Rogues and Vagabonds

by George R. Sims

Some day he supposed he would have to pay his debts; some day he supposed he would marry Bess. ‘Some day’ was a movable feast, and so George didn’t worry himself about it.

But to-night a crisis had come. To-night he had to begin a new life. He was no longer Squire Heritage’s heir.

George had not exaggerated the nature of his interview with his father. The old squire was the last man in the world who should have been George’s father.

He was as careful of money as his son was prodigal. His notions of what a young man of three-and-twenty ought to be were founded upon what he himself had been at that age—a steady young fellow, contented to ride about his father’s estate, talk with the old men, and spend his days about the land and his evenings in the library. He was matter of fact, stern, and uncompromising. He came of Puritan stock, and he had notions of morality which were scandalized by the fashionable follies of to-day.

He was bitterly disappointed in his son, in whom he had hoped to find a companion. When Mrs Heritage died the lad was fifteen and at school, and he saw but little of his father. In due course he went to Oxford, and there he developed his ‘fast’ tendencies. He got into a fast set, went the pace, and ran heavily into debt.

The squire had him home, read him a lesson, paid his debts, and told him he need not go back to Oxford again; that what he was learning there wasn’t likely to do him any good.

The old hall was dull for the lad. About a fortnight he grew tired of dining with his father and going to bed at ten. He looked out for something to amuse him, and two things happened which influenced the whole after-course of his life. He fell in love with the lodge-keeper’s daughter, handsome Bess Marks, and he took to going up to London and joined a club.

Gradually the club claimed most of his attention, and he broke out into another gambling fit.

He took to attending race meetings and to card-playing, and once again came what in sporting language is called a ‘cropper.’ He got his name on stamped paper which had an awkward habit of coming due, and let things go on in his easy, happy-go-lucky way, till he found himself in such a muddle that he was bound to appeal to his father.

A second time the squire drew a cheque and paid his son’s creditors. But from that moment there was an estrangement. George resented the severity of the lecture which accompanied the cheque, and took little pains to conceal his feelings.