It was a bitterly hard lot for Christopher Tallant, in his prime and in his glory, but he knuckled down to it manfully, and bent his head to the storm.
The train came at last, and carried the merchant away to the station nearest Barton Hall. The porters were in a state of great excitement because there was no carriage as usual to meet Mr. Tallant; he took no notice of their inquiries and suggestions beyond the courtesy of a passing nod, but walked quietly to the principal hotel. Thence he sent a messenger requesting a local lawyer to attend him at Barton Hall, whither he departed as quickly as a hired conveyance would permit.
They had heard of the panic at this little out-of-the-way town, and concluded at once that Mr. Tallant had received some great financial injury in the crisis. The town was alive with rumours all the night, and by bed-time Mr. Tallant was reported to have lost a million of money in railways. But on the following day the true story was told by the London papers, or by one of them at least; for the majority had excluded the point of the denunciatory speech which ended with the name of Richard Tallant.
The law of libel, as it affects newspaper proprietors, is peculiar with regard to the publication of public sayings and doings. The reporter may set down the most scurrilous and libellous speech which counsel or solicitor may make in a court of justice, and the newspaper editor may publish it in his columns without a shadow of legal responsibility resting upon him; but anything said at a public meeting which in any way affects the character or reputation of a private individual or a public man, is published at the editor’s peril: so that several of the London journals refrained from chronicling all that took place at the Eastern Bank meeting. One editor, bolder than the rest, published the meeting at length; and his paper it was which enlightened the people in the Avonworth Valley with regard to the unusual manner and conduct of the famous proprietor of Barton Hall.
CHAPTER XIX.
OF CERTAIN REPORTS IN THE NEWSPAPERS.
O, those hard and bitter histories, the newspapers! Hard as the metal in which they are printed. Stern matter-of-fact histories of the great world. They go straight to the subject; they do not prepare the reader by any quiet preliminary caution that the man who has been found murdered is his father; there is nothing roundabout in that long list of deaths. You have no time to think before the awful truth is in your mind. That railway accident,—is your dear friend unhurt?—whilst you are wondering, there stands his name in the list of dead. That little indiscretion of your son’s;—here it is, blazoned forth to the world in the police reports: he was only anxious to save his friend, and his zeal overcame his discretion; he is fined for obstructing a policeman in the execution of his duty, and here stands the record, to be turned against him any day.
O, hard and bitter histories! They told the story on that second day. They told the two stories. They came to Barton Hall, wrapped up carefully and smug as of yore. They were carried to the kitchen fire and dried. John scanned them, and saw nothing of importance. Mary noticed a frightful murder stuck down in one corner, almost out of sight. Peter the groom took note of the latest betting; but none of them saw what the people at the town found out later in the day; and none of them saw what Phœbe Tallant and Amy Somerton saw.
Mr. Tallant had been engaged until late with his country lawyer, and had kept his room on that second day. Phœbe was sure there was something seriously the matter with her father; for he had pressed her hand, and kissed her, and made the tears come into her eyes.
This was something very unusual for Mr. Tallant. Proud as he undoubtedly was of Phœbe’s beauty, hers was a sort of negative existence in his mind. Richard, her brother, had engrossed nearly all his thoughts. Phœbe was like a simple flower adorning the name of Tallant;—but Richard, he would build up the house and perpetuate the name, and be the grand, educated successor of his father.
Once or twice, however, within the few previous months, grave doubts as to the propriety of his son’s conduct had crossed the merchant’s mind; but these had been to a great extent dispelled by a few words of conversation with his son. Of course, the young fellow had been educated at Oxford, and had thoughts, and feelings, and aspirations altogether different to his father’s. The old man understood this to a certain extent, but “honour, Dick; remember, that does not come with college education, my boy,” Mr. Tallant would say; “don’t let Latin, and Greek, and mythology, and grand acquaintances shake plain old Saxon notions of honour and honesty, and paying your way, and owing no man, and all those old-fashioned things which have made the name of Tallant foremost in the city of London.”