The MS. in a Red Box Part 7

"The best son that ever lived he was. Up with the lark, all over the farm before breakfast, seldom taking his pleasure with his mates.

Gentle as a woman! No woman would ha' been half so gentle with a peevish old man, often mad with pain. Why should the Lord take the prop of my age, the one joy of a broken-backed cripple? The Lord didn't take him, you'll say. No; but He let the devil do it. If I could but have his murderer here! Oh, that I might grip him by the throat!"

The father stretched out his arms, the trembling hands clenched, as if they grasped the neck of the man he hated. Still I said nothing. What could I say?

"He loved thee, Frank. He made me jealous at times with his talk of thee. Said how brave thou wert, how warm-hearted, what a good sportsman, what a gallant gentleman, what a true, staunch friend! And thou led'st him to his death. It was thy quarrel he died in. He was no brawler."

"That is true," I said; "he lost his life through coming to my rescue."

"He did not lose his life," the old man screamed; "his life was taken--foully, treacherously taken, and his blood cries for vengeance.

Wilt be a man and avenge him?" His eyes glittered as he asked the question.

"You cannot think of asking me to pledge myself to do murder," I answered.

"Murder! who talks of murder?" he rejoined. "If it were any other man than the son of my Lord President, I could have him hanged. But what poor man dare give evidence against him? Curse him. What lawyer in the isle or county will undertake my case? When justice is not to be had by the law, we have a right to take it. If G.o.d or devil would give me the use of my limbs, but for a single day, I would take it."

The pa.s.sion of the old man lent him strength, and he drew himself up, almost erect, a fearsome sight.

But in a moment he drooped again, and moaned, and I sat silent beside him.

Then rousing himself he said, "Hast milk in thy veins instead of blood?

Canst not hate the man who killed thy friend--not man to man in honest fight, but by a dastard word to his villains?"

"G.o.d knows I hate him only too well," I replied.

"Dost, Frank, dost? G.o.d bless thee for that. Meet him, taunt him, make him draw on thee, shoot at thee; force a quarrel on him somehow, and kill him! kill him!--kill him as slowly as thou canst, so it be sure."

He put his trembling hand on my knee, and thrust his face near to mine, his eyes blazing under their bushes of dead-white hair.

"Swear it, Frank," he begged. "Swear it, and I shall die happy.

Happy!" he groaned, in mockery of his own word. "Nay, don't speak yet," he said. "Listen to me. Thy father is wasting his patrimony on law and lawyers. 'Twill do no good. When did it ever do good to spend money so? But don't let that trouble thee. If thou'lt be a son to me so far as to do justice on the man that murdered Will, the Grange shall be thine, and many a good mortgage besides. Shalt be a rich man, young Vavasour."

Up to this point, I confess that the old man had been so near gaining the ascendancy over me, that I might have made him some sort of promise of vengeance on his enemy, but this offer broke the fascination.

"Your grief has maddened you, Mr. Staniforth, or you would not bribe me to do murder."

He tore his long hair with rage, and moaned--

"Fool that I was not to remember thy pride and vanity of the Vavasour breed. Some men are vain, and some are proud, but Vavasours are both.

Thou wilt not avenge the murder of thy friend, who died for thee--for thee, dost hear? Thou wilt not help his heart-broken old father, because he spoke of leaving his land to thee? Then go and the devil go with thee. May an old man's curse cling to thee all the days of thy life."

He shook with rage, and spoke with a choked voice, foaming at the lip, so that I dreaded lest he should fall into a fit and die. I hurried out of the room, and bade the servant, who met me in the hall, hasten to aid her master. Calling Luke to follow me, I sped down to the river. What a change to be out in the pure air, under the blue sky, hearing the twitter of the swallows far above, seeing green fields where cattle grazed, and the river rippling in the suns.h.i.+ne! And how miserable to feel that I, who had the freedom of the beautiful earth, and abounding life in me, could do nothing for the sorrow-crazed father of my dead friend!

CHAPTER VI

Farm business held me from going over to Sandtoft for many days. Much of our land was too rich for the growing of corn--which was apt to spoil on the ground by its own rankness--and was sown with line year after year. This season it fell to my lot to meet the merchants, who came to buy our standing crops, and to show them hospitality. Having occasion to go to Crowle on this business, bargains concluded, I paid my respects to my relatives at the vicarage, little thinking of the reward awaiting my dutiful behaviour. As I entered the door, I heard my aunt cry out, "Frank! I know your step. Come this way." The voice came from the store-room, where I found the notable housewife, among the tubs and jars and boxes, from which she had so often produced dainty cakes and preserved fruits for the delight of my juvenile palate.

"At last you have remembered that you have an aunt!" said she, lifting her face to me. "I am busy now, but I will talk to you after dinner.

I have company to-day."

"What company?" I asked.

"People you know, Mistress Goel and her father. What is there in that to make you open your eyes so wide?"

"I did not know of your acquaintance with them, that is all."

My aunt gave me to understand that the vicar had visited the strangers when they lodged at the White Hart, and invited them to the vicarage.

She herself had taken a violent fondness for the daughter, and for the father a superb contempt.

"The man's daft, or he would not bring a girl to live in a hole like Sandtoft, where there is no other woman except her maid and the wives of mechanics and labourers, and the men are all boors and savages. The only excuse for such barbarity is that the man has lost his wits. But there's a Providence above, and the poor, dear child will have her recompense. There's a coronet at her feet, or soon will be."

"G.o.d in heaven! You cannot mean that you favour that beast, Sheffield!"

"No profane language here, Frank. Lord Sheffield is a changed man."

Nothing could exceed my aunt's complacency as she gave me this a.s.surance.

"Has he made proposal of marriage?" I asked.

"Not directly as yet; but he is quite open with me," and the good woman smiled loftily.

"Then he comes here?"

"He has been several times to hear your uncle discourse, who is satisfied that a work of grace has begun in his lords.h.i.+p's soul. But, bless me! I shall be late with dinner." And she began to bustle among her stores.

"When do your guests arrive?" I asked.

"They have been here since the day before yesterday. You will find them in the garden." So saying, she hurried off to the kitchen.

What Sheffield's game might be, I could not guess; but that he had some evil design in professing to be edified by the homilies of the simple clergyman, and in flattering his still simpler wife, there could be no doubt whatever.

The sight of Mistress Goel in a chair on the gra.s.s-plot under the shade of an old pear-tree drove away my gloomy surmisings. She rose to greet me in her pretty way of formal courtesy, and when she resumed her seat, I threw myself on the gra.s.s near her, and found her bright face lovelier than ever when looked at from that position.

"How long it is since I saw you!" said I. "I have been full of business which I might not leave, or I should have been to Sandtoft ere this."

"It is well that you have not," she answered. "Our men are furious.

Almost every night a machine is broken, or something is stolen, or an attempt to fire the buildings is made. Four days ago, a barge came down the river too late to be unladen, and the man who kept watch on board was seized, gagged, and bound, and the boat was scuttled, with the man in it. It was done with such stealth that our men knew nothing of it until morning, although the sentinels had been at their posts all through the night."

"But I have nothing to do with midnight marauders," I growled.

"Our men do not know that. They have heard that you are one of the instigators of these doings."

"Is not my--my acquaintance with you a warrant that I am not an enemy?"

"No. I am sorry to confess that our acquaintance leads to our being suspected rather than to your absolution."

"Good heavens! Our Islonians have not a monopoly of barbarism, it would seem."