“Can’t somebody see Tanerton, and talk to him? One would think that the sight of Lee’s face would be enough to soften him, without anything else.”
“I don’t know who’d like to do it,” returned Salmon. And there the conference ended, for the apprentice came in from his dinner.
Very much to our surprise, Mr. Ben Rymer walked in that same evening to Crabb Cot, and was admitted to the Squire. In spite of Mr. Ben’s former ill-doings, which he had got to know of, the Squire treated Ben civilly, in remembrance of his father, and of his grandfather, the clergyman. Ben’s errand was to ask the Squire to intercede for Lee with Herbert Tanerton. And the pater, after talking largely about the iniquity of Lee, as connected with burnt letters, came round to Ben’s way of thinking, and agreed to go to the Rectory.
“Herbert Tanerton’s harder than nails, and you’ll do no good,” remarked Tod, watching us away on the following morning; for the pater took me with him to break the loneliness of the walk. “He’ll turn as cold to you as a stone the moment you bring up the subject, sir. Tell me I’m a story-teller when you come back if he does not, Johnny.”
We took the way of the Ravine. It was a searching day; the wintry wind keen and “unkind as man’s ingratitude.” Before us, toiling up the descent to the Ravine at the other end, and coming to a halt at the stile to pant and cough, went a woebegone figure, thinly clad, which turned out to be Lee himself. He had a small bundle of loose sticks in his hand, which he had come to pick up. The Squire was preparing a sort of blowing-up greeting for him, touching lighted matches and carelessness, but the sight of the mild, starved grey face disarmed him; he thought, instead, of the days when Lee had been a prosperous farmer, and his tone changed to one of pity.
“Hard times, I’m afraid, Lee.”
“Yes, sir, very hard. I’ve known hard times before, but I never thought to see any so cruel as these. There’s one comfort, sir; when things come to this low ebb, life can’t last long.”
“Stuff,” said the Squire. “For all you know, you may be back in your old place soon: and—and Mrs. Todhetley will find some sewing when Mamie’s well enough to do it.”
A faint light, the dawn of hope, shone in Lee’s eyes. “Oh, sir, if it could be! and I heard a whisper to-day that young Jelf refuses to keep the post. If it had been anybody’s letter but Mr. Tanerton’s, perhaps—but he does not forgive.”
“I’m on my way now to ask him,” cried the pater, unable to keep in the news. “Cheer up, Lee—of course you’d pass your word not to go burning letters again.”