And Harry walked in and found the old Squire of Wyvern standing with his back to the fire, tall, gaunt, and flushed, and his eyes looking large with the glassy sheen of age.
“Well, why didn’t ye tell me the news, ye fool?” said the Squire, as he entered. “D——n ye, if it hadn’t a bin for Tom Ward I shouldn’t a heerd nout o’ the matter. So there’s a brat down in Carwell Grange—ha, ha!—marriage is honourable, I’ve heerd tell, but housekeepin’s costly. ’Tis the old tune on the bagpipe. That’s the way to beggar’s bush. When marriage gets into the saddle repentance gets up at the crupper. Why the devil didn’t ye tell me the news? Why didn’t ye tell me, ye d——d wether-head?”
“So I would ’a told ye to-night, but I fell asleep after dinner. It’s true enough, though, and there’s doctors, and nurses, and caudles, and all sorts.”
“Well for Charlie he’s out of the way—dead mice feels no cold, you know, and she’s a bad un—Alice Maybell’s a bad un. The vicar was a thankless loon, and she’s took after him. She went her own gait, and much good it did her. Sweetheart and honey bird keeps no house, and the devil’s bread is half bran. She’ll learn a lesson now. I was too good to that huzzy. Put another man’s child in your bosom, they say, and he’ll creep out at your sleeves. She’s never a friend now. She’s lost Charlie and she’s lost me. Well might the cat wink when both her eyes were out. She’d like well enough to be back here again in Wyvern—d——n her. She knows who was her best friend by this time. Right well pleased wi’ herself, I’ll be bound, the day she gi’ed us the slip and ran off with the fool Charlie—down in the mouth, I warrant her now, the jade. I dare say the parson’s down at the Grange every day to pray wi’ my lady and talk o’ resignation. When all their rogueries breaks down they take to cantin’ and psalm singin’, and turns up their eyes, the limmers, and cries the Lord’s will be done. Welcome death, quoth the rat, when the trap fell. Much thanks to ’em for takin’ what they can’t help. Well, she’s a bad un—a black-hearted, treacherous lass she proved, and Charlie was a soft fellow and a mad fellow, and so his day’s over, and I was just a daft old fool, and treated accordin’. But time and thought tames all, and we shall all lie alike in our graves.”
“And what’s the boy like?” the old man resumed. “Is he like Charlie?”
“He was asleep, and the room dark, so there was no good trying to see him,” said Harry, inventing an excuse.
“Not a bit, dark or light, not a bit; he’s Ally’s son, and good won’t grow from that stock—never. As the old bird crows, so crows the young, and that foreign madam, I hear, swears she was married first to poor Charlie, and what’s that to me?—not that spoonful of punch. She’s up in limbo, and if her story be true, why then that boy of Ally’s ain’t in the runnin’, and his mother, bless her heart, needn’t trouble her head about Wyvern, nor be wishin’ the old Squire, that was good to her, under the sod, to make way for her son, and then there’s you to step in and claim my shoes, and my chair, and cellar key, and then Madam—what’s her name—Van Trump, or something, will out wi’ a bantling, I take it, and you’ll all fight it out, up and down—kick, throttle, and bite—in the Court of Chancery, or where ye can, and what is’t to me who wins or who loses? Not that bit o’ lemon-peel, and if you think I’m a going to spend a handful o’ money in law to clear up a matter that don’t concern me, no more than the cat’s whisker, you’re a long way out in your reckonin’—be me soul ye are, for I’ll not back none o’ ye, and I won’t sport a shillin’—and I don’t care a d——n. Ye’ll fight the battle o’er my grave, and ye’ll take Wyvern who can, and ’twill cost ye all round a pretty penny. Ye’ll be sellin’ your shirts and your smocks, and ye’re pretty well in for it, and ye can’t draw back. Well lathered is half shaved, and it won’t break my heart, I promise you.”
And the old man chuckled and hooted, and wagged his head fiercely as he declaimed, in his own way, upon the row that was coming.
“Don’t ye spare one another for my sake. Take Wyvern who can. I’ll keep my hands in my pockets, I promise ye. What have I to do wi’ other folks’ windmills?”
So the old Squire stormed on more serenely than he had done for a long time.