. Not that I object to a bit of pleasure, Claud, boy. I’m looking forward to a few hours with you, my lad—jolly ones, as you call them, and as I used. How about the pheasants?”“More than you’ll shoot.”“Sure to be. My eye is not so true as it was, Maria.”“Stuff! You look quite a young man still.”“Well, I feel so sometimes. What about the pike in the lake, Claud? Can we troll a bit?”“It’s chock full of them. The weeds are rotten and the pike want thinning down. Will you come?”“Will I come! Indeed I will; and I’d ask your cousin to come on the lake with us to see our sport, but it would not be wise. How is the bay?”“Fit as a fiddle. Say the word and I’ll have him round if you’re for a ride.”“After lunch, my dear, after lunch,” said Mrs Wilton.“Yes, after lunch I should enjoy it,” said Garstang.“Two, sharp, then,” said Claud.“Yes, two, sharp,” replied Garstang, consulting his watch. “Quarter to one now.”“Yes, and lunch at one.”“By the way,” said Garstang, “Harry said he had been down here, and you gave him some good sport. I’m afraid I have made a mistake in tying him down to the law.”Wilton moved uneasily in his chair and darted an angry look at his wife, who began to fidget, and looked at Kate and then at her son.Garstang did not seem to notice anything, but smiled blandly, as he leaned back in his chair.“Oh, yes, he blazed away at the pheasants,” said Claud, sneeringly; “but he only wounded one, and it got away.”“That’s bad,” said Garstang. “But then he has not had your experience, Master Claud. It’s very good of you, though, James, to have him down, and of you, Maria, to make the boy so welcome. He speaks very gratefully about you.”“Oh, it isn’t my doing, John Garstang,” said the lady, hurriedly; “but of course I am bound to make him welcome when he comes;” and she uttered a little sigh as she glanced at her lord again, as if feeling satisfied that she had exonerated herself from a serious charge.“Ah, well, we’ll thank the lord of the manor, then,” said Garstang, smiling at Kate.“Needn’t thank me,” said Wilton, gruffly. “I don’t interfere with Claud’s choice of companions. If you mean that I encourage him to come and neglect his work you are quite out. You must talk to Claud.”“I don’t want him,” cried that gentleman.“But I think I understood him to say that you had asked him down again.”“Not I,” cried Claud. “He’d say anything.”“Indeed! I’m sorry to hear this. In fact, I half expected to find him down here, and if I had I was going to ask you, James, if you thought it would be possible for you to take him as—as—well, what shall I say?—a sort of farm pupil.”“I?” cried Wilton, in dismay. “What! Keep him here?”“Well—er—yes. He has such a penchant for country life, and I thought he would be extremely useful as a sort of overlooker, or bailiff, while learning to be a gentleman-farmer.”“You keep him at his desk, and make a lawyer of him,” said Wilton sourly. “He’ll be able to get a living then, and not have to be always borrowing to make both ends meet. There’s nothing to be made out of farming.”“Do you hear this, Kate, my dear?” said Garstang, with a meaning smile. “It is quite proverbial how the British farmer complains.”“You try farming then, and you’ll see.”“Why not?” said Garstang, laughingly, while his host writhed in his seat. “It always seems to me to be a delightful life in the country, with horses to ride, and hunting, shooting and fishing.”“Oh, yes,” growled Wilton, “and crops failing, and markets falling, and swine fever, and flukes in your sheep, and rinderpest in your cattle, and the bank refusing your checks.”“Oh, come, come, not so bad as that! You have fine weather as well as foul,” said Garstang, merrily. “Then Harry has not been down again, Claud?”“No, I haven’t seen him since he went back the other day,” said Claud, and added to himself, “and don’t want to.”“That’s strange,” said Garstang, thoughtfully. “I wonder where he has gone. I daresay he will be back at the office, though, by now. I don’t like for both of us to be away together. When the cat’s away the mice will play, Kate, as the old proverb says.”“Then why don’t you stop at the office, you jolly old sleek black tom, and not come purring down here?” said Claud to himself. “Bound to say you can spit and swear and scratch if you like.”There was a dead silence just then, which affected Mrs Wilton so that she felt bound to say something, and she turned to the visitor.“Of course, John Garstang, we don’t want to encourage Harry Dasent here, but if—”“Ah, here’s lunch ready at last,” cried Wilton, so sharply that his wife jumped and shrank from his angry glare, while the bell in the little wooden turret went on clanging away.“Oh, yes, lunch,” she said hastily. “Claud, my dear, will you take your cousin in?”But Garstang had already arisen, with bland, pleasant smile, and advanced to Kate.“May I?” he said, as if unconscious of his sister-in-law’s words; and at that moment a servant opened the library door as if to announce the lunch, but said instead:“Mr Harry Dasent, sir!”That gentleman entered the room.

“I say, don’t be in such a jolly hurry. You’re all right here, you know. I want to talk to you.”

“You really must excuse me now, Claud; I have not been well, and I’m going back to my room.”

“Of course you haven’t been well, Kitty—I say, I shall call you Kitty, you know—you can’t expect to be well moping upstairs in your room. I’ll soon put you right, better than that solemn-looking Doctor. You want to be out in the woods and fields. I know the country about here splendidly. I say, you ride, don’t you?”

“I? No.”

“Then I’ll teach you. Get your old maid to make you a good long skirt—that will do for a riding-habit at first—I’ll clap the side-saddle on my cob, and soon show you how to ride like a plucky girl should. I say, Kitty, I’ll hold you on at first—tight.”

The speaker smiled at her, and the girl shrank from him, but he did not see it.

“You’ll soon ride, and then you and I will have the jolliest of times together. I’ll make you ride so that by this time next year you’ll follow the hounds, and top a hedge with the best of them.”

“Oh, no, I have no wish to ride, Claud.”

“Yes, you have. You think so now, because you’re a bit down; but you wait till you’re on the cob, and then you’ll never want to come off. I don’t. I say, you haven’t seen me ride.”

“No, Claud; but I must go now.”

“You mustn’t, coz. I’m going to rouse you up. I say, though, I don’t want to brag, but I can ride—anything. I always get along with the first flight, and a little thing like you after I’ve been out with you a bit will astonish some of them. I shall keep my eye open, and the first pretty little tit I see that I think will suit you, I shall make the guv’nor buy.”

“I beg that you will not, Claud.”

“That’s right, do. Go down on your poor little knees and beg, and I’ll get the mount for you all the same. I know what will do you good and bring the blood into your pretty cheeks. No, no, don’t be in such a hurry. I won’t let you go upstairs and mope like a bird with the pip. You never handled a gun, I suppose?”

“No, never,” said Kate, half angrily now; “of course not.”

“Then you shall. You can have my double-barrel that father bought for me when I was a boy. It’s light as a feather, comes up to the shoulder splendidly, and has no more kick in it than a mouse. I tell you what, if it’s fine this afternoon you shall put on thick boots and a hat, and we’ll walk along by the fir plantations, and you shall have your first pop at a pheasant.”

“I shoot at a pheasant!” cried Kate in horror.

“Shoo!” exclaimed Claud playfully. “Yes, you have your first shot at a pheasant. Shuddering? That’s just like a London girl. How horrid, isn’t it?”

“Yes, horrible for a woman.”

“Not a bit of it. You’ll like it after the first shot. You’ll be ready enough to shove in the cartridges with those little hands, and bring the birds down. I say, I’ll teach you to fish, too, and throw a fly. You’ll like it, and soon forget all the mopes. You’ve been spoiled; but after a month or two here you won’t know yourself. Don’t be in such a hurry, Kitty.”

“Don’t hold my hand like that, Claud; I must really go now,” said Kate, whose troubled face was clouded with wonder, vexation, and something approaching fear. “I really wish to go into the house.”

“No, you don’t; you want to stop with me. I shan’t have a chance to talk to you again, with old Garstang here. I say, I saw you come out to have this little walk up and down here. I was watching and came after you to show you the way about the grounds.”

“It was very kind of you, Claud. Thank you; but let me go in now.”

“Shan’t I don’t get a chance to have a walk with such a girl as you every day. I am glad you’ve come. It makes our house seem quite different.”

“Thank you for saying so—but I feel quite faint now.”

“More need for you to stop in the fresh air. You faint, and I’ll bring you to again with a kiss. That’s the sort of thing to cure a girl who faints.”

She looked at him in horror and disgust, as he burst into a boisterous laugh.

“I suppose old Garstang isn’t a bad sort but we don’t much like him here. I say, what do you think of Harry Dasent?”

“I—I hardly know,” said Kate, who was trying her best to get back along the path by some laurels to where the conservatory door by the drawing-room stood open. “I have seen so little of him.”

“So much the better for you. He’s not a bad sort of a fellow for men to know, but he’s an awful cad with girls. Not a bit of a gentleman. You won’t see much more of him, though, for the guv’nor says he won’t have him here. I say, a month ago it would have made me set up on bristles, because I want him for a mate, but I don’t mind now you’ve come. We’ll be regular pals, and go out together everywhere. I’ll soon show you what country life is. Oh, well, if you will go in now I won’t stop you. I’ll go and have the little gun cleaned up, and—I say, come round the other way; I haven’t shown you the dogs.”

“No, no—not now, please, Claud. I really am tired out and faint.”

He still kept her hand tightly under his arm, in spite of her effort to withdraw it, and followed her into the conservatory, which was large and well-filled with ornamental shrubs and palms.

“Well, you do look a bit tired, dear, but it becomes you. I say, I am so glad you’ve come. What a pretty little hand this is. You’ll give me a kiss before you go?”

She started from him in horror.

“Nobody can’t see here. Just one,” he whispered, as he passed his arm round her waist; and before she could struggle free he had roughly kissed her twice.

“Um-m-m,” exclaimed Mrs Wilton, in a soft simmering way. “Claud, Claud, my dear, shocking, shocking! Oh, fie, fie, fie! You shouldn’t, you know. Anyone would think you were an engaged couple.”

“Aunt, dear!” cried Kate, in an agitated voice, as she clung to that lady, but no further words would come.

“Oh, there, there, my dear, don’t look like that,” cried Mrs Wilton. “I’m not a bit cross. Why, you’re all of a flutter. I wasn’t blaming you, my dear, only that naughty Claud. It was very rude of him, indeed. Really, Claud, my dear, it is not gentlemanly of you. Poor Kate is quite alarmed.”

“Then you shouldn’t have come peeping,” cried the oaf, with a boisterous laugh.

“Claud! for shame! I will not allow it. It is not respectful to your mamma. Now, come in, both of you. Mr Garstang is here—with your father, Claud, my love; and I wish you to be very nice and respectful to him, for who knows what may happen? Kate, my dear, I never think anything of money, but when one has rich relatives who have no children of their own, I always say that we oughtn’t to go out of our way to annoy them. Henry Dasent certainly is my sister’s child, but one can’t help thinking more of one’s own son; and as Harry is nothing to Mr Garstang, I can’t see how he can help remembering Claud very strongly in his will.”

“Doesn’t Claud wish he may get it!” cried that youth, with a grin. “I’m not going to toady old Garstang for the sake of his coin.”

“Nobody wishes you to, my dear; but come in; they must be done with their business by now. Come, my darling. Why, there’s a pretty bloom on your cheeks already. I felt that a little fresh air would do you good. They’re in the library; come along. We can go in through the verandah. Don’t whistle, Claud, dear; it’s so boyish.”

They passed together out of the farther door of the conservatory into the verandah, and as they approached an open window, a smooth bland voice said:

“I’ll do the best I can, Mr Wilton; but I am only the agent. If I stave it off, though, it can only be for a short time, and then—Ah, my dear child!”

John Garstang, calm, smooth, well-dressed and handsome, rose from one of the library chairs as Kate entered with her aunt, and held out both his hands: “I am very glad to see you again—very, very sorry to hear that you have been so ill. Hah!” he continued, as he scrutinised the agitated face before him in a tender fatherly way, “not quite right yet, though,” and he led her to a chair near the fire. “That rosy tinge is a trifle too hectic, and the face too transparently white. You must take care of her, Maria Wilton, and see that she has plenty of this beautiful fresh air. I hope she is a good obedient patient.”

“Ve-ry, ve-ry, good indeed, John Garstang, only a little too much disposed to keep to her room.”

“Oh, well, quite natural, too,” said Garstang, smiling. “What we all do when we are ailing. But there, we must not begin a discussion about ailments. I’m very glad to see you again, though, Kate, and congratulate you upon being here.”

“Thank you, Mr Garstang,” she replied, giving him a wistful look, as a feeling of loneliness amongst these people made her heart seem to contract.

“Well, Wilton, I don’t think we need talk any more about business?”

“Oh, we’re not going to stay,” cried Mrs Wilton. “Come, Kate, my child, and let these dreadful men talk.”

“By no means,” said Garstang; “sit still, pray. We shall have plenty of time for anything more we have to say over a cigar to-night, for I’ve come down to throw myself upon your hospitality for a day or two.”

“Of course, of course,” said Wilton, quickly; “Maria has a room ready for you.”

“Yes, your old room, John Garstang; and it’s beautifully aired, and just as you like it.”

“Thank you, Maria. You aunt always spoils me, Kate, when I come down here. I look upon the place as quite an oasis in the desert of drudgery and business; and at last I have to drag myself away, or I should become a confirmed sybarite.”

“Well, why don’t you?” said Claud. “Only wish I had your chance.”

“My dear Claud, you speak with the voice of one-and-twenty. When you are double your age you will find, as I do, that money and position and life’s pleasures soon pall, and that the real enjoyment of existence is really in work.”

“Walker!” said Claud, contemptuously.

Garstang laughed merrily, and while Wilton and his wife frowned and shook their heads at their son, he turned to Kate.

“It is of no use to preach to young people,” he said, “but what I say is the truth. Not that I object to a bit of pleasure, Claud, boy. I’m looking forward to a few hours with you, my lad—jolly ones, as you call them, and as I used. How about the pheasants?”

“More than you’ll shoot.”

“Sure to be. My eye is not so true as it was, Maria.”

“Stuff! You look quite a young man still.”

“Well, I feel so sometimes. What about the pike in the lake, Claud? Can we troll a bit?”

“It’s chock full of them. The weeds are rotten and the pike want thinning down. Will you come?”

“Will I come! Indeed I will; and I’d ask your cousin to come on the lake with us to see our sport, but it would not be wise. How is the bay?”

“Fit as a fiddle. Say the word and I’ll have him round if you’re for a ride.”

“After lunch, my dear, after lunch,” said Mrs Wilton.

“Yes, after lunch I should enjoy it,” said Garstang.

“Two, sharp, then,” said Claud.

“Yes, two, sharp,” replied Garstang, consulting his watch. “Quarter to one now.”

“Yes, and lunch at one.”

“By the way,” said Garstang, “Harry said he had been down here, and you gave him some good sport. I’m afraid I have made a mistake in tying him down to the law.”

Wilton moved uneasily in his chair and darted an angry look at his wife, who began to fidget, and looked at Kate and then at her son.

Garstang did not seem to notice anything, but smiled blandly, as he leaned back in his chair.

“Oh, yes, he blazed away at the pheasants,” said Claud, sneeringly; “but he only wounded one, and it got away.”

“That’s bad,” said Garstang. “But then he has not had your experience, Master Claud. It’s very good of you, though, James, to have him down, and of you, Maria, to make the boy so welcome. He speaks very gratefully about you.”

“Oh, it isn’t my doing, John Garstang,” said the lady, hurriedly; “but of course I am bound to make him welcome when he comes;” and she uttered a little sigh as she glanced at her lord again, as if feeling satisfied that she had exonerated herself from a serious charge.

“Ah, well, we’ll thank the lord of the manor, then,” said Garstang, smiling at Kate.

“Needn’t thank me,” said Wilton, gruffly. “I don’t interfere with Claud’s choice of companions. If you mean that I encourage him to come and neglect his work you are quite out. You must talk to Claud.”

“I don’t want him,” cried that gentleman.

“But I think I understood him to say that you had asked him down again.”

“Not I,” cried Claud. “He’d say anything.”

“Indeed! I’m sorry to hear this. In fact, I half expected to find him down here, and if I had I was going to ask you, James, if you thought it would be possible for you to take him as—as—well, what shall I say?—a sort of farm pupil.”

“I?” cried Wilton, in dismay. “What! Keep him here?”

“Well—er—yes. He has such a penchant for country life, and I thought he would be extremely useful as a sort of overlooker, or bailiff, while learning to be a gentleman-farmer.”

“You keep him at his desk, and make a lawyer of him,” said Wilton sourly. “He’ll be able to get a living then, and not have to be always borrowing to make both ends meet. There’s nothing to be made out of farming.”

“Do you hear this, Kate, my dear?” said Garstang, with a meaning smile. “It is quite proverbial how the British farmer complains.”

“You try farming then, and you’ll see.”

“Why not?” said Garstang, laughingly, while his host writhed in his seat. “It always seems to me to be a delightful life in the country, with horses to ride, and hunting, shooting and fishing.”

“Oh, yes,” growled Wilton, “and crops failing, and markets falling, and swine fever, and flukes in your sheep, and rinderpest in your cattle, and the bank refusing your checks.”

“Oh, come, come, not so bad as that! You have fine weather as well as foul,” said Garstang, merrily. “Then Harry has not been down again, Claud?”

“No, I haven’t seen him since he went back the other day,” said Claud, and added to himself, “and don’t want to.”

“That’s strange,” said Garstang, thoughtfully. “I wonder where he has gone. I daresay he will be back at the office, though, by now. I don’t like for both of us to be away together. When the cat’s away the mice will play, Kate, as the old proverb says.”

“Then why don’t you stop at the office, you jolly old sleek black tom, and not come purring down here?” said Claud to himself. “Bound to say you can spit and swear and scratch if you like.”

There was a dead silence just then, which affected Mrs Wilton so that she felt bound to say something, and she turned to the visitor.

“Of course, John Garstang, we don’t want to encourage Harry Dasent here, but if—”

“Ah, here’s lunch ready at last,” cried Wilton, so sharply that his wife jumped and shrank from his angry glare, while the bell in the little wooden turret went on clanging away.

“Oh, yes, lunch,” she said hastily. “Claud, my dear, will you take your cousin in?”

But Garstang had already arisen, with bland, pleasant smile, and advanced to Kate.

“May I?” he said, as if unconscious of his sister-in-law’s words; and at that moment a servant opened the library door as if to announce the lunch, but said instead:

“Mr Harry Dasent, sir!”

That gentleman entered the room.

Chapter Nine.“Hello, Harry!” said Claud, breaking up what is generally known as an awkward pause, for the fresh arrival had been received in frigid silence.“Ah, Harry, my boy,” said Garstang, with a pleasant smile, “I half expected to find you here.”“Did you?” said the young man, making an effort to be at his ease. “Rather a rough morning for a walk—roads so bad. I’ve run down for a few hours to see how Kate Wilton was. Thought you’d give me a bit of lunch.”“Of course, my dear,” said Mrs Wilton, stiffly, and glancing at her husband afterwards as if to say, “Wasn’t that right?”“One knife and fork more or less doesn’t make much difference at my table,” said Wilton, sourly.“And he does look pretty hungry,” said Claud with a grin.“Glad to see you looking better, Kate,” continued the young man, holding out his hand to take that which was released from his step-father’s for the moment.“Thank you, yes,” said Kate, quietly; “I am better.”“Well, we must not keep the lunch waiting,” said Garstang. “Won’t you take in your aunt, Harry? And, by the way, I must ask you to get back to-night so as to be at the office in good time in the morning, for I’m afraid my business will keep me here for some days.”“Oh, yes, I’ll be there,” replied the young man, with a meaning look at Garstang; and then offering his arm to Mrs Wilton, they filed off into the dining-room, to partake of a luncheon which would have been eaten almost in silence but for Garstang. He cleverly kept the ball rolling with his easy, fluent conversation, seeming as he did to be a master of the art of drawing everyone out in turn on his or her particular subject, and as if entirely for the benefit of the convalescent, to whom he made constant appeals for her judgment.The result was that to her own surprise the girl grew more animated, and more than once found herself looking gratefully in the eyes of the courtly man of the world, who spoke as if quite at home on every topic he started, whether it was in a discussion with the hostess on cookery and preserves, with Wilton on farming and the treatment of cattle, or with the young men on hunting, shooting, fishing and the drama.And it was all so pleasantly done that a load seemed to be lifted from the sufferer’s breast, and she found herself contrasting what her life was with what it might have been had Garstang been left her guardian, and half wondered why her father, who had been one of the most refined and scrupulous of men, should have chosen her Uncle James instead of the polished courtly relative who set her so completely at her ease and listened with such paternal deference to her words.“Wish I could draw her out like he does,” thought Claud.—“These old fogies! they always seem to know what to say to make a wench grin.”“He’ll watch me like a cat does a mouse,” said Harry to himself, “but I’ll have a turn at her somehow.”James Wilton said little, and looked glum, principally from the pressure of money on the brain; but Mrs Wilton said a great deal, much more than she should have said, some of her speeches being particularly unfortunate, and those which followed only making matters worse. But Garstang always came to her help when Wilton’s brow was clouding over; and the lady sighed to herself when the meal was at an end.“If Harry don’t come with us I shall stop in,” said Claud to himself; and then aloud, “Close upon two. You’d like a turn with us, Harry, fishing or shooting?”“I? No. I’m tired with my walk, and I’ve got to do it again this evening.”“No, you haven’t,” said Claud, sulkily; “you know you’ll be driven back.”“Oh, yes,” said Garstang; “your uncle will not let you walk. Better come, Harry.”“Thanks, no, sir; I’ll stop and talk to Aunt and Kate, here.”“No, my dear; we must not tire Kate out, she’ll have to go and lie down this afternoon.”“Oh, very well then, Aunt; I’ll stop and talk to you and Uncle.”“Then you’ll have to come round the farms with me if you do,” growled Wilton.“Thanks, no; I’ve walked enough through the mud for one day.”“Let him have his own way, Claud, my lad,” cried Garstang. “We must be off. See you down to dinner, I hope, Kate, my child?”She smiled at him.“Yes, I hope to be well enough to come down,” she replied.“That’s right; and we’ll see what we can get to boast about when we come back. Come along, boy.”Claud was ready to hesitate, but he could not back out, and he followed Garstang, the young men’s eyes meeting in a defiant gaze.But he turned as he reached the door.“Didn’t say good-bye to you, Mamma. All right,” he cried, kissing her boisterously. “I won’t let them shoot me, and I’ll mind and not tumble out of the boat. I say,” he whispered, “don’t let him get Kate alone.”“Oh, that’s your game, is it?” said Harry to himself; “treats it with contempt. All right, proud step-father; you haven’t all the brains in the world.”He followed the gentlemen into the hall, and then stood at the door to see them off, hearing Garstang say familiarly: “Let’s show them what we can do, Harry, my lad. It’s just the day for the pike. Here, try one of these; they tell me they are rather choice.”“Oh, I shall light my pipe,” said the young man sulkily.“Wise man, as a rule; but try one of these first, and if you don’t like it you can throw it away.”Claud lit the proffered cigar rather sulkily, and they went off; while Harry, after seeing Wilton go round to the stables, went back into the hall, and was about to enter the drawing-room, but a glance down at his muddy boots made him hesitate.He could hear the voice of Mrs Wilton as she talked loudly to her niece, and twice over he raised his hand to the door knob, but each time lowered it; and going back into the dining-room, he rang the bell.“Can I have my boots brushed?” he said to the footman.“Yes, sir, I’ll bring you a pair of slippers.”“Oh, no, I’ll come to the pantry and put my feet up on a chair.”The man did not look pleased at this, but he led the way to his place, fetched the blacking and brushes, and as he manipulated them he underwent a kind of cross-examination about the household affairs, answering the first question rather shortly, the rest with a fair amount of eagerness. For the visitor’s hand had stolen into his pocket and come out again with half-a-crown, which he used to rasp the back of the old Windsor chair on which he rested his foot, and then, balancing it on one finger, he tapped it softly, making it give forth a pleasant jingling sound that was very grateful to the man’s ear, for he brushed away most diligently, blacked, polished, breathed on the leather, and brushed again.“Keep as good hours as ever?” said Dasent, after several questions had been put.“Oh, yes, sir. Prayers at ha’-past nine, and if there’s a light going anywhere with us after ten the governor’s sure to see it and make a row. He’s dreadful early, night and morning, too.”“Yes, he is very early of a morning, I noticed. Well, it makes the days longer.”“Well, sir, it do; but one has to be up pretty sharp to get his boots done and his hot water into his room by seven, for if it’s five minutes past he’s there before you, waiting, and looking as black as thunder. My predecessor got the sack, they say, for being quarter of an hour late two or three times, and it isn’t easy to be ready in weather like this.”“What, dark in the mornings?”“Oh, no, sir, I don’t mean that. It’s his boots. He gets them that clogged and soaked that I have to wash ’em overnight and put ’em to the kitchen fire, and if that goes out too soon it’s an awful job to get ’em to shine. They don’t have a hot pair of feet in ’em like these, sir. Your portmanteau coming on by the carrier?”“Oh, no, I go back to-night. And that reminds me—have they got a good dog-cart in the village?”“Dog-cart, sir?” said the man, with a laugh; “not here. The baker’s got a donkey-cart, and there’s plenty of farmers’ carts. That’s all there is near.”“I thought so, but I’ve been here so little lately.”“But you needn’t mind about that, sir. Master’s sure to order our trap to be round to take you to the station, and Tom Johnson’ll be glad enough to drive you.”“Oh, yes; of course; but I like to be independent. I daresay I shall walk back.”“I wouldn’t, sir, begging your pardon, for it’s an awkward road in the dark. Tell you what, though, sir, if you did, there’s the man at Barber’s Corner, at the little pub, two miles on the road. He has a very good pony and trap. He does a bit of chicken higgling round the country. You mention my name, sir, and he’d be glad enough to drive you for a florin or half-a-crown.”“Ah, well, we shall see,” said Dasent, putting down his second leg. “Look a deal better for the touch-up. Get yourself a glass.”“Thankye, sir. Much obliged, sir. But beg your pardon, sir, I’ll just give Tom Johnson a ’int and he’ll have the horse ready in the dog-cart time enough for you. He’ll suppose it’ll be wanted. It’ll be all right, sir. I wouldn’t go tramping it on a dark night, sir, and it’s only doing the horse good. They pretty well eat their heads off here sometimes.”“No, no, certainly not,” said Dasent. “Thank you, though, er—Samuel, all the same.”“Thank you, sir,” said the man, and the donor of half-a-crown went back through the swing baize-covered door, and crossed the hall.“Needn’t ha’ been so proud; but p’raps he ain’t got another half-crown. Lor’, what a gent will do sooner than be under an obligation!”Even that half-crown seemed to have been thrown away, for upon the giver entering the drawing-room it was to find it empty, and after a little hesitation he returned to the hall, where he was just in time to encounter the footman with a wooden tray, on his way to clear away the lunch things.“Is your mistress going out?” he said. “There is no one in the drawing-room.”“Gone upstairs to have her afternoon nap, sir,” said the man, in a low tone. “I suppose Miss Wilton’s gone up to her room, too?”Dasent nodded, took his hat, and went out, lit a cigar, and began walking up and down, apparently admiring the front of the old, long, low, red-brick house, with its many windows and two wings covered with wistaria and roses. One window—that at the end of the west wing—took his attention greatly, and he looked up at it a good deal before slowly making his way round to the garden, where he displayed a great deal of interest in the vineries and the walls, where a couple of men were busy with their ladders, nailing.Here he stood watching them for some minutes—the deft way in which they used shreds and nails to rearrange the thin bearing shoots of peach and plum.After this he passed through an arched doorway in the wall, and smoked in front of the trained pear-trees, before going on to the yard where the tool shed stood, and the ladders used for gathering the apples in the orchard hung beneath the eaves of the long, low mushroom house.Twice over he went back to the hall, but the drawing-room stood open, and the place was wonderfully quiet and still.“Anyone would think he was master here,” said one of the men, as he saw Dasent pass by the third time. “Won’t be much he don’t know about the place when he’s done.”“Shouldn’t wonder if he is,” said the other. “Him and his father’s lawyers, and the guv’nor don’t seem none too chirpy just now. They say he is in Queer Street.”“Who’s they?” said his companion, speaking indistinctly, consequent upon having two nails and a shred between his lips.“Why, they. I dunno, but it’s about that they’ve been a bit awkward with the guv’nor at Bramwich Bank.”“That’s nothing. Life’s all ups and downs. It won’t hurt us. We shall get our wages, I dessay. They’re always paid.”The afternoon wore on and at dusk Garstang and Claud made their appearance, followed by a labourer carrying a basket, which was too short to hold the head and tail of a twelve-pound pike, which lay on the top of half-a-dozen more.“Better have come with us, Harry,” said Claud. “Had some pretty good sport. Found it dull?”“I? No,” was the reply. “I say, what time do you dine to-night?”“Old hour—six.”“Going to stay dinner, Harry?” said Garstang.“Oh, yes; I’m going to stay dinner,” said the young man, giving him a defiant look.“Well, it will be pleasanter, but it is a very dark ride.”“Yes, but I’m going to walk.”“No, you aren’t,” said Claud, in a sulky tone of voice; “we’re going to have you driven over.”“There is no need.”“Oh, yes, there is. I want a ride to have a cigar after dinner, and I shall come and see you off. We don’t do things like that, even if we haven’t asked anyone to come.”Kate made her appearance again at dinner, and once more Garstang was the life and soul of the party, which would otherwise have been full of constraint. But it was not done in a boisterous, ostentatious way. Everything was in good taste, and Kate more than once grew quite animated, till she saw that both the young men were eagerly listening to her, when she withdrew into herself.Mrs Wilton got through the dinner without once making her lord frown, and she was congratulating herself upon her success, as she rose, after making a sign, when her final words evolved a tempestuous flash of his eyes.“Don’t you think you had better stop till the morning, Harry Dasent?” she said.But his quick reply allayed the storm at once.“Oh, no, thank you, Aunt,” he said, with a side glance at Garstang. “I must be back to look after business in the morning.”“But it’s so dark, my dear.”“Bah! the dark won’t hurt him, Maria, and I’ve told them to bring the dog-cart round at eight.”“Oh, that’s very good of you, sir,” said the young man; “but I had made up my mind to walk.”“I told you I should ride over with you, didn’t I?” growled Claud.“Yes, but—”“I know. There, hold your row. We needn’t start till half-past eight, so there’ll be plenty of time for coffee and a cigar.”“Then I had better say good-night to you now, Mr Dasent,” said Kate, quietly, holding out her hand.“Oh, I shall see you again,” he cried.“No; I am about to ask Aunt to let me go up to my room now; it has been a tiring day.”“Then good-night,” he said impressively, and he took and pressed her hand in a way which made her colour slightly, and Claud twitch one arm and double his list under the table.“Good-night. Good-night, Claud.” She shook hands; then crossed to her uncle.“Good-night, my dear,” he said, drawing her down to kiss her cheek. “Glad you are so much better.”“Thank you, Uncle.—Good-night, Mr Garstang.” Her lip was quivering a little, but she smiled at him gratefully as he rose and spoke in a low affectionate way.“Good-night, my dear child,” he said. “Let me play doctor with a bit of good advice. Make up your mind for a long night’s rest, and ask your uncle and aunt to excuse you at breakfast in the morning. You must hasten slowly to get back your strength. Good-night.”“You’ll have to take great care of her, James,” he continued, as he returned to his seat. “Umph! Yes, I mean to,” said the host. “A very, very sweet girt,” said Garstang thoughtfully, and his face was perfectly calm as he met his stepson’s shifty glance.Then coffee was brought in; Claud, at a hint from his lather, fetched a cigar box, and was drawn out by Garstang during the smoking to give a lull account of their sport that afternoon with the pike.“Quite bent the gaff hook,” he was saying later on, when the grating of wheels was heard; and soon after the young men started, Mrs Wilton coming into the hall to see them off and advise them both to wrap up well about their chests.That night John Garstang broke his host’s rules by keeping his candle burning late, while he sat thinking deeply by the bedroom fire; for he had a good deal upon his brain just then. “No,” he said at last, as he rose to wind up his watch; “she would not dare. But fore-warned is fore-armed, my man. You were never meant for a diplomat. Bah! Nor for anything else.”But it was a long time that night before John Garstang slept.

“Hello, Harry!” said Claud, breaking up what is generally known as an awkward pause, for the fresh arrival had been received in frigid silence.

“Ah, Harry, my boy,” said Garstang, with a pleasant smile, “I half expected to find you here.”

“Did you?” said the young man, making an effort to be at his ease. “Rather a rough morning for a walk—roads so bad. I’ve run down for a few hours to see how Kate Wilton was. Thought you’d give me a bit of lunch.”

“Of course, my dear,” said Mrs Wilton, stiffly, and glancing at her husband afterwards as if to say, “Wasn’t that right?”

“One knife and fork more or less doesn’t make much difference at my table,” said Wilton, sourly.

“And he does look pretty hungry,” said Claud with a grin.

“Glad to see you looking better, Kate,” continued the young man, holding out his hand to take that which was released from his step-father’s for the moment.

“Thank you, yes,” said Kate, quietly; “I am better.”

“Well, we must not keep the lunch waiting,” said Garstang. “Won’t you take in your aunt, Harry? And, by the way, I must ask you to get back to-night so as to be at the office in good time in the morning, for I’m afraid my business will keep me here for some days.”

“Oh, yes, I’ll be there,” replied the young man, with a meaning look at Garstang; and then offering his arm to Mrs Wilton, they filed off into the dining-room, to partake of a luncheon which would have been eaten almost in silence but for Garstang. He cleverly kept the ball rolling with his easy, fluent conversation, seeming as he did to be a master of the art of drawing everyone out in turn on his or her particular subject, and as if entirely for the benefit of the convalescent, to whom he made constant appeals for her judgment.

The result was that to her own surprise the girl grew more animated, and more than once found herself looking gratefully in the eyes of the courtly man of the world, who spoke as if quite at home on every topic he started, whether it was in a discussion with the hostess on cookery and preserves, with Wilton on farming and the treatment of cattle, or with the young men on hunting, shooting, fishing and the drama.

And it was all so pleasantly done that a load seemed to be lifted from the sufferer’s breast, and she found herself contrasting what her life was with what it might have been had Garstang been left her guardian, and half wondered why her father, who had been one of the most refined and scrupulous of men, should have chosen her Uncle James instead of the polished courtly relative who set her so completely at her ease and listened with such paternal deference to her words.

“Wish I could draw her out like he does,” thought Claud.—“These old fogies! they always seem to know what to say to make a wench grin.”

“He’ll watch me like a cat does a mouse,” said Harry to himself, “but I’ll have a turn at her somehow.”

James Wilton said little, and looked glum, principally from the pressure of money on the brain; but Mrs Wilton said a great deal, much more than she should have said, some of her speeches being particularly unfortunate, and those which followed only making matters worse. But Garstang always came to her help when Wilton’s brow was clouding over; and the lady sighed to herself when the meal was at an end.

“If Harry don’t come with us I shall stop in,” said Claud to himself; and then aloud, “Close upon two. You’d like a turn with us, Harry, fishing or shooting?”

“I? No. I’m tired with my walk, and I’ve got to do it again this evening.”

“No, you haven’t,” said Claud, sulkily; “you know you’ll be driven back.”

“Oh, yes,” said Garstang; “your uncle will not let you walk. Better come, Harry.”

“Thanks, no, sir; I’ll stop and talk to Aunt and Kate, here.”

“No, my dear; we must not tire Kate out, she’ll have to go and lie down this afternoon.”

“Oh, very well then, Aunt; I’ll stop and talk to you and Uncle.”

“Then you’ll have to come round the farms with me if you do,” growled Wilton.

“Thanks, no; I’ve walked enough through the mud for one day.”

“Let him have his own way, Claud, my lad,” cried Garstang. “We must be off. See you down to dinner, I hope, Kate, my child?”

She smiled at him.

“Yes, I hope to be well enough to come down,” she replied.

“That’s right; and we’ll see what we can get to boast about when we come back. Come along, boy.”

Claud was ready to hesitate, but he could not back out, and he followed Garstang, the young men’s eyes meeting in a defiant gaze.

But he turned as he reached the door.

“Didn’t say good-bye to you, Mamma. All right,” he cried, kissing her boisterously. “I won’t let them shoot me, and I’ll mind and not tumble out of the boat. I say,” he whispered, “don’t let him get Kate alone.”

“Oh, that’s your game, is it?” said Harry to himself; “treats it with contempt. All right, proud step-father; you haven’t all the brains in the world.”

He followed the gentlemen into the hall, and then stood at the door to see them off, hearing Garstang say familiarly: “Let’s show them what we can do, Harry, my lad. It’s just the day for the pike. Here, try one of these; they tell me they are rather choice.”

“Oh, I shall light my pipe,” said the young man sulkily.

“Wise man, as a rule; but try one of these first, and if you don’t like it you can throw it away.”

Claud lit the proffered cigar rather sulkily, and they went off; while Harry, after seeing Wilton go round to the stables, went back into the hall, and was about to enter the drawing-room, but a glance down at his muddy boots made him hesitate.

He could hear the voice of Mrs Wilton as she talked loudly to her niece, and twice over he raised his hand to the door knob, but each time lowered it; and going back into the dining-room, he rang the bell.

“Can I have my boots brushed?” he said to the footman.

“Yes, sir, I’ll bring you a pair of slippers.”

“Oh, no, I’ll come to the pantry and put my feet up on a chair.”

The man did not look pleased at this, but he led the way to his place, fetched the blacking and brushes, and as he manipulated them he underwent a kind of cross-examination about the household affairs, answering the first question rather shortly, the rest with a fair amount of eagerness. For the visitor’s hand had stolen into his pocket and come out again with half-a-crown, which he used to rasp the back of the old Windsor chair on which he rested his foot, and then, balancing it on one finger, he tapped it softly, making it give forth a pleasant jingling sound that was very grateful to the man’s ear, for he brushed away most diligently, blacked, polished, breathed on the leather, and brushed again.

“Keep as good hours as ever?” said Dasent, after several questions had been put.

“Oh, yes, sir. Prayers at ha’-past nine, and if there’s a light going anywhere with us after ten the governor’s sure to see it and make a row. He’s dreadful early, night and morning, too.”

“Yes, he is very early of a morning, I noticed. Well, it makes the days longer.”

“Well, sir, it do; but one has to be up pretty sharp to get his boots done and his hot water into his room by seven, for if it’s five minutes past he’s there before you, waiting, and looking as black as thunder. My predecessor got the sack, they say, for being quarter of an hour late two or three times, and it isn’t easy to be ready in weather like this.”

“What, dark in the mornings?”

“Oh, no, sir, I don’t mean that. It’s his boots. He gets them that clogged and soaked that I have to wash ’em overnight and put ’em to the kitchen fire, and if that goes out too soon it’s an awful job to get ’em to shine. They don’t have a hot pair of feet in ’em like these, sir. Your portmanteau coming on by the carrier?”

“Oh, no, I go back to-night. And that reminds me—have they got a good dog-cart in the village?”

“Dog-cart, sir?” said the man, with a laugh; “not here. The baker’s got a donkey-cart, and there’s plenty of farmers’ carts. That’s all there is near.”

“I thought so, but I’ve been here so little lately.”

“But you needn’t mind about that, sir. Master’s sure to order our trap to be round to take you to the station, and Tom Johnson’ll be glad enough to drive you.”

“Oh, yes; of course; but I like to be independent. I daresay I shall walk back.”

“I wouldn’t, sir, begging your pardon, for it’s an awkward road in the dark. Tell you what, though, sir, if you did, there’s the man at Barber’s Corner, at the little pub, two miles on the road. He has a very good pony and trap. He does a bit of chicken higgling round the country. You mention my name, sir, and he’d be glad enough to drive you for a florin or half-a-crown.”

“Ah, well, we shall see,” said Dasent, putting down his second leg. “Look a deal better for the touch-up. Get yourself a glass.”

“Thankye, sir. Much obliged, sir. But beg your pardon, sir, I’ll just give Tom Johnson a ’int and he’ll have the horse ready in the dog-cart time enough for you. He’ll suppose it’ll be wanted. It’ll be all right, sir. I wouldn’t go tramping it on a dark night, sir, and it’s only doing the horse good. They pretty well eat their heads off here sometimes.”

“No, no, certainly not,” said Dasent. “Thank you, though, er—Samuel, all the same.”

“Thank you, sir,” said the man, and the donor of half-a-crown went back through the swing baize-covered door, and crossed the hall.

“Needn’t ha’ been so proud; but p’raps he ain’t got another half-crown. Lor’, what a gent will do sooner than be under an obligation!”

Even that half-crown seemed to have been thrown away, for upon the giver entering the drawing-room it was to find it empty, and after a little hesitation he returned to the hall, where he was just in time to encounter the footman with a wooden tray, on his way to clear away the lunch things.

“Is your mistress going out?” he said. “There is no one in the drawing-room.”

“Gone upstairs to have her afternoon nap, sir,” said the man, in a low tone. “I suppose Miss Wilton’s gone up to her room, too?”

Dasent nodded, took his hat, and went out, lit a cigar, and began walking up and down, apparently admiring the front of the old, long, low, red-brick house, with its many windows and two wings covered with wistaria and roses. One window—that at the end of the west wing—took his attention greatly, and he looked up at it a good deal before slowly making his way round to the garden, where he displayed a great deal of interest in the vineries and the walls, where a couple of men were busy with their ladders, nailing.

Here he stood watching them for some minutes—the deft way in which they used shreds and nails to rearrange the thin bearing shoots of peach and plum.

After this he passed through an arched doorway in the wall, and smoked in front of the trained pear-trees, before going on to the yard where the tool shed stood, and the ladders used for gathering the apples in the orchard hung beneath the eaves of the long, low mushroom house.

Twice over he went back to the hall, but the drawing-room stood open, and the place was wonderfully quiet and still.

“Anyone would think he was master here,” said one of the men, as he saw Dasent pass by the third time. “Won’t be much he don’t know about the place when he’s done.”

“Shouldn’t wonder if he is,” said the other. “Him and his father’s lawyers, and the guv’nor don’t seem none too chirpy just now. They say he is in Queer Street.”

“Who’s they?” said his companion, speaking indistinctly, consequent upon having two nails and a shred between his lips.

“Why, they. I dunno, but it’s about that they’ve been a bit awkward with the guv’nor at Bramwich Bank.”

“That’s nothing. Life’s all ups and downs. It won’t hurt us. We shall get our wages, I dessay. They’re always paid.”

The afternoon wore on and at dusk Garstang and Claud made their appearance, followed by a labourer carrying a basket, which was too short to hold the head and tail of a twelve-pound pike, which lay on the top of half-a-dozen more.

“Better have come with us, Harry,” said Claud. “Had some pretty good sport. Found it dull?”

“I? No,” was the reply. “I say, what time do you dine to-night?”

“Old hour—six.”

“Going to stay dinner, Harry?” said Garstang.

“Oh, yes; I’m going to stay dinner,” said the young man, giving him a defiant look.

“Well, it will be pleasanter, but it is a very dark ride.”

“Yes, but I’m going to walk.”

“No, you aren’t,” said Claud, in a sulky tone of voice; “we’re going to have you driven over.”

“There is no need.”

“Oh, yes, there is. I want a ride to have a cigar after dinner, and I shall come and see you off. We don’t do things like that, even if we haven’t asked anyone to come.”

Kate made her appearance again at dinner, and once more Garstang was the life and soul of the party, which would otherwise have been full of constraint. But it was not done in a boisterous, ostentatious way. Everything was in good taste, and Kate more than once grew quite animated, till she saw that both the young men were eagerly listening to her, when she withdrew into herself.

Mrs Wilton got through the dinner without once making her lord frown, and she was congratulating herself upon her success, as she rose, after making a sign, when her final words evolved a tempestuous flash of his eyes.

“Don’t you think you had better stop till the morning, Harry Dasent?” she said.

But his quick reply allayed the storm at once.

“Oh, no, thank you, Aunt,” he said, with a side glance at Garstang. “I must be back to look after business in the morning.”

“But it’s so dark, my dear.”

“Bah! the dark won’t hurt him, Maria, and I’ve told them to bring the dog-cart round at eight.”

“Oh, that’s very good of you, sir,” said the young man; “but I had made up my mind to walk.”

“I told you I should ride over with you, didn’t I?” growled Claud.

“Yes, but—”

“I know. There, hold your row. We needn’t start till half-past eight, so there’ll be plenty of time for coffee and a cigar.”

“Then I had better say good-night to you now, Mr Dasent,” said Kate, quietly, holding out her hand.

“Oh, I shall see you again,” he cried.

“No; I am about to ask Aunt to let me go up to my room now; it has been a tiring day.”

“Then good-night,” he said impressively, and he took and pressed her hand in a way which made her colour slightly, and Claud twitch one arm and double his list under the table.

“Good-night. Good-night, Claud.” She shook hands; then crossed to her uncle.

“Good-night, my dear,” he said, drawing her down to kiss her cheek. “Glad you are so much better.”

“Thank you, Uncle.—Good-night, Mr Garstang.” Her lip was quivering a little, but she smiled at him gratefully as he rose and spoke in a low affectionate way.

“Good-night, my dear child,” he said. “Let me play doctor with a bit of good advice. Make up your mind for a long night’s rest, and ask your uncle and aunt to excuse you at breakfast in the morning. You must hasten slowly to get back your strength. Good-night.”

“You’ll have to take great care of her, James,” he continued, as he returned to his seat. “Umph! Yes, I mean to,” said the host. “A very, very sweet girt,” said Garstang thoughtfully, and his face was perfectly calm as he met his stepson’s shifty glance.

Then coffee was brought in; Claud, at a hint from his lather, fetched a cigar box, and was drawn out by Garstang during the smoking to give a lull account of their sport that afternoon with the pike.

“Quite bent the gaff hook,” he was saying later on, when the grating of wheels was heard; and soon after the young men started, Mrs Wilton coming into the hall to see them off and advise them both to wrap up well about their chests.

That night John Garstang broke his host’s rules by keeping his candle burning late, while he sat thinking deeply by the bedroom fire; for he had a good deal upon his brain just then. “No,” he said at last, as he rose to wind up his watch; “she would not dare. But fore-warned is fore-armed, my man. You were never meant for a diplomat. Bah! Nor for anything else.”

But it was a long time that night before John Garstang slept.

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