"He lives on the other side of the range, and I know him not; but our sheep have mingled on the mountain for thirty years. I count not after him, and he counts not after me;" and Sandal spoke coldly, like a man defending his own order. "Are you going to rent your 'walks' so soon? Eh? What?"
"As soon as I can advantageously."
"I bethink me. At the last shearing you were all for spinning and weaving. The Coppice Woods were to make your bobbins; Silver Force was to feed your engines; the little herd lads and lassies to mind your spinning-frames. Well, well, Mr. Latrigg, such doings are not for me to join in! I shall be sorry to see these lovely valleys turned into weaving-shops; but you belong to a new generation, and the young know every thing,—or they think they do."
"And you will soon join the new generation, squire. You were always tolerant and wide awake. I never knew your prejudices beyond reasoning with."
"Mr. Latrigg, leave my prejudices, as you call them, alone. To-day I am not in the humor either to defend them or repent of them."
They talked for some time longer,—talked until the squire felt bored with Steve's plans. The young man kept hoping every moment to say something that would retrieve his previous blunders; but who can please those who are determined not to be pleased? And yet Sandal was annoyed at his own injustice, and then still more annoyed at Steve for causing him to be unjust. Besides which, the young man's eagerness for change, his enthusiasms and ambitions, offended him in a particular way that morning; for he had had an unpleasant letter from his son Harry, who was not eager and enthusiastic and ambitious, but lazy, extravagant, and quite commonplace. Also Charlotte had not cared to come out with him, and the immeasurable self-complacency of his nephew Julius had really quite spoiled his breakfast; and then, below all, there was that disagreeable feeling about the Latriggs.
So Stephen did not conciliate Sandal, and he was himself very much grieved at the squire's evident refusal of his friendly advances. There is no humiliation so bitter as that of a rejected offering. Was it not the failure of Cain's attempted propitiation that kindled the flame of hate and murder in his heart? Steve Latrigg went back to Up-Hill, nursing a feeling of indignation against the man who had so suddenly conceived a dislike to him, and who had dashed, with regrets and doubtful speeches and faint praise, all the plans which at sunrise had seemed so full of hope, and so worthy of success.
The squire was equally annoyed. He could not avoid speaking of the interview, for it irritated him, and was uppermost in his thoughts. He detailed it with a faint air of pitying contempt. "The lad is upset with the money and land he has come into, and the whole place is too small for his greatness." That was what he said, and he knew he was unjust; but the moral atmosphere between Steve and himself had become permeated with distrust and dislike. Unhappy miasmas floated hither and thither in it, and poisoned him. When with Stephen he hardly recognized himself: he did not belong to himself. Sarcasm, contradiction, opposing ideas, took possession of and ruled him by the forces of antipathy, just as others ruled him by the forces of love and attraction.
The days that had been full of peaceful happiness were troubled in all their hours; and yet the sources of trouble were so vague, so blended with what he had called unto himself, that he could not give vent to his unrest and disappointment. His life had had a jar; nothing ran smoothly; and he was almost glad when Julius announced the near termination of his visit. He had begun to feel as if Julius were inimical to him; not consciously so, but in that occult way which makes certain foods and drinks, certain winds and weathers, inimical to certain personalities. His presence seemed to have blighted his happiness, as the north wind blighted his myrtles. "If I could only have let 'well' alone. If I had never written that letter." Many a time a day he said such words to his own heart.