John Tincroft, bachelor and benedict

by George E. Sargent

"I don't. What could I say, after reading that and Elizabeth's? Besides, I have been waiting to hear from Mr. Rubric; and he hasn't written."

"Which seems odd and suspicious, as if he had nothing pleasant to tell you, and doesn't want to make further mischief," added Ralph.

"I do not see that that follows," rejoined May. "He may be away from home, or ill, or may have mislaid your letter, or altogether forgotten it. I should rather think either of these things than what Ralph says, if I were you, Walter. And then as to what you could, or could not, write to your cousin, would it not have been a good plan to have told her what has been on your mind, and asked her to tell you faithfully whether she wishes to break off the connection? I am a poor, inexperienced hand in these affairs," added the invalid, with a pleasant smile, which had no unhappiness or regret in it; "but I fancy that in love, as in everything also, open straightforwardness is the best plan to adopt."

"Just so, and as it is never too late to mend, that's the plan I mean to adopt now. Not in writing—I don't meant that, for letters may get twisted about any way and every way, so as to read crooked. No, I'll go and see into it all myself, offhand. We are not quite so busy now, you know, Ralph, and I can be spared for a week or two, eh?"

"My dear fellow, you needn't ask that question. Go, by all means; I'll work for us both till you come back," said Ralph, heartily.

And so it was decided that Walter should start early in the next week, which he did, the last words of his friend Miss Burgess, as she bade him good-bye, being, "Speak kindly to your cousin, Walter, and don't suffer yourself to be set against her by anything you hear behind her back; but go and see her at once, and get her explanation of all that has happened; and be sure you think kindly of her, and be kind to her. Remember she is a woman, and is young, and is to be your wife some day."

And Walter, perhaps, meant to do and be all this; but when he arrived at his home, late one evening—too late to go up to High Beech then—he suffered to be poured into his ears a great deal more than I should think proper to write. And after this he was the more easily persuaded by his sister to put off seeing Sarah till he had examined certain witnesses whom she had taken care to subpœna, and had heard what they had got to say. This took up two or three days. And then he might as well go and see Mr. Rubric, who by this time had returned from his foreign tour, and of whose long absence from his parish Walter was now, for the first time, made aware.

Now, Mr. Rubric was a good, kind-hearted sort of gentleman, and the perusal of Walter's letter, which he had received only a few days before, after its long wanderings, had thrown him into grave perplexity, for he was as conscientious as he was good-natured; and this unexpected visit from the young man increased that feeling. He would gladly have assured Walter that there was nothing in what he had heard to give him any alarm, as Sarah's affianced; but he felt it impossible to do this, for though he had seen little, he had heard much that was calculated, as he believed, to throw great doubts on that young woman's propriety of conduct, to say the least of it; and he had seen enough, as he thought, to confirm these reports.

We have seen how seriously he looked upon the visits of John Tincroft to High Beech, and he could not help concluding—that is to say, he did conclude—that if John had not been encouraged, he would not have made such frequent calls, nor stayed so long when he did call, at the farm. In short, in good Mr. Rubric's opinion, Sarah was a determined coquette and a flirt; and though he would not, on any account, have placed an obstacle in the way of her marriage with her cousin (for he looked upon such engagements as almost indelibly sacred), he sincerely pitied the man who should be tied for life to such a vain, feather-brained piece of womanhood.

In all this, and arguing upon false premises, the good rector was much too severe and sweeping in his private judgment of the case, though he was desirous to shield, as far as lay in his power, both the farmer's daughter and the young man from Oxford from the grave charges brought against them by Walter's sister and family in general.