"And so I am the last of them all; and alone. Hardly one of them left. Hardly one. And their sons are feeding their pheasants, and planting their shrubberies still, as we did. And the things that were terrible realities for us, are only printed words for them, which they try to realise, but cannot. The thirty mad long years, through which we stood with our backs to the wall, and ticketed as "the revolutionary wars," and put in a pigeon-hole. I wish they would do us justice. We were right. Hainault's pheasants prove it. They must pay their twenty million a year, and thank us that they have got off so easy.
"I wonder what they would do, in such a pinch as we had. They seem to be as brave as ever; but I am afraid of their getting too much unbrutalised for another struggle like ours. I suppose I am wrong, for I am getting too old to appreciate new ideas, but I am afraid of our getting too soft. It is a bygone prejudice, I am afraid. One comfort is, that such a struggle can never come again. If it did, they might have the will to do all that we did, and more, but have they the power? This extension of the suffrage has played the devil, and now they want to extend it farther, the madmen! They'll end by having a House full of Whigs. And then—why, then, I suppose, there'll be nothing but Whigs in the House. That seems to me near about what will happen. Well! well! I was a Whig myself once on a time.
"All gone. Every one of them. And I left on here, in perfect health and preservation, as much an object of wonder to the young ones as a dodo would be to a poultry-fancier. Before the effect of our deeds has been fully felt, our persons have become strange, and out of date. But yet I, strange to say, don't want to go yet. I want to see that Ravenshoe boy again. Gad! how I love that boy. He has just Barkham's sweet, gentle, foolish way with him. I determined to make him my heir from the first time I saw him at Ranford, if he turned out well. If I had announced it, everything would have gone right. What an endless series of unlucky accidents that poor boy has had.
"Just like Barkham. The same idle, foolish, lovable creature, with anger for nothing; only furious, blind indignation for injustice and wrong. I wish he would come back. I am getting aweary of waiting.
"I wonder if I shall see Barkham again, just to sit with my arm on his shoulder, as I used to on the terrace in old times. Only for one short half-hour——"
I shall leave off here. I don't want to follow the kind old heathen through his vague speculations about a future state. You see how he had loved his son. You see why he loved Charles. That is all I wished to show you.
"And if Charles don't come back? By Gad! I am very much afraid the chances are against it. Well, I suppose, if the poor lad dies, I must leave the money to Welter and his wife, if it is only for the sake of poor Ascot, who was a good fellow. I wonder if we shall ever get at the bottom of this matter about the marriage. I fancy not, unless Charles dies, in which case Ellen will be re-instated by the priest.
"I hope William will make haste back with him. Old fellows like me are apt to go off in a minute. And if he dies and I have not time to make a will, the whole goes to the Crown, which will be a bore. I would sooner Welter had it than that."
Lord Saltire stood looking out of the library window, until the river looked like a chain of crimson pools, stretching westward towards the sinking sun. The room behind him grew dark, and the marble pillars, which divided it in unequal portions, stood like ghosts in the gloom. He was hidden by the curtain, and presently he heard the door open, and a light footstep stealthily approaching over the Turkey carpet. There was a rustle of a woman's dress, and a moving of books on the centre table, by some hand which evidently feared detection. Lord Saltire stepped from behind his curtain, and confronted Mary Corby.