The Squire's Daughter Part 16

It was toward the dawn when Ralph was roused out of a deep sleep by a violent knocking at his bedroom door.

"Yes," he called, springing up in bed and staring into the semi-darkness.

"Come quickly; your father is very ill!" It was his mother who spoke, and her voice was vibrant and anxious.

He sprang out of bed at once, and hurriedly got into his clothes. In a few moments he was by his father's bedside.

At first he thought that his mother had alarmed herself and him unnecessarily. David lay on his side as if asleep.

"I cannot rouse him," she said in gasps. "I've tried every way, but he doesn't move."

Ralph laid his hand on his father's shoulder and shook him, but there was no response of any kind.

"He must be dead," his mother said.

"No, no. He breathes quite regularly," Ralph answered, and he took the candle and held it where the light fell full on his father's eyelids.

For a moment there was a slight tremor, then his eyes slowly opened, and a look of infinite appeal seemed to dart out of them.

"He has had a stroke," Ralph answered, starting back. "He is paralysed.

Call Ruth, and I will go for the doctor at once."

Twenty-four hours later David was sufficiently recovered to scrawl on a piece of paper with a black lead pencil the words--

"I shall die at home. Praise the Lord!"

He watched intently the faces of his wife and children as they read the words, and a smile played over his own. It seemed to be a smile of triumph. He was not going to live in the cottage after all. He was going to end his days where he had always hoped to do, and no one could cheat him out of that victory.

Ralph sat down by the bedside and took his father's hand. The affection between the two was very tender. They had been more than father and son, they had been friends and comrades. Ruth and her mother ran out of the room to hide their tears. They did not want to distress the dying man by obtruding their grief.

For several minutes Ralph was unable to speak. David never took his eyes from his face. He seemed waiting for some a.s.surance that his message was understood.

"We understand, father," Ralph said at length. "No one can turn you out now."

David smiled again. Then the tears filled his eyes and rolled down his cheeks.

"You always wanted to end your days here," Ralph went on, "and it looks as if you were going to do it."

David raised the hand that was not paralysed and pointed upward.

"There are no leasehold systems there, at any rate," Ralph said, with a gulp. "The earth is the landlord's, but heaven is G.o.d's."

David smiled again, and then closed his eyes. Three hours later a second stroke supervened, and stilled his heart for ever.

Ralph walked slowly out of the room and into the open air. He felt thankful for many reasons that his father was at rest. And yet, in his heart the feeling grew that John Hamblyn had killed him, and there surged up within him an intense and burning pa.s.sion to make John Hamblyn suffer something of what he himself was suffering. Why should he go scot free? Why should he live unrebuked, and his conscience be left undisturbed?

For a moment or two Ralph stood in the garden and looked up at the clouds that were scudding swiftly across the sky. Then he flung open the gate and struck out across the fields. The wind battered and buffeted him and almost took his breath away, but it did not weaken his resolve for a moment. He would go and tell John Hamblyn what he had done--tell him to his face that he had killed his father; ay, and tell him that as surely as there was justice in the world he would not go unpunished.

Over the brow of the hill he turned, and down into Dingley Bottom, and then up the long slant toward Treliskey Plantation. He scarcely heeded the wind that was blowing half a gale, and appeared to be increasing in violence every minute.

The gate that Dorothy's horse had broken had been mended long since, and the notice board repainted:

"Trespa.s.sers will be Prosecuted."

He gritted his teeth unconsciously as the white letters stared him in the face. He had heard his father tell that from time immemorial here had been a public thoroughfare, till Sir John took the law into his own hands, and flung a gate across it and warned the public off with a threat of prosecution.

But what cared he about the threat? John Hamblyn could prosecute him if he liked. He was going to tell him what he thought of him, and he was going the nearest way.

He vaulted lightly over the gate, and hurried along without a pause. In the shadow of the trees he scarcely felt the violence of the wind, but he heard it roaring in the branches above him, like the sound of an incoming tide.

He reached the manor, and pulled violently at the door bell.

"Is your master at home?" he said to the boy in b.u.t.tons who opened the door.

"Yes----"

"Then tell him I want to see him at once," he went on hurriedly, and he followed the boy into the hall.

A moment later he was standing before Sir John in his library.

The baronet looked at him with a scowl. He disliked him intensely, and had never forgiven him for being the cause--as he believed--of his daughter's accident. Moreover, he had no proper respect for his betters, and withal possessed a biting tongue.

"Well, young man, what brought you here?" he said scornfully.

"I came on foot," was the reply, and Ralph threw as much scorn into his voice as the squire had done.

"Oh, no doubt--no doubt!" the squire said, bridling. "But I have no time to waste in listening to impertinences. What is your business?"

"I came to tell you that my father is dead."

"Dead!" Sir John gasped. "No, surely? I never heard he was ill!"

"He was taken with a stroke early yesterday morning, and he died an hour ago."

"Only an hour ago? Dear me!"

"I came straight away from his deathbed to let you know that you had killed him."

"That I had killed him!" Sir John exclaimed, with a gasp.

"You might have seen it in his face, when you told him that you had let the farm over his head, and that he was to be turned out of the little home he had built with his own hands."

"I gave him fair notice, more than he could legally claim," Sir John said, looking very white and distressed.

"I am not talking about the law," Ralph said hurriedly. "If you had behaved like a Christian, my father would have been alive to-day. But the blow you struck him killed him. He never smiled again till this morning, when he knew he was dying. I am glad he is gone. But as surely as you punished us, G.o.d will punish you."

"What, threatening, young man?" Sir John replied, stepping back and clenching his fists.

"No, I am not threatening," Ralph said quietly. "But as surely as you stand there, and I stand here, some day we shall be quits," and he turned on his heel and walked out of the room.