But I checked myself; and, motioning the baron to be seated, said in a calm—though spite of me—trembling voice:
“Noble father, it is thine to command; mine to obey! Speak, I pray thee, and speak too, plainly—if need be, harshly. Bare thy most secret thoughts. What aileth thee? What sends these dark shadows to rest on that calm, smooth brow?”
“Thanks, little baron,” was my father’s reply, “for thy promise of obedience. This is the weight which presses on my heart: Since thou hast taken up this rambling, roving life, robbed of thy counsel and co-operation, I have seen our ancestral estate hastening to ruin. Last year our tenantry scarcely harvested enough to keep body and soul together. This year promises to turn out worse yet. Desolation sits upon the broad acres once the prize of our family! Crops fail, grass withers, trees turn yellow! The poor cattle moan for sustenance as they winder about in the dried-up pastures. I look upon all this wreck and ruin, but am helpless as a babe to stay it! Speak, my son; wilt thou, hast thou the heart, canst thou be so cruel as to turn thy back upon these pitiful scenes without raising thy hand to avert the impending doom?”
“Baron!” I interposed mildly, but firmly, “facts first! eloquence thereafter! Impart unto me, in plain, King’s speech, the cause of all this ruin! What hath wrought it? What hath desolated our fair fields? What hath carried this rapine among our flocks and herds? Speak!”
“I will, little baron, give attentive ear!” rejoined my father with stately bend of the body:
“As ancient Egypt was visited with scourge and plague, so have been our ancestral acres! In pasture and grain fields, myriads of moles feed upon the tender rootlets; in grass lands, swarms of meadow-mice fatten on the herbage; in orchards and nurseries, countless numbers of ground-squirrels spread destruction far and near! Such are the terrible scourges now laying waste our once fair estates, your pride and mine, and the envy of all beholders!
“Little baron, I feel, I know that thou canst help me; that somewhere in the vast storehouse of thy mind, rest plans and devices potent enough to restore these broad lands to all their former beauty and productiveness.”
“Baron!” was my reply, “when was there a time that thou foundst me wanting in my duty to thee or lacking in power to assist thee?”
“Never!” ejaculated the elder baron with great emphasis.
“Then, betake thee to my gentle mother—the baroness—thy consort, comfort her. Bid her take heart! Say I will not go abroad until these pests are driven from our ancestral domain!”