The Silver Lining Part 33

"Let him go," said the others.

Tom did not heed their talk, but directed his steps towards uncle Rougeant's farm-house.

He opened the door, walked straight in, and seated himself in a chair near the long bare table, without saying a word to his uncle.

The latter was in a dreadful state of mental excitement. He was walking up and down the room with his hands thrust deeply into his trousers' pockets, uttering execrations, blaming everyone and everything. He was so occupied with his ravings that he only cast a glance at his nephew, who stood, or rather sat, wondering what the d.i.c.kens his uncle was about.

"Ah, this generation," said the farmer, "this generation is a ma.s.s of spoilt and pampered dolls"--he was thinking of his daughter--"they only think about running here and there; paying visits to friends, taking tea with cousins, or walks with dressed-up mashers.

"They do not care if they leave a poor old devil"--the appellation was appropriate enough--"all alone, with not even a dog to keep him company or a cat which he could kick; off they go, dressed in the garments for which you have paid out of your own pockets; ay, and for which you have toiled and perspired----"

"You're quite right, uncle," came from Tom.

The farmer gave a sudden start. He had altogether forgotten his nephew's presence. He went on:--"People are as proud as if they were all of blood royal. Even the poorest women, one sees pa.s.s in the afternoon with perambulators in which sleeps some little urchin who, mayhap, is brought up nearly all on the charity of saving people like me.

"It's a curse to have to pay taxes for this vermin. I say it's a downright injustice to make us, who attach ten times more value to a penny than they do, pay for the education of their brats.

"Ah! in my time, in the good old time, which is alas, gone for ever, we, the respectable people, were rolled about in clumsy little wooden carts, and the children of the labourers were carried in their mother's arms and placed between two bundles of ferns, while their mother went about her work. For, poor women went to work in those days. Ay! they had to do it or starve. But now, what do we see? These labourers' wives with servants."

He stamped, his foot impatiently. "And when they are dest.i.tute and homeless from sheer want of foresight, they are kept and fed out of the taxes which come out of our pockets. So-called civilisation and education are ruining the present generation."

"That's where you're right, uncle," interposed his nephew.

Mr. Rougeant went on: "Farmers' sons do not want to work now. Every one rails at manual labour. If this state of things goes on, the island will soon be a ma.s.s of ruined and dissipated human beings.

The honourable people who have a pedigree they can boast of, are mixing with foreigners, whom no one knows whence they have sprung from. If you drink a gla.s.s of cider now a days, you are termed a drunkard by a lot of tea-drinkers, teetotalers and----."

"A gla.s.s of cider would do good, one is thirsty this weather,"

interrupted Tom, who, although half asleep, had caught the word cider.

Without even casting a glance at his nephew, so absorbed was he, the farmer continued: "One hears nothing but bicycle-bells. These bicycles are the greatest nuisance yet invented. I am surprised that people rack their brains in order to invent such worthless rubbish.

Every one must have a bicycle. There may not be any bread in the house, the children may not be able to go to school or the wife to church for want of a decent pair of boots, but, 'I will have a bicycle.' And then, it is so very easy to have one, there's the hire system. Another curse of civilisation that is ruining the poor man.

If our peasantry knew how to put by for a rainy day, like the French country-folk do, we should not have so many applications for relief, our hospitals would well nigh be empty."

"_Vere dia_, uncle."

"Poor people now are not half so polite as they used to be when I was young. They call each other Mess. instead of Mait., and they style their superiors Mait. when they ought to say Mess.

"The insolent rogues, they only have a smooth tongue when they come to beg. People may say what they like, foolish men may talk about the State establis.h.i.+ng scholars.h.i.+ps, for the talented poor; let them work. I have worked all my life, and hard too, and here I am, better than any of them."

"Educate them with the States' revenue. Indeed! Bring them up like gentlemen, for them to laugh at you later on, to look down upon you as if you were so much stubble."

"That's what they like. Give young people a few pence to rattle in their trousers' pockets, a collar, cuffs, a sixpenny signet ring on the little finger, a nickel-silver mounted cane and a pair of gloves, and there they go, not caring a fillip whether their parents have toiled and struggled to rise to their present position, ignoring the necessity of thrift, a happy-go-lucky generation. And then, at the end of it all, a deep chasm, into which they will all fall headlong; an immense pyre that will consume all their vanities and profligacies."

"They deserve to be burnt, indeed they do, uncle."

"Someone was even talking of establis.h.i.+ng a public library here.

Well let them complete the ruin. It is as well. I hope to be dead by that time though. Life, then, will be intolerable. I hope to sleep with those worthy champions of labour--my ancestors--in the churchyard yonder.

"Books!--what do they want books for? I never yet knew a man who read books that was worth a farthing.

"I knew one once who was versed in book-lore, but, worse luck to him, he could not bind a wheat-sheaf or weed a perch of parsnips, and the result--bankruptcy; failure. That's what it comes to.

"Books!--do they want to make schoolmasters of us all, or do they wish us to be always reading our eyes out instead of attending to our business?

"Books!--they are only good for idle loafers; they offer an excuse for shunning one's duty. 'I want to read a bit,' they say when told to do something. 'Oh, let me just finish this page, it is so interesting,' they plead, when asked to quickly fetch some article.

This is what Adele used to do, but I nipped this slothful tendency in the bud. I would have none of it."

He stopped his discourse and his walk, gazed at his nephew who had fallen across the table and was now sleeping soundly; then recommenced his peregrinations.

"I am disgusted with the world; I don't know what it will all come to. Some of these modern farmers are even discarding the _grande charrue_. Oh! shades of our ancestors. The great plough--the only feast of the year that is worth anything, mutton and roast beef, ham and veal, cider by the gallon and a jovial company of good old sons of the soil.

"It is horrible thus to see our old routine trampled underfoot, our ancestors' customs sneered at."

Mr. Rougeant was extremely animated. Like nearly every other country Guernseyman, he was opposed to change.

He walked about with distorted features, his eyes s.h.i.+ning with a strange light.

He thought of his family dwindling away; of his daughter disregarding his commands and disobeying him. In his innermost soul he felt convinced that she would never marry his nephew. He cast his eyes in the direction of the latter. What! he was sleeping while _he_ was enduring all the agony of a king who is being dethroned; of a general, whose army is in open mutiny against him; of a millionaire who sees his whole fortune disappear through some awful catastrophe! It was unendurable.

He again began to pace the room. Having finally arrived at a decision as to his future conduct, and thinking just then of his daughter's disregard for his tastes, he shouted in a voice of thunder, bringing down his fist upon the table with an awful crash.

"_Palfrancordi!_ let her act according to her own stubborn will, but she'll not inherit a penny of mine, not one double."

He was now quite close to his nephew and the latter, aroused by the noise which his uncle had made, raised his head and yawningly drawled out: "You're quite right, uncle."

The farmer stood straight in front of Tom Soher, his arms folded, his penetrating eye fixed scrutinizingly on his nephew. He perceived the latter's state; his wrath increased. "What!" he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed; "you are drunk!"

Tom was in such a plight that he understood not his uncle, neither did he perceive his anger. He muttered: "You're quite right, uncle."

"Then begone, you wretched inebriate. I'll not have intoxicated brutes about my house."

So saying, he seized bewildered Tom, dragged him through the vestibule and hurled him outside, slamming the door after his nephew without even waiting to see what became of him.

Then, wearied and tired out by his exertions, he sank into a chair and began to ponder about this new discovery. He mentally resolved that he would never have a drunkard for his son-in-law.

Then he gradually grew calmer. The reaction was setting in.

He was still engaged in his reflections when he heard a cry. 'Twas his daughter's. He lightened a candle and hastened to open the door, wondering what could have happened. The sight of his nephew lying there, chilled him with terror. Was he dead? Had he killed him? If so, it was the crowning point of all his woes.

How he raised him and sent him home we have already seen.

When Mr. Rougeant was again with his daughter, he kept a dogged silence. She gathered from his demeanour that he had had a frightful shock, but took great care not to question him. Hardly a word was exchanged between them that evening.

Adele was glad of it, for she had her thoughts occupied with her wedding which was to come off in three weeks.