CHAPTER XIV.
BRINGS THE DOUBTLESS RELUCTANT READER ONCE MORE INTO CONTACT WITH A "GALLANT" WOOER, AND GIVES FURTHER PROOF OF THE DIFFICULTY WHICH BESETS ALL ATTEMPTS TO HARMONISE TRUTH AND FASHIONABLE "CHRISTIAN" RESPECTABILITY.
Thus was the Captain's way made smooth to him, and the country side soon became as full of his ongoings with "the parson's girl" as ever it had been about his intrigue with Sally Wanless.
Thomas Wanless himself saw and heard much, for his cottage was not very far from the Vicarage road, and the Captain sometimes forgot himself, and passed his very door, instead of taking up the back street. Doubtless it never entered the Captain's head that any peasant would accost him about such a trifle as the ruin of his daughter. He ought rather to feel honoured thereat. What he did fear was the girl herself—he having a fine gentlemanly dread of "scenes."
Nevertheless, Thomas's wrath was awakened anew at the sight of this "cool blackguard," as he most irreverently styled the Captain, and soon the feeling extended to them that "harboured him." It was borne in upon his spirit, as the Methodists say, that he must denounce the "ruffian." Yes, yes, he thought, this must be done; till it was done there would be no relief in his mind. He had borne too much in silence, but that this harbouring of criminals should go on before his face was more than he could stand.
"It will do no good," his wife said, as he declared his purpose to her.
"Good!" he answered, "who wants or expects good to come to them or us? I expect none, but I must and shall tell the blackguard what I think of him."
Yet this was easier said than done. He could not well stop the Captain in the street, for he nearly always drove or rode, and never once passed Thomas's cottage door on foot. It was utterly useless to call at the Grange, for no one would see him. Obsequious menials might even set the dogs at him, or trump up a charge against him and put him in jail. Besides, Thomas had no time except on Sundays to go in quest of his enemy, and on Sundays the Captain was usually at the Vicarage. In the bitterness of spirit which these thoughts brought him to, Thomas might have, perhaps, done something rash, but happily necessity prevented him. He had now to work, if possible, harder than ever—early and late at the farm, on his allotment, in the little garden at his cottage, he laboured for the means of life—and did but poorly, though the work kept him up and helped him to control the fire that burned within him.
At last the chance he longed for came suddenly, and without his seeking it. He was passing the Vicarage garden one beautiful Sunday afternoon in October, and heard voices on the little lawn which lay between the hedge and the house. Laughter and the chatter of merry tongues fell on his ear, and one hard man's voice he instantly guessed must be that of Captain Wiseman. To reach that conclusion and the resolve to face his daughter's seducer then and there may be said to have constituted one mental effort. A rush of strong emotion swept over him and made him feel, as he opened the Vicarage gate and slipped within, as if God had laid a mission upon him to lay bare the iniquity of this man and of those who countenanced him. Under the influence of this feeling he straightened himself and strode across the grass direct to the place where he heard the voices.
The scene that burst upon his view if possible heightened his courage, and I can well imagine that the rough, toil-gnarled, weather-buffeted old man looked like an avenging fate to those whose privacy he had thus invaded. Always dignified and noble in aspect, the anger at his heart now doubtless made him heroic.