“You have, maybe,” returned Reed, glancing at the spirits on the table. “Either Cathy went out on a harmless jaunt, and is staying away because she can’t face the shame at home which you have put there; or else she went out to meet your son, and has been taken away by him. I think it must be the last; my fears whisper it to me; and, if so, you can’t be off knowing something of it. Major Parrifer, I must have my daughter.”
Whether the hint given about his son alarmed the Major, causing him to forget his bluster for once, and answer civilly, he certainly did it. His son was in Ireland with his regiment, he said; had not been at the Hall for weeks and weeks; he could answer for it that Lieutenant Parrifer knew nothing of the girl.
“He was here at Christmas,” said George Reed. “I saw him.”
“And left two or three days after it. How dare you, fellow, charge him with such a thing? He’d wring your neck for you if he were here.”
“Perhaps I might find cause to wring his first. Major Parrifer, I want my daughter.”
“If you do not get out of my house, I’ll have you brought before me to-morrow for trespassing, and give you a second month’s imprisonment,” roared the Major, gathering bluster and courage. “You want another month of it: this one does not appear to have done you the good it ought. Now—go!”
“I’ll go,” said Reed, who began to see the Major really did not know anything of Cathy—and it had not been very probable that he did. “But I’d like to leave a word behind me. You have succeeded in doing me a great injury, Major Parrifer. You are rich and powerful, I am poor and lowly. You set your mind on my bit of a home, and because you could not drive me from it, you took advantage of your magistrate’s post to sentence me to prison, and so be revenged. It has done me a great deal of harm. What good has it done you?”
Major Parrifer could not speak for rage.
“It will come home to you, sir, mark me if it does not. God has seen my trouble, and my wife’s trouble, and I don’t believe He ever let such a wrong pass unrewarded. It will come home to you, Major Parrifer.”