Children of the Mist Part 72

Mr. Lyddon found himself kept waiting about ten minutes; then John entered, bade him a cold "good afternoon" without shaking hands, and placed an easy-chair for him beside the fire.

"Would you object to me lighting my pipe, Jan Grimbal?" asked the miller humbly; and by way of answer the other took a box of matches from his pocket and handed it to the visitor.

"Thank you, thank you; I'm obliged to you. Let me get a light, then I'll talk to 'e."

He puffed for a minute or two, while Grimbal waited in silence for his guest to begin.

"Now, wi'out any beatin' of the bush or waste of time, I'll speak. I be come 'bout Blanchard, as I dare say you guessed. The news of what he done nine or ten years ago comed to me just a month since. A month 't was, or might be three weeks. Like a bolt from the blue it falled 'pon me an' that's a fact. An' I heard how you knawed the thing--you as had such gude cause to hate un wance."

"'Once?'"

"Well, no man's hate can outlive his reason, surely? I was with 'e, tu, then; but a man what lets himself suffer lifelong trouble from a fule be a fule himself. Not that Blanchard 's all fule--far from it. He've ripened a little of late years--though slowly as fruit in a wet summer.

Granted he bested you in the past an' your natural hope an' prayer was to be upsides wi' un some day. Well, that's all dead an' buried, ban't it? I hated the shadow of un in them days so bad as ever you did; but you gets to see more of the world, an' the men that walks in it when you 'm moved away from things by the distance of a few years. Then you find how wan deed bears upon t' other. Will done no more than you'd 'a' done if the cases was altered. In fact, you 'm alike at some points, come to think of it."

"Is that what you've walked over here to tell me?"

"No; I'm here to ax 'e frank an' plain, as a sportsman an' a straight man wi' a gude heart most times, to tell me what you 'm gwaine to do 'bout this job. I'm auld, an' I a.s.sure 'e you'll hate yourself if you give un up. 'T would be outside your carater to do it."

"You say that! Would you harbour a convict from Princetown if you found him hiding on your farm?"

"Ban't a like case. Theer 's the personal point of view, if you onderstand me. A man deserts from the army ten years ago, an' you, a sort o' amateur soldier, feels 't is your duty to give un to justice."

"Well, isn't that what has happened?"

"No fay! Nothing of the sort. If 't was your duty, why didn't you do it fust minute you found it out? If you'd writ to the authorities an' gived the man up fust moment, I might have said 't was a hard deed, but I'd never have dared to say 't weern't just. Awnly you done no such thing.

You nursed the power an' sucked the thought, same as furriners suck at poppy poison. You played with the picture of revenge against a man you hated, an' let the idea of what you'd do fill your brain; an' then, when you wanted bigger doses, you told Phoebe what you knawed--reckoning as she'd tell Will bimebye. That's bad, Jan Grimbal--worse than poisoning foxes, by G.o.d! An' you knaw it."

"Who are you, to judge me and my motives?"

"An auld man, an' wan as be deeply interested in this business. Time was when we thought alike touching the bwoy; now we doan't; 'cause your knowledge of un hasn't grawed past the point wheer he downed us, an'

mine has."

"You're a fool to say so. D' you think I haven't watched the young brute these many years? Self-sufficient, ignorant, hot-headed, always in the wrong. What d' you find to praise in the clown? Look at his life.

Failure! failure! failure! and making of enemies at every turn. Where would he be to-day but for you?"

"Theer 's a rare gert singleness of purpose 'bout un."

"A grand success he is, no doubt. I suppose you couldn't get on without him now. Yet you cursed the cub freely enough once."

"Bitter speeches won't serve 'e, Grimbal; but they show me mighty clear what's hid in you. Your sawl 's torn every way by this thing, an' you turn an' turn again to it, like a dog to his vomit, yet the gude in 'e drags 'e away."

"Better cut all that. You won't tell me what you've come for, so I'll tell you. You want me to promise not to move in this matter,--is that so?"

"Why, not ezackly. I want more 'n that. I never thought for a minute you would do it, now you've let the time pa.s.s so far. I knaw you'll never act so ugly a paart now; but Will doan 't, an' he'll never b'lieve me if I told un."

The other made a sound, half growl, half mirthless laugh.

"You've taken it all for granted, then--you, who know more about what 's in my mind than I do myself? You're a fond old man; and if you'd wanted to screw me up to the pitch of taking the necessary trouble, you couldn't have gone a better way. I've been too busy to bother about the young rascal of late or he'd lie in gaol now."

"Doan't say no such vain things! D' you think I caan't read what your face speaks so plain? A man's eyes tell the truth awftener than what his tongue does, for they 'm harder to break into lying. 'Tu busy'! You be foul to the very brainpan wi' this job an' you knaw it."

"Is the hatred all on my side, d' you suppose? Curse the brute to h.e.l.l!

And you'd have me eat humble-pie to the man who 's wrecked my life?"

"No such thing at all. All the hatred be on your side. He'd forgived 'e clean. Even now, though you 'm fretting his guts to fiddlestrings because of waiting for 'e, he feels no malice--no more than the caged rat feels 'gainst the man as be carrying him, anyway."

"You're wrong there. He'd kill me to-morrow. He let me know it. In a weak moment I asked him the other day how his mother was; and he turned upon me like a mad dog, and told me to keep his name off my lips, and said he'd have my life if I gave him up."

"That's coorious then, for he 's hungry to give himself up, so soon as the auld woman 's well again."

"Talk! I suppose he sent you to whine for him?"

"Not so. He'd have blocked my road if he'd guessed."

"Well, I'm honest when I say I don't care a curse what he does or does not. Let him go his way. And as to proclaiming him, I shall do so when it pleases me. An odious crime that,--a traitor to his country."

"Doan't become you nor me to dwell 'pon that, seeing how things was."

Grimbal rose.

"You think he 's a n.o.ble fellow, and that your daughter had a merciful escape. It isn't for me to suggest you are mistaken. Now I've no more time to spare, I'm afraid."

The miller also rose, and as he prepared to depart he spoke a final word.

"You 'm terrible pushed for time, by the looks of it. I knaw 't is hard in this life to find time to do right, though every man can make a 'mazing mort o' leisure for t' other thing. But hear me: you 'm ruinin'

yourself, body an' sawl, along o' this job--body an' sawl, like apples in a barrel rots each other. You 'm in a bad way, Jan Grimbal, an' I'm sorry for 'e--brick house an' horses an' dogs notwithstanding. Have a spring cleaning in that sulky brain o' yourn, my son, an' be a man wi'

yourself, same as you be a man wi' the world."

The other sneered.

"Don't get hot. The air is cold. And as you've given so much good advice, take some, too. Mind your own business, and let your son-in-law mind his."

Mr. Lyddon shook his head.

"Such words do only prove me right. Look in your heart an' see how 't is with you that you can speak to an auld man so. 'T is common metal shawing up in 'e, an' I'm sorry to find it."

He set off home without more words and, as chance ordered the incident, emerged from the avenue gates of the Red House while a covered vehicle pa.s.sed by on the way from Moreton Hampstead. Its roof was piled with luggage, and inside sat Chris, her husband, and Will. They spied Mr.

Lyddon and made room for him; but later on in the evening Will taxed the miller with his action.

"I knawed right well wheer you'd come from," he said gloomily, "an' I'd 'a' cut my right hand off rather than you should have done it. You did n't ought, Faither; for I'll have no living man come between me an'

him."

"I made it clear I was on my awn paart," explained Mr. Lyddon; but that night Will wrote a letter to his enemy and despatched it by a lad before breakfast on the following morning.

"Sir," he said, "this comes to say that Miller seen you yesterday out of his own head, and if I had knowed he was coming I would have took good care to prevent it.

"W. BLANCHARD."