It Is Never Too Late to Mend Part 4

"Heaven forbid! Matters are not so bad as that, uncle."

"You are too much of a man, I hope," continued Merton, "to eat a woman's bread; and if you are not, I am man enough to keep the girl from it."

"These are hard words to bear," gasped George. "So near my own house, old man."

"Well, plain speaking is best when the mind is made up," was the reply.

"Is this from Susanna, as well as you?" said George, with a trembling lip, and scarce able to utter the words.

"Susan is an obedient daughter. What I say she'll stand to; and I hope you know better than to tempt her to disobey me; you wouldn't succeed."

"Enough said," answered George very sternly. "Enough said, old man; I've no need to tempt any girl."

"Good morning, George!" and away stumped Merton.

"Good morning, uncle! (ungrateful old thief)."

"William," cried he, to his brother, who came the next minute to hear the news, "our mother took him out of the dirt.--I have heard her say as much--or he'd not have a s.h.i.+p-fold to brag of. Oh! my heart--oh!

Will!--"

"Well, will he lend the money?"

"I never asked him."

"You never asked him!" cried William.

"Bill, he began upon me in a moment," said George, looking appealingly into his brother's face; "he sees we are going down hill, and he as good as bade me think no more of Susan."

"Well," said the other, harshly, "it was your business to own the truth and ask him help us over the stile--he's our own blood."

"You want to let me down lower than I would let that Carlo dog of yours.

You're no brother of mine," retorted George fiercely and bitterly.

"A bargain is a bargain," replied the other sullenly: "I asked Meadows, and he said No. You fell talking with uncle about Susan, and never put the question to him at all. Who is the false one, eh?"

"If you call me false, I'll knock your ugly head off, sulky Bill."

"You're false, and a fool into the bargain, bragging George!"

"What, you will have it, then?"

"If you can give it me."

"Well, if it is to be," said George, "I'll give you something to put you on your mettle. The best man shall farm 'The Grove,' and the other shall be a servant on it, or go elsewhere, for I am sick of this."

"And so am I!" cried William, hastily; "and have been any time this two years."

They tucked up their sleeves a little, shook hands, and then retired each one step, and began to fight.

And how came these two honest men to forget that the blood they proposed to shed was thicker than water? Was it the farm, money, agricultural dissension, temper? They would have told you it was, and perhaps thought it was. It was Susanna Merton!

The secret subtle influence of jealousy had long been fermenting, and now it exploded in this way and under this disguise.

Ah! William Fielding, and all of you, "Beware of jealousy"--cursed jealousy! it is the sultan of all the pa.s.sions, and the Tartar chief of all the crimes. Other pa.s.sions affect the character; this changes, and, if good, always reverses it! Mind that, reverses it! turns honest men to snakes, and doves to vultures. Horrible unnatural mixture of Love with Hate--you poison the whole mental const.i.tution--you bandage the judgment--you crush the sense of right and wrong--you steel the bowels of compa.s.sion--you madden the brain--you corrupt the heart--you d.a.m.n the soul.

The Fieldings, then, shook hands mechanically, and receding each a step began to spar.

Each of these farmers fancied himself slightly the best man; but they both knew they had an antagonist with whom it would not do to make the least mistake.

They therefore sparred and feinted with wary eye before they ventured to close; George, however, the more impetuous, was preparing to come to closer quarters when all of a sudden, to the other's surprise, he dropped his hands by his sides, and turned the other way with a face anything but warlike, fear being now the prominent expression.

William followed the direction of his eye, and then William partook his brother's uneasiness; however, he put his hands in his pockets, and began to saunter about, in a circ.u.mference of three yards, and to get up a would-be-careless whistle, while George's hands became dreadfully in his way, so he washed them in the air.

While they were employed in this peaceful pantomime a beautiful young woman glided rapidly between the brothers.

Her first words renewed their uneasiness.

"What is this?" cried she, haughtily, and she looked from one to the other like a queen rebuking her subjects.

George looked at William--William had nothing ready.

So George said, with some hesitation, but in a mellifluous voice, "William was showing me--a trick--he learned at the fair--that is all, Susan."

"That is a falsehood, George," replied the lady, "the first you ever told me"--(George colored)--"you were fighting, you two boys--I saw your eyes flas.h.!.+"

The rueful wink exchanged by the combatants at this stroke of sagacity was truly delicious.

"Oh, fie! oh, fie! brothers by one mother fighting--in a Christian land--within a stone's throw of a church, where brotherly love is preached as a debt we owe to strangers, let alone our own blood."

"Yes! it is a sin, Susan," said William, his conscience suddenly illuminated. "So I ask _your_ pardon, Susanna."

"Oh! it wasn't your fault, I'll be bound," was the gracious reply. "What a ruffian you must be, George, to shed your brother's blood."

"La! Susan," said George, with a doleful whine, "I wasn't going to shed the beggar's blood. I was only going to give him a hiding for his impudence."

"Or take one for your own," replied William coolly.

"That is more likely," said Susan. "George, take William's hand; take it this instant, I say," cried she, with an air imperative and impatient.

"Well, why not? don't you go in a pa.s.sion, Susan, about nothing," said George coaxingly.

They took hands; she made them hold one another by the hand, which they did with both their heads hanging down. "While I speak a word to you two," said Susan Merton.

"You ought both to go on your knees, and thank Providence that sent me here to prevent so great a crime; and as for you, your character must change greatly, George Fielding, before I trust myself to live in a house of yours."

"Is all the blame to fall on my head?" said George, letting go William's hand with no great apparent reluctance.

"Of course it is! William is a quiet lad that quarrels with n.o.body; you are always quarreling; you thrashed our carter last Candlemas."