Mr. Poskitt's Nightcaps: Stories of a Yorkshire Farmer

by J. S. Fletcher

"Well, my lad," he said, "this is one of those things in which a man has to choose for himself. I shouldn't like to have it on my conscience that I ever came between a man and a woman that cared for each other. But we'll talk about it to-morrow. I'm tired, and I've got to look round yet."

Then he went out to fulfil his nightly task, never neglected, never devolved to any one else, of looking round the farmstead before retiring to rest. His nephew noticed that he walked wearily.

Outside, in the fold around which horses and cattle were resting or asleep in stall or byre, Martin Nelthorp stood and stared at the stars glittering high above him in a sky made clear by October frost. He was wondering what it was that had brought this thing upon him—that the one thing he cared for in the world should seek alliance with the enemies of his life who now, by the ordinance of God, lay in his power. He had given Young Martin all the love that had been crushed down and crushed out; he was as proud of him as if the lad had been his own son by the woman he cared for; he meant to leave him all that he had; he was ambitious for him, and knowing that he would be a rich man he had some dreams of his nephew's figuring in the doings of the county, as councillor or magistrate—honours which he himself had persistently refused. And it had never once come within his scheme of things that the boy should fix his affections on the daughter of the enemy—it had been a surprise to him to find out that he even knew her.

Martin Nelthorp walked up and down his fold and his stackyard for some time, staring persistently at the stars. Though he did not say so to himself, he knew that that astute old attorney, Postlethwaite, was right when he said that old wounds rankle. He knew, too, that however much a man may strive to put away the thought from himself, there is still enough of the primitive savage left in all of us to make revenge sweet. And he had suffered through these people—suffered as he had never thought to suffer. He looked back and remembered what life had been to him up to the day when the news of a man's treachery and a woman's weakness had been brought to him, and he clenched his fists and set his teeth, and all the old black hatred came welling up in his heart.

"He shan't have her!" he said. "He shan't have her! A good girl!—what good could come of stock like that?"

Then he went indoors and up to his chamber, and Young Martin heard him walking up and down half the night. When he himself got down next morning his uncle had gone out: the housekeeper, greatly upset by the fact, seeing that such a thing had never happened within her fifteen years' experience of him, said that the master had had no more breakfast than a glass of milk and a crust of bread, and she hoped he was not sickening for an illness.

At that moment Martin Nelthorp was riding along the russet lanes towards the market-town. There had been a strong frost in the night, and the sky above him was clear as only an autumn sky can be. All about him were patches of red and yellow and purple, for the foliage was changing fast, and in the hedgerows there were delicate webs of gossamer. Usually, as a great lover of Nature, he would have seen these things—on this morning he rode straight on, grim and determined.

He was so early at Mr. Postlethwaite's office that he had to wait nearly half-an-hour for the arrival of that gentleman. But when Mr. Postlethwaite came his client lost no time in going straight to his point.

"I want all papers of mine relating to that Sutton affair," he said. "Before I settle what I shall do I must read through 'em myself. Give me the lot."

Mr. Postlethwaite made some would-be facetious remark as to legal phraseology, but Martin Nelthorp paid no attention to it. He carried the papers away with him in a big envelope, and riding straight home at a smart pace, took them into the little room which he used as an office, and went carefully through them merely to see that they were all there. That done, he tore certain of them in half, and enclosing everything in another cover, he addressed it to Richard Sutton.