“If I did I did, but angry folk don’t always mean all they says; no matter, we’re done wi’ it now—it’s over. He was worth ye all,” broke out the Squire passionately; “I could ’a liked him, if he had ’a liked me—if he had ’a let me, but he didn’t, and—there it is.”
So the Squire walked on a little hastily, which was his way when he chose to be alone, down the steps with gaunt, stumbling gait, and slowly away into the tall woods close by, and in that ancestral shadow disappeared.
Future—present—past. The future—mist, a tint, and shadow. The cloud on which fear and hope project their airy phantoms, living in imagination, and peopled by romance—a dream of dreams. The present only we possess man’s momentary dominion, plastic under his hand as the clay under the potter’s—always a moment of the present in our absolute power—always that fleeting, plastic moment speeding into the past—immutable, eternal. The metal flows molten by, and then chills and fixes for ever. So with the life of man—so with the spirit of man. Work while it is called day. The moment fixes the retrospect, and death the character, for ever. The heart knoweth its own bitterness. The proud man looks on the past he has made. The hammer of Thor can’t break it; the fire that is not quenched can’t melt it. His thoughtless handiwork will be the same for ever.
Old Squire Harry did not talk any more about Charlie. About a month after this he sent to Craybourne to say that Dobbs must come up to Wyvern. Dobbs’ heart failed him when he heard it. Every one was afraid of old Squire Harry, for in his anger he regarded neither his own interest nor other men’s safety.
“Ho, Dobbs! you’re not fit for Craybourne, the farm’s too much for you, and I’ve nothing else to gi’e ye.” Dobbs’ heart quailed at these words. “You’re a fool, Dobbs—you’re a fool—you’re not equal to it, man. I wonder you didn’t complain o’ your rent. It’s too much—too high by half. I told Cresswell to let you off every rent day a good penn’orth, for future, and don’t you talk about it to no one, ’twould stop that.” He laid his hand on Dobbs’ shoulder, and looked not unkindly in his face.
And then he turned and walked away, and Dobbs knew that his audience was over.
And the old Squire was growing older, and grass and weeds were growing apace over handsome Charlie Fairfield’s grave in Wyvern. But the old man never sent to Carwell Grange, nor asked questions about Alice. That wound was not healed, as death heals some.
Harry came, but Alice was ill, and could not see him. Lady Wyndale came, and her she saw, and that good-natured kinswoman made her promise that she would come and live with her so soon as she was well enough to leave the Grange.
And Alice lay still in her bed, as the doctor commanded, and her heart seemed breaking. The summer would return, but Ry would never come again. The years would come and pass—how were they to be got over? And, oh! the poor little thing that was coming!—what a sad welcome! It would break her heart to look at it. “Oh, Ry, Ry, Ry, my darling!”
So the morning broke and evening closed, and her great eyes were wet with tears—“the rain it raineth every day.”