King of the Castle Part 17

"Go on. I'm not well. Say what you want briefly. I'm going out."

"I won't keep you long, but it may be for your benefit. Look here, guardian, you know what I have a year?"

"Perfectly--two hundred and fifty, if you haven't been mortgaging."

"Well, I haven't been mortgaging. It is not one of my pastimes. But it has occurred to me that I lead a very idle life."

"Bless my soul!" cried Gartram sarcastically. "When did you discover that?"

"And," continued Chris, "it seems to me that, as you are growing older--"

Gartram's face twitched.

"Your health is not anything like what it should be."

Gartram ground his teeth, but Chris was so intent upon his new idea that he noticed nothing, and went on in a frank, blundering, earnest way.

"Worse still, you have just lost, by that terrible accident, poor Woodham, who was your right-hand man. It would not be a bad thing for you, and it would be a capital thing for me, if you would take me on to be a sort of foreman or superintendent at the quarries. Of course, I don't mean to go tamping and blasting, but to see that the men did their work properly, that the stones were taken to the wharf, and generally to see to things when you were not there or wanted a rest."

"At a salary?"

"Salary? Well, I hadn't thought of that--But yes: at a salary. A labourer's worthy of his hire. It would make you more independent, and me too. Of course, I am not clever in your business, but I've watched the men from a boy, and I know pretty well how things ought to be done; and of course you could trust me as you could yourself."

Gartram's face was a study. His illness had exacerbated his temper, and over and over again, as the young man went on in his frank, blundering, honest fas.h.i.+on, he seemed on the point of breaking out. But Chris realised nothing of this. He only grew more sanguine as his new idea seemed to be brighter and more feasible the more he developed it, feeling the while that he was untying an awkward knot, and that his proposals would benefit all.

There was not a gleam of selfishness in his mind, and if Gartram had said: "I like your proposal, and I'll give you fourteen s.h.i.+llings a week to begin with," he would have accepted the paltry sum, and felt pleased.

"You see," he continued, "it would be the very thing; you want a superintendent who would take all the petty worries off your mind."

"And by-and-by," said Gartram, suffocating with wrath, "you would like me to offer you a partners.h.i.+p?"

Chris's eyes flashed.

"Yes, Mr Gartram, I should like that dearly. I never felt till just now that I was a poor man; my wants have been so simple. Yes, by-and-by, you might offer me a partners.h.i.+p if you found me worthy, and you should, sir; I swear you should."

"And with it my daughter's hand?"

"I was coming to that, Mr Gartram," said Chris flus.h.i.+ng, and with a proud, happy look in his eyes, as he sat gazing straight out of the window to sea. "I felt, naturally, a shrinking about speaking of that, but Claude and I were boy and girl together. I always liked her, and that liking has grown into a man's honest, true love. I should have come to you before to explain about what you saw in the glen, but of course, I felt how out of place anything would be from me at a time when you were in trouble and ill, and so I waited till this morning."

"Yes," said Gartram hoa.r.s.ely; "go on."

"I know I ought not to have spoken to Claude as I did without first speaking to you, but it slipped out without thought, and I ought to say I am sorry, sir; but, feeling as I do, I can only say that I am glad."

"One moment," said Gartram, speaking perfectly calmly, but with a voice that sounded as if it were iced; "let us perfectly understand one another--you propose that I should engage you as my foreman?"

"Yes, Mr Gartram," said Chris quietly. "I have had the education of a gentleman--well, I may say it--my father was a gentleman. I am a gentleman, but I am not proud. I quite agree with you that a man should lead a useful life. I wish to lead a useful life."

"Exactly," continued Gartram; "to be my foreman at a salary, with a view to future partners.h.i.+p and my daughter's hand?"

"Yes, Mr Gartram; and I will make your interests my study. What do you say?"

"Say?" cried Gartram, in a voice of thunder. "d.a.m.n your impudence!"

"What!"

"You miserable, insolent, conceited young hound! You come here with such a proposition, after daring, on the strength of the freedom I gave you of my house--for your father's sake--to insult my daughter as you did up that glen."

"Miss Gartram has not said I insulted her?" cried Chris.

"I say insulted her with your silly, impudent talk about your love.

Why, confound it, sir, what are you--a fool, an idiot, or a conceited, presumptuous, artful beggar?"

"Mr Gartram!--No, I will not be angry," said Chris, subduing the indignant rage which was in him. "You have been ill and are irritable.

I have badly chosen my time. Don't speak to me like that, sir. I have always looked up to you as a guardian ever since I was left alone in the world. You don't mean those words, sir. Say you don't mean them, for Claude's sake."

"Silence, sir! For Claude's sake, indeed. Confound you! How dare you!

You must be mad to raise your eyes to her. You contemptible, artful, fortune-hunting scoundrel!"

"Mr Gartram!" cried Chris, flus.h.i.+ng with anger now. "How dare you speak to me like this?"

"Because I am in my own house, sir. Because a miserable, mad-brained jackanapes has dared to make an attack upon me and upon my child.

Silence--"

"Silence, sir, yourself!" raged Chris.

"What? You insolent dog, I'll have you turned out of the house. I'll have you horse-whipped. Dare so much as to speak to my child again.

Dare so much as to look at her. Dare to come upon my premises again, and damme, sir, I'll--I'll shoot you!"

"You don't mean it. You shall not mean it," cried Chris hotly.

"Out of my house, sir!"

"Mr Gartram," cried Chris, as the old man, half mad with rage and excitement consequent upon the reaction from his fit, strode close up to where his visitor stood.

"I say out of my house, sir, before I have you horse-whipped as I would a dog."

As he spoke, he gave the young man a thrust, half blow, across the chest, just as the door opened, and the servant announced Mr Glyddyr, stood with open mouth, staring for a moment at the scene, and then, as the new visitor entered, ran back, without stopping to close the door, to announce to Claude and Mary that master was going to have another fit.

"Hah!" cried Gartram, as his eyes lit upon Glyddyr; "you, is it? Look here," he roared, in a voice choked with pa.s.sion, "this beggarly, insolent upstart--this puppy that I have helped to rear--has had the audacity to propose for my daughter's hand."

"What?" cried Glyddyr, taking his tone from Gartram; and, turning upon Chris, he darted a look mingled of incredulity, threatening and contempt.

"Yes; I am weak from illness, or I'd ask no man's help. You are young and strong. Take him by the collar, and bundle the insolent scoundrel neck and crop out of the place. That's right: quick!"

Glyddyr advanced straight to where Chris stood, with a blank look of rage and despair upon his countenance, crushed, drooping, half broken-hearted, as he felt how ingenuous he had been to speak as he had to the hard, grasping man of the world before him; but as Glyddyr laid his hand upon his collar, he uttered a low, hoa.r.s.e sound, like the growl of an angry beast.

"Now, sir, out you go," cried Glyddyr, with a mocking, sneering look in his countenance, full of triumph. "Out with you before you are kicked out."