“I thought you’d have been gone long since, my lord! They’ll be getting anxious at the House. Can you drive us home, Thomas?”
Denny turned with quick gladness on his poor, troubled face.
“Ay, that I can, sir, though I’ve lost the best horse in my stable!” He reached out and laid a hand on Lanty’s arm. “There’s folks, sir—none so far off, neither—as say the Lugg ought never to have been built, folks as think ’twas pride as put it there and pride as kept it there. But there’s other folks as say the Lancasters may build a score o’ Luggs an’ drown the lot of us; an’ the fust on ’em’s Thomas Cuthbert Dennison o’ Lockholme!”
He hurried out, leaving Brack staring curiously after him.
“What’s the cinch you’ve got on ’em all?” he asked at last. “What’s the receipt for making blind, boot-licking fools of thinking men, setting them kissing your feet and your kid gloves? How have you fixed these kow-towing cranks on the marsh?”
Lancaster came forward to the table.
“There’s only one tie, Brack, between man and man, that will stand a week, and that’s just simple faith. You think we’re out of date up here because some of us still trust each other, still hold a man’s word as his bond, unbacked by a Government stamp. You think that folks should trust themselves and nobody else, should keep looking out all the time for other folks getting ready to do them. Now, I tell you, who have seen my own faith go down to-day—I tell you, it is better to keep trust and be betrayed—ay! better even to betray trust in keeping trust, than never to have trust at all! What you knew, you knew of yourself; it could not help us. We at the helm had to take our chance, and failed. Do not doubt that always, and in every way, we shall pay.”
A flush came into Brack’s haggard cheeks. He gave a short laugh of pure nervous excitement. He straightened himself. His elegance came back to him. You looked instinctively for the Trilby and the S.-F., though both had been swept out to sea. He stepped in front of Lanty, clicking his heels together, and flinging up a hand in salute.
“Mr. Lancaster, you’re great!” he exclaimed, at his most colonial. “You’re the real goods, all the way. You’ve got me, any time you like. I’ll take a top line, please, in that drowning-list of yours, along with friend Thomas Dennison!”
He gave the same nervous laugh and went out. But, as he went, he cast one last keen and curious glance at the young man at the table.