A Terrible Temptation: A Story of To-Day Part 17

"What to do?" said Richard, moodily. "It's my mind; it's not my body.

Ah, Wheeler, it is all over. I and mine shall never have Huntercombe now."

"I'll tell you what it is," said Wheeler, almost angrily, "you will have six feet by two of it before long if you go on this way. Was ever such folly! to fret yourself out of this jolly world because you can't get one particular slice of its upper crust. Why, one bit of land is as good as another; and I'll show you how to get land--in this neighborhood, too. Ay, right under Sir Charles's nose."

"Show me that," said Ba.s.sett, gloomily and incredulously.

"Leave off moping, then, and I will. I advise the bank, you know, and 'Splatchett's' farm is mortgaged up to the eyes. It is not the only one. I go to the village inns, and pick up all the gossip I hear there."

"How am I to find money to buy land?"

"I'll put you up to that, too; but you must leave off moping. Hang it, man, never say die. There are plenty of chances on the cards. Get your color back, and marry a girl with money, and turn that into land. The first thing is to leave off grizzling. Why, you are playing the enemy's game. That can't be right, can it?"

This remark was the first that really roused the sick man.

Wheeler had too few clients to lose one. He now visited Ba.s.sett almost daily, and, being himself full of schemes and inventions, he got Ba.s.sett, by degrees, out of his lethargy, and he emerged into daylight again; but he looked thin, and yellow as a guinea, and he had turned miser. He kept but one servant, and fed her and himself at Sir Charles Ba.s.sett's expense. He wired that gentleman's hares and rabbits in his own hedges. He went out with his gun every sunny afternoon, and shot a brace or two of pheasants, without disturbing the rest; for he took no dog with him to run and yelp, but a little boy, who quietly tapped the hedgerows and walked the sunny banks and shaws. They never came home empty-handed.

But on those rarer occasions when Sir Charles and his friends beat the Ba.s.sett woods Richard was sure to make a large bag; for he was a cool, unerring shot, and flushed the birds in hedgerows, slips of underwood, etc., to which the fairer sportsmen had driven them.

These birds and the surplus hares he always sold in the market-town, and put the money into a box. The rabbits he ate, and also squirrels, and, above all, young hedgehogs: a gypsy taught him how to cook them, viz., by inclosing them in clay, and baking them in wood embers; then the bristles adhere to the burned clay, and the meat is juicy. He was his own gardener, and vegetables cost him next to nothing.

So he went on through all the winter months, and by the spring his health and strength were restored. Then he turned woodman, cut down every stick of timber in a little wood near his house, and sold it; and then set to work to grub up the roots for fires, and cleared it for tillage. The sum he received for the wood was much more than he expected, and this he made a note of.

He had a strong body, that could work hard all day, a big hate, and a mania for the possession of land. And so he led a truly Spartan life, and everybody in the village said he was mad.

While he led this hard life Sir Charles and Lady Ba.s.sett were the gayest of the gay. She was the beauty and the bride. Visits and invitations poured in from every part of the country. Sir Charles, flattered by the homage paid to his beloved, made himself younger and less fastidious to indulge her; and the happy pair often drove twelve miles to dinner, and twenty to dine and sleep--an excellent custom in that country, one of whose favorite toasts is worth recording: "MAY YOU DINE WHERE YOU PLEASE, AND SLEEP WHERE YOU DINE."

They were at every ball, and gave one or two themselves.

Above all, they enjoyed society in that delightful form which is confined to large houses. They would have numerous and well-a.s.sorted visitors staying at the house for a week or so, and all dining at a huge round table. But two o'clock P.M. was the time to see how hosts and guests enjoyed themselves. The hall door of Huntercombe was approached by a flight of stone steps, easy of ascent, and about twenty-four feet wide. At the riding hour the county ladies used to come, one after another, holding up their riding-habits with one hand, and perch about this gigantic flight of steps like peac.o.c.ks, and chatter like jays, while the servants walked their horses about the gravel esplanade, and the four-in-hand waited a little in the rear. A fine champing of bits and fidgeting of thoroughbreds there was, till all were ready; then the ladies would each put out her little foot, with charming nonchalance, to the nearest gentleman or groom, with a slight preference for the grooms, who were more practiced. The man lifted, the lady sprang at the same time, and into her saddle like a bird--Lady Ba.s.sett on a very quiet pony, or in the carriage to please some dowager--and away they clattered in high spirits, a regular cavalcade. It was a hunting county, and the ladies rode well; square seat, light hand on the snaffle, the curb reserved for cases of necessity; and, when they had patted the horse on the neck at starting, as all these coaxing creatures must, they rode him with that well-bred ease and unconsciousness of being on a horse which distinguishes ladies who have ridden all their lives from the gawky sn.o.bbesses in Hyde Park, who ride, if riding it can be called, with their elbows uncouthly fastened to their sides as if by a rope, their hands at the pit of their stomachs, and both those hands, as heavy as a housemaid's, sawing the poor horse with curb and snaffle at once, while the whole body breathes pretension and affectation, and seems to say, "Look at me; I am on horseback! Be startled at that--as I am! and I have had lessons from a riding-master. He has taught me how a lady should ride"--in his opinion, poor devil.

The champing, the pawing, the mounting, and the clattering of these bright cavalcades, with the music of the women excited by motion, furnished a picture of wealth and gayety and happy country life that cheered the whole neighborhood, and contrasted strangely with the stern Spartan life of him who had persuaded himself he was the rightful owner of Huntercombe Hall.

Sir Charles Ba.s.sett was a magistrate, and soon found himself a bad one.

One day he made a little mistake, which, owing to his popularity, was very gently handled by the Bench at their weekly meeting; but still Sir Charles was ashamed and mortified. He wrote directly to Oldfield for law books, and that gentleman sent him an excellent selection bound in smooth calf.

Sir Charles now studied three hours every day, except hunting days, when no squire can work; and as his study was his justice room, he took care to find an authority before he acted. He was naturally humane, and rustic offenders, especially poachers and runaway farm servants, used to think themselves fortunate if they were taken before him and not before Squire Powys, who was sure to give them the sharp edge of the law. So now Sir Charles was useful as well as ornamental.

Thus pa.s.sed fourteen months of happiness, with only one little cloud--there was no sign yet of a son and heir. But let a man be ever so powerful, it is an awkward thing to have a bitter, inveterate enemy at his door watching for a chance. Sir Charles began to realize this in the sixteenth month of his wedded bliss. A small estate called "Splatchett's" lay on his north side, and a marginal strip of this property ran right into a wood of his. This strip was wretched land, and the owner, unable to raise any wheat crop on it, had planted it with larches.

Sir Charles had made him a liberal offer for "Splatchett's" about six years ago; but he had refused point-blank, being then in good circ.u.mstances.

Sir Charles now received a hint from one of his own gamekeepers that the old farmer was in a bad way, and talked of selling. So Sir Charles called on him, and asked him if he would sell "Splatchett's" now. "Why, I can't sell it twice," said the old man, testily. "You ha' got it, han't ye?" It turned out that Richard Ba.s.sett had been beforehand. The bank had pressed for their money, and threatened foreclosure; then Ba.s.sett had stepped in with a good price; and although the conveyance was not signed, a stamped agreement was, and neither vender nor purchaser could go back. What made it more galling, the proprietor was not aware of the feud between the Ba.s.setts, and had thought to please Sir Charles by selling to one of his name.

Sir Charles Ba.s.sett went home seriously vexed. He did not mean to tell his wife; but love's eye read his face, love's arm went round his neck, and love's soft voice and wistful eyes soon coaxed it out of him. "Dear Charles," said she, "never mind. It is mortifying; but think how much you have, and how little that wicked man has. Let him have that farm; he has lost his self-respect, and that is worth a great many farms. For my part, I pity the poor wretch. Let him try to annoy you; your wife will try, against him, to make you happy, my own beloved; and I think I may prove as strong as Mr. Ba.s.sett," said she, with a look of inspiration.

Her sweet and tender sympathy soon healed so slight a scratch.

But they had not done with "Splatchett's" yet. Just after Christmas Sir Charles invited three gentlemen to beat his more distant preserves.

Their guns bellowed in quick succession through the woods, and at last they reached North Wood. Here they expected splendid shooting, as a great many c.o.c.k pheasants had already been seen running ahead.

But when they got to the end of the wood they found Lawyer Wheeler standing against a tree just within "Splatchett's" boundary, and one of their own beaters reported that two boys were stationed in the road, each tapping two sticks together to confine the pheasants to that strip of land, on which the low larches and high gra.s.s afforded a strong covert.

Sir Charles halted on his side of the boundary.

Then Wheeler told his man to beat, and up got the c.o.c.k pheasants, one after another. Whenever a pheasant whirred up the man left off beating.

The lawyer knocked down four brace in no time, and those that escaped him and turned back for the wood were brought down by Ba.s.sett, firing from the hard road. Only those were spared that flew northward into "Splatchett's." It was a veritable slaughter, planned with judgment, and carried out in a most ungentlemanlike and unsportsmanlike manner.

It goaded Sir Charles beyond his patience. After several vain efforts to restrain himself, he shouldered his gun, and, followed by his friends, went bursting through the larches to Richard Ba.s.sett.

"Mr. Ba.s.sett," said he, "this is most ungentlernanly conduct."

"What is the matter, sir? Am I on your ground?"

"No, but you are taking a mean advantage of our being out. Who ever heard of a gentleman beating his boundaries the very day a neighbor was out shooting, and filling them with his game?"

"Oh, that is it, is it? When justice is against you you can talk of law, and when law is against you you appeal to justice. Let us be in one story or the other, please. The Huntercombe estates belong to me by birth. You have got them by legal trickery. Keep them while you live.

_They will come to me one day, you know._ Meantime, leave me my little estate of 'Splatchett's.' For shame, sir; you have robbed me of my inheritance and my sweetheart; do you grudge me a few c.o.c.k pheasants?

Why, you have made me so poor they are an object to me now."

"Oh!" said Sir Charles, "if you are stealing my game to keep body and soul together, I pity you. In that case, perhaps you will let my friends help you fill your larder."

Richard Ba.s.sett hesitated a moment; but Wheeler, who had drawn near at the sound of the raised voices, made him a signal to a.s.sent.

"By all means," said he, adroitly. "Mr. Markham, your father often shot with mine over the Ba.s.sett estates. You are welcome to poor little 'Splatchett's.' Keep your men off, Sir Charles; they are noisy bunglers, and do more harm than good. Here, Tom! Bill! beat for the gentlemen. They shall have the sport. I only want the birds."

Sir Charles drew back, and saw pheasant after pheasant thunder and whiz into the air, then collapse at a report, and fall like lead, followed by a shower of feathers.

His friends seemed to be deserting him for Richard Ba.s.sett. He left them in charge of his keepers, and went slowly home.

He said nothing to Lady Ba.s.sett till night, and then she got it all from him. She was very indignant at many of the things; but as for Sir Charles, all his cousin's arrows glided off that high-minded gentleman, except one, and that quivered in his heart. "Yes, Bella," said he, "he told me he should inherit these estates. That is because we are not blessed with children."

Lady Ba.s.sett sighed. "But we shall be some day. Shall we not?"

"G.o.d knows," said Sir Charles, gloomily. "I wonder whether there was really anything unfair done on our side when the entail was cut off?"

"Is that likely, dearest? Why?"

"Heaven seems to be on his side."

"On the side of a wicked man?"

"But he may be the father of innocent children."

"Why, he is not even married."

"He will marry. He will not throw a chance away. It makes my head dizzy, and my heart sick. Bella, now I can understand two enemies meeting alone in some solitary place, and one killing the other in a moment of rage; for when this scoundrel insulted me I remembered his anonymous letter, and all his relentless malice. Bella, I could have raised my gun and shot him like a weasel."

Lady Ba.s.sett screamed faintly, and flung her arms round his neck. "Oh, Charles, pray to G.o.d against such thoughts. You shall never go near that man again. Don't think of our one disappointment: think of all the blessings we enjoy. Never mind that wretched man's hate. Think of your wife's love. Have I not more power to make you happy than he has to afflict you, my adored?" These sweet words were accompanied by a wife's divine caresses; with the honey of her voice, and the liquid suns.h.i.+ne of her loving eyes. Sir Charles slept peacefully that night, and forgot his one grief and his one enemy for a time.