CHAPTER LXIII.
HOW VERTY AND MISS LAVINIA RAN A-TILT AT EACH OTHER, AND WHO WAS OVERTHROWN.
The young man turned round: the gruff voice belonged to Judge Rushton.
That gentleman had left his horse at the outer gate, and approached the house on foot. Absorbed by his own thoughts, Verty had not seen him—as indeed neither had Redbud—and the gruff voice gave the young man the first intimation of his presence.
"Well," repeated the lawyer, leaning on his knotty stick, and scowling at the two young people from beneath his shaggy eyebrows, "what are you standing there staring at me for? Am I a wild beast, a rhinoceros, or a monster of any description, that you can't speak? I asked you why you were not in town at your work?"
Verty pointed to the horizon.
"The day has only begun," he said.
"Well, sir—"
"And I stopped for only one minute, Mr. Rushton," added Verty."
"One minute! Do you know, sir, that life is made up of minutes?"
"Yes, sir," said Verty.
"Well, if you know that, why do you trifle away your minutes? Don't reply to me, young man," continued the shaggy bear, "I have no desire to argue with you—I hate and despise arguing, and will not indulge you. But remember this, Life is the struggle of a man to pay the debt he owes to Duty. If he forgets his work, or neglects it, for paltry gratifications of the senses or the feelings, he is disgraced—he is a coward in the ranks—a deserter from the regiment—he is an absconding debtor, sir, and will be proceeded against as such—remember that, sir! A pretty thing for you here, when you have your duty to your mother to perform, to be thus dallying and cooing with this baby—ough!"
And the lawyer scowled at Redbud with terrible emphasis.
Redbud knew Mr. Rushton well,—and smiled. She was rather grateful to him for having interrupted an interview which her woman-instinct told had commenced critically; and though Redbud could not, perhaps, have told any one what she feared, still this instinct spoke powerfully to her.
It was with a smile, therefore, that Redbud held out her hand to Mr.
Rushton, and said:
"Please don't scold Verty—he won't stay long, and he just stopped to ask how we all were."
"Humph!" replied the lawyer, his scowling brow relaxing somewhat as he felt the soft, warm little hand in his own,—"humph! that's the way it always is. He only stopped to say good morning to 'all;'—I suspect his curiosity was chiefly on the subject of a single member of the family."
And a grim smile corrugated—so to speak—the rugged countenance.
Redbud blushed slightly, and said:
"Verty likes us all very much, and—"
"Not a doubt of it!" said the lawyer, "and no doubt 'we all' like Verty! Come, you foolish children, don't be bothering me with your nonsense. And you, Mr. Verty—you need'nt be so foolish as to consider everything I say so harsh as you seem to. You'll go next and tell somebody that old Rushton is an ill-natured huncks, without conscience or proper feeling; that he grumbled with you for stopping a moment to greet your friends. If you say any such thing," added Mr. Rushton, scowling at the young man, "you will be guilty of as base a slander—yes, sir! as base a slander, sir!—as imagination could invent!"
And with a growl, the speaker turned from Verty, and said, roughly, to
Redbud:
"Where's your father?"'
"Here I am," said the bluff and good-humored voice of the Squire, from the door; "you are early—much obliged to you." And the Squire and lawyer shook hands. Mr. Rushton's hand fell coldly to his side, and regarding the Squire for a moment with what seemed an expression of contemptuous anger, he said, frowning, until his shaggy, grey eye-brows met together almost:
"Early! I suppose I am to take up the whole forenoon—the most valuable part of the day—jogging over the country to examine title-deeds and accounts? Humph! if you expect anything of the sort, you are mistaken. No, sir! I started from Winchester at day-break, without my breakfast, and here I am."
The jovial Squire laughed, and turning from Verty, with whom he had shaken hands, said to the lawyer:
"Breakfast?—is it possible? Well, Rushton, for once I will be magnanimous—magnificent, generous and liberal—"
"What!" growled the lawyer.
"You shall have some breakfast here!" finished the Squire, laughing heartily; and the merry old fellow caught Miss Redbud up from the porch, deposited a matutinal salute upon her lips, and kicking at old Caesar as he passed, by way of friendly greeting, led the way into the breakfast room.
Verty made a movement to depart, inasmuch as he had breakfasted; but the vigilant eye of the lawyer detected this suspicious manoeuvre; and the young man found himself suddenly commanded to remain, by the formula "Wait!" uttered with a growl which might have done honor to a lion.
Verty was not displeased at this interference with his movements, and, obedient to a sign, followed the lawyer into the breakfast-room.
Everything was delightfully comfortable and cheerful there.
And ere long, at the head of the table sat Miss Lavinia, silent and dignified; at the foot, the Squire, rubbing his hands, heaping plates with the savory broil before him, and talking with his mouth full; at the sides, Mr. Rushton, Redbud and Verty, who sedulously suppressed the fact that he had already breakfasted, for obvious reasons, doubtless quite plain to the reader.
The sun streamed in upon the happy group, and seemed to smile with positive delight at sight of Redbud's happy face, surrounded by its waving mass of curls—and soft blue eyes, which were the perfection of tenderness and joy.
He smiled on Verty, too, the jovial sun, and illumined the young man's handsome, dreamy face, and profuse locks, and uncouth hunter costume, with a gush of light which made him like a picture of some antique master, thrown upon canvas in a golden mood, to live forever. All the figures and objects in the room were gay in the bright sunlight, too—the shaggy head of Mr. Rushton, and the jovial, ruddy face of the Squire, and Miss Lavinia's dignified and stately figure, solemn and imposing, flanked by the silver jug and urn—and on the old ticking clock, and antique furniture, and smiling portraits, and recumbent Caesar, did it shine, merry and laughing, taking its pastime ere it went away to other lands, like a great, cheerful simple soul, smiling at nature and all human life.
And the talk of all was like the sunshine. The old Squire was king of the breakfast table, and broke many a jesting shaft at one and all, not even sparing the stately Miss Lavinia, and the rugged bear who scowled across the table.
"Good bread for once," said the Squire, slashing into the smoking loaf; astonishing how dull those negroes are—not to be able to learn such a simple thing as baking."
"Simple!" muttered the lawyer, "it is not simple! If you recollected something of chemistry, you would acknowledge that baking bread was no slight achievement."
"Come, growl again," said his host, laughing; "come, now, indulge your habit, and say the bread is sour."
"It is!"
"What!—sour!"
"Yes."
The Squire stands aghast—or rather sits, laboring under that sentiment.
"It is the best bread we have had for six months," he says, at length, "and as sweet as a nut."
"You have no taste," says Mr. Rushton.
"No taste?"
"None: and the fact that it is the best you have had for six months is not material testimony. You may have had lead every morning—humph!"
And Mr. Rushton continues his breakfast.
The Squire laughs.
"There you are—in a bad humor," he says.
"I am not."
"Come! say that the broil is bad!"
"It is burnt to a cinder."
"Burnt? Why it's underdone!"
"Well, sir—every man to his taste—you may have yours; leave me mine."
"Oh, certainly; I see you are determined to like nothing. You'll say next that Lavinia's butter is not sweet."
The lawyer growls.
"I have no desire to offend Miss Lavinia," he says, solemnly; "but
I'll take my oath that there's garlic in it—yes, sir, garlic!"
The Squire bursts into a roar of laughter.
"Good!" he cries—"you are in a cheerful and contented mood. You drop in just when Lavinia has perfected her butter, and made it as fresh as a nosegay; and when the cook has sent up bread as sweet as a kernel, to say nothing of the broil, done to a turn—you come when this highly desirable state of things has been arrived at, and presume to say that this is done, that is burnt, the other is tainted with garlic! Admire your own judgment!"
And the Squire laughs jovially at his discomfited and growling opponent.
"True, Lavinia has had lately much to distract her attention," says the jest-hunting Squire; "but her things were never better in spite of—. Well we won't touch upon that subject!"
And the mischievous Squire laughs heartily at Miss Lavinia's stately and reproving expression.
"What's that?" says Mr. Rushton; "what subject?"
"Oh, nothing—nothing."
"What does he mean, madam?" asks Mr. Rushton, of the lady.
Miss Lavinia colors slightly, and looks more stately than ever.
"Nothing, sir," she says, with dignity.
"'Nothing!' nobody ever means anything!"
"Oh, never," says the Squire, and then he adds, mischievously,—"by-the-by, Rushton, how is my friend, Mr. Roundjacket?"
"As villainous as ever," says the lawyer; "my opinion of Mr.
Roundjacket, sir, is, that he is a villain!"
Miss Lavinia colors to the temples—the Squire nearly bursts with pent-up laughter.
"What has he done? A villain did you say?" he asks.
"Yes, sir!—a wretch!"
"Possible?"
"Yes—it is possible: and if you knew as much of human nature as I do, you would never feel surprised at any man's turning out a villain and a wretch! I am a wretch myself, sir!"
And scowling at the Squire, Mr. Rushton goes on with his breakfast.
The Squire utters various inarticulate sounds which seem to indicate the stoppage of a bone in his throat. Nevertheless he soon recovers his powers of speech, and says:
"But how is Roundjacket so bad?"
"He has taken to writing poetry."
"That's an old charge."
"No, sir—he has grown far worse, lately. He is writing an epic—an epic!"
And the lawyer looked inexpressibly disgusted.
"I should think a gentleman might compose an epic poem without rendering himself amenable to insult, sir," says Miss Lavinia, with freezing hauteur.
"You are mistaken," says Mr. Rushton; "your sex, madam, know nothing of business. The lawyer who takes to writing poetry, must necessarily neglect the legal business entrusted to him, and for which he is paid. Now, madam," added Mr. Rushton, triumphantly, "I defy you, or any other man—individual, I mean—to say that the person who takes money without giving an equivalent, is not a villain and a wretch!"
Miss Lavinia colors, and mutters inarticulately.
"Such a man," said Mr. Rushton, with dreadful solemnity, "is already on his way to the gallows; he has already commenced the downward course of crime. From this, he proceeds to breach of promise—I mean any promise, not of marriage only, madam—then to forging, then to larceny, and finally to burglary and murder. There, madam, that is what I mean—I defy you to deny the truth of what I say!"
The Squire could endure the pressure upon his larynx no longer, and exploded like a bomb-shell; or if not in so terrible a manner, at least nearly as loudly.
No one can tell what the awful sentiments of Mr. Rushton, on the subject of Roundjacket would have led to, had not the Squire come to the rescue.
"Well, well," he said, still laughing, "it is plain, my dear Rushton, that for once in your life you are not well posted up on the 'facts of your case,' and you are getting worse and worse in your argument, to say nothing of the prejudice of the jury. Come, let us dismiss the subject. I don't think Mr. Roundjacket, however, will turn out a murderer, which would be a horrible blow to me, as I knew his worthy father well, and often visited him at 'Flowery Lane,' over yonder. But the discussion is unprofitable—hey! what do you think, Verty, and you, Miss Redbud?"
Verty raises his head and smiles.
"I am very fond of Mr. Roundjacket," he says.
"Fond of him?"
"Yes, sir: he likes me too, I think," Verty says.
"How does he show it, my boy?"
"He gives me advice, sir."
"What! and you like him for that?"
"Oh, yes, sir."
"Well, perhaps the nature of the advice may modify my surprise at your gratitude, Verty."
"Anan, sir?"
"What advice does he give you?"
Verty laughs.
"Must I tell, sir? I don't know if—"
And Verty blushes slightly, looking at Miss Lavinia and Redbud.
"Come, speak out!" laughs the Squire. "He advises you—"
"Not to get married."
And Verty blushes.
We need not say that the wicked old Squire greets this reply of Verty with a laugh sufficient to shake the windows.
"Not to get married!" he cries.
"Yes, sir," Verty replies, blushing ingenuously.
"And you like Mr. Roundjacket, you say, because he advises you not to get—"
"No, oh! no, sir!" interrupts Verty, with sudden energy, "oh! no, sir,
I did not mean that!"
And the young man, embarrassed by his own vehemence, and the eyes directed toward his face, hangs his head and blushes. Yes, the bold, simple, honest Verty, blushes, and looks ashamed, and feels as if he is guilty of some dreadful crime. Do. not the best of us, under the same circumstances?—that is to say, if we have the good fortune to be young and innocent.
The Squire looks at Verty and laughs; then at Miss Lavinia.
"So, it seems," he says, "that Mr. Roundjacket counsels a bachelor life, eh? Good! he is a worthy professor, but an indifferent practitioner. The rascal! Did you ever hear of such a thing, Lavinia? I declare, if I were a lady, I should decline to recognize, among my acquaintances, the upholder of such doctrines—especially when he poisons the ears of boys like Verty with them!"
And the Squire continues to laugh.
"Perhaps," says Miss Lavinia, with stately dignity, and glancing at
Verty as she speaks,—"perhaps the—hem—circumstances which induced
Mr. Roundjacket to give the advice, might have been—been—peculiar."
And Miss Lavinia smooths down her black silk with dignity.
"Peculiar?"
"Yes," says the lady, glancing this time at Redbud.
"How was it, Verty?" the Squire says, turning to the young man.
Verty, conscious of his secret, blushes and stammers; for how can he tell the Squire that Mr. Roundjacket and himself were discussing the propriety of his marrying Redbud? He is no longer the open, frank, and fearless Verty of old days—he has become a dissembler, for he is in love.
"I don't know—oh, sir—I could'nt—Mr. Roundjacket—"
The Squire laughs.
"There's some secret here," he says; "out with it, Verty, or it will choke you. Come, Rushton, you are an adept—cross-examine the witness."
Mr. Rushton growls.
"You won't—then I will."
"Perhaps the time, and the subject of conversation, might aid you," says Miss Lavinia, who is nettled at Verty, and thus is guily of what she is afterwards ashamed of.
"A good idea," says the Squire; "and I am pleased to see, Lavinia, that you take so much interest in Verty and Mr. Roundjacket."
Miss Lavinia blushes, and looks solemn and stiff.
"Hum!" continues the Squire. "Oyez! the court is opened! First witness, Mr. Verty! Where, sir, did this conversation occur?"
Verty smiles and colors.
"At Mr. Roundjacket's, sir," he replies.
"The hour, as near as you can recollect."
"In the forenoon, sir."
"Were there any circumstances which tend to fix the hour, and the day, in your mind?"
"Yes, sir."
"What were they?"
"I recollect that Miss Lavinia called to see Mr. Roundjacket that day, sir; and as she generally comes into town on Tuesday or Wednesday, soon after breakfast it must have been—"
Verty is interrupted by a chair pushed back from the table. It is Miss Lavinia, who, rising, with a freezing "excuse me," sails from the room.
The Squire bursts into a roar of laughter, and leaving the table, follows her, and is heard making numerous apologies for his wickedness in the next room. He returns with the mischievious smile, and says:
"There, Verty! you are a splendid fellow, but you committed a blunder."
And laughing, the Squire adds:
"Will you come and see the titles, Rushton?"
The lawyer growls, rises, and bidding Verty remain until he comes out, follows the Squire.