"Rabbits beats me altogether, I be bound to own. They bain't poultry, and they bain't butcher's meat neither. What be they, anyhow? The Squire be a proper kind gentleman for sure, but when he takes up with them okkard new fancies what no one can't explain, it be proper hard to know how to treat 'un. Why, George man, when the parson was readin' of the Litany, Sunday past, and come to the 'kindly fruits of the earth,' I thinks to myself, 'that's rabbits, that is,' and I shuts my mouth tight, I does! And me what's never missed sayin' and singin' all the prayer-book allows 'un to do, this forty year that I've sat in the choir up agin poor Jack Priest's tablet. 'T ain't as though I be an unreligious body what sings an' don't pray, as I've known some do; but there's never a Amen that I don't take part in, and there bain't a trap in the service as can catch me now, allays allowin' for the reply to the tenth commandment what were put in by the devil or the chapel people, and caught on by the parsons accidental, so to speak. So you see how a man be upset all along o' them beasts, if ye can call a thing a beast what eats like string."
Mrs. Tom Clarke, in spite of the cookery lectures that had been given in the Club on Wednesday evenings, by an expert from London, who had evolved strange dishes from herring heads and mutton bones with the aid of a patent portable stove, still preferred to cook her husband's food in her own way, and this generally consisted in putting it into a saucepan from which the duck's food had just been extracted,—a process which had the effect of making everything taste alike; so it was certainly probable that the Squire's rabbit had not had a fair chance in that cottage, at all events.
But in spite of the opposition he was receiving from his most faithful adherents, Sir Marcus still sat patiently, and made his calculations for his new letter to the papers. He had already written to two or three members of Parliament for statistics, and had received replies from the House of Commons which he folded on his writing-table with the address uppermost, and in which they mostly referred him to Whitaker; and he had caused a slight disruption at the luncheon table, only that day, by wanting to know the good of the expensive education he had given his children if it turned them out ignorant of rabbits. The children were wishing just then that their father's new hobby had not happened to possess him in the Christmas holidays, and Lady Raleigh had taken the precaution of telling her cook to jug the hare and make it as unlike a rabbit as possible, so that dinner might pass off more peaceably than luncheon had done.
"I must have Joan down; she would sympathize," murmured Sir Marcus, laying his pen down, and reading the first sentences he had written of his letter. "Splendid woman, Joan, never laughs at my little ideas, and takes such an interest in them. Shows what intelligence can do for a girl. She'd have made Jack realize the responsibilities of existence, she would. Devil take my head, why is it swimming so this afternoon?"
The letter did not get on very fast, there was too much similarity between its sentiments and those he had so often expressed before; it looked rather as though he were adapting an old letter by scratching out "duck" and substituting "rabbit," for he found himself writing that the feathers and eggs alone of one rabbit more than repaid the cost of rearing it.
"Digby used to come down and see me oftener than he does now," said Sir Marcus, laying down his pen again and passing his hand across his brow. "I don't like his being away so long, and the dear little boy too; why don't they come and see me? Got a wife? Oh, to be sure, yes; my memory don't seem so strong as it was, somehow: to be sure, a wife, yes. Nice little thing, very; wonder if she would know how many we get yearly from Holland? My hand gets more tired than it used, though it wouldn't do to say so; people are so ready to talk about an old man breaking up before he's out of the sixties. Why, I walked up from the post-office in eight minutes and a half this morning; I can beat the youngsters now, eh? I wish Joan would come and catch hold of this accursed letter, it keeps drifting so far away. I always wonder what made her take Digby; funny fellow, Digby. What am I saying? It's Jack who is her husband, isn't it? I've been writing too much to-day, that's what it is. I'm only a little queer, but—I wish Joan would come and finish my letter for me. Why won't Digby bring her down now? Let's get hold of the whiskey; that's what I want to set me straight, of course. What nonsense they are talking; men don't fall to pieces when they are sixty-four. I can walk with the best of them, eh, Joan, my dear?"
There were three people destined for Murville Manor in the 6.45 from Euston that evening. Two of them were in separate third-class smoking carriages at the end of the train; the other sat in a first-class compartment. They were Digby, and Jack, and Lady Joan, all summoned by the same telegram, and all obeying the summons unknown to each other, and with the greatest speed possible. The two brothers, singularly enough, each spent the greater part of the two hours' journey in reading and re-reading a letter, which was written, in both cases, in a thick, rather illegible handwriting. The musician, as he took his from the already opened envelope, gave a half-conscious look round the carriage before he read it. It dated from the day before, and had no heading to it:—
"I think on consideration that the new form of diversion you proposed to me the other night would not work so well as we thought. So I am not going to entertain it any longer. You will probably blame me for my vacillation; but then, you should not have established a precedent for vacillation in the 'Relton Arms,' four years ago. After all, there is nothing left but the book; and I am going to be away, and alone, until I have written it. Don't be alarmed. I am not going to soak it with my own experiences.
"Joan."
His younger brother, in the other carriage, did not look at any one when he took his letter from his breast-pocket and unfolded it. It was very limp, and looked as though it had been unfolded many times before. It was dated two days earlier:—
"My dear Boy,—I am a cad, and I hate myself for what I have done to you. It is quite the meanest thing I have done in my life. Please believe that I did not authorize Digby to come and tell you for me, last night; he wanted to spare me the unpleasantness, I suppose, of confessing to you that I was a brute. But I am a brute, all the same; I should only be a worse one if I were to marry you now. I haven't the least right to expect you to grant me a favor, but I shall be glad if you will take this as final.
"Joan Relton."