"And what is that royal road?" Featherstonhaugh asked, controlling himself and driving the other to fury. Roger had advanced a step, his eyes glaring, his throat dry with excitement—when an unthought-of interruption came. A trim figure of an old man, bowed but precise, moving slowly along the upper path beneath the trees, came suddenly in sight. It was the old vicar, Mr Weston, who had christened both of them and all the parish beside. The sound of his steady, measured old footstep rang against their excited ears like the very steps of Time himself. They fell apart by instinct, they composed their looks and banished from their voices all sign of the enmity with which they had turned on each other. Mr Weston was not deceived. He had heard high words as he came up, and had even seen the threatening looks of the two young men, and divined that they were on the edge of a quarrel, though he did not know what kind it was. The very sight of him stopped everything. Ridley was already conscious that to quarrel with his future brother-in-law about Lily was not a thing that was possible. Passion is a fine thing, and all-prevailing, people think; but when it can bring nothing but ridicule and social ignominy, men very rarely indulge their passion. His hand, which had been raised to emphasise his words, if nothing more, fell by his side, his angry countenance cleared. "What, Roger!" said the old man, "and you, Sir Richard! then I shall have company for the rest of the way. But you must come to me, for I cannot go to you."
The vicar had not been out for weeks before. He had been ill, and had been shut up in his own room during all the course of summer. This was the first day he had been able to go out. He was walking slowly, with evident weakness, enjoying the air and the landscape, but making slow progress. "I shall be glad of an arm from one of you," he said, as the young men obeyed him and scrambled up the bank from the beach. How could they disobey such a call? He had all the authority of tradition, of natural respect, and conventional propriety in his favour. They would each have made a considerable sacrifice rather than allow him to perceive any struggle. His calm assumption of friendship between them subdued them more than any remonstrance. "You have been on the water, I see?" he said. "Think you it is a good example for you to set, the two chief men in the county?"
"You must blame me only; Featherstonhaugh is perfectly innocent," said Roger, quickly.
"Only because it did not occur to me," said Featherstonhaugh. "I cannot pretend to have been better employed."
"Ah, lads, lads," said the old man. "I will take your arm, Roger, if you please. You will be foolish, whatever we elder folks may say. We learn to give ourselves no needless trouble as we grow old. And to wear yourselves out rowing on a warm day like this, instead of creeping quietly along a sunny bank as I do—but I don't suppose you are likely to mind me."
And he went on talking quietly, leaning heavily on Roger's arm, talking meaningly, though he veiled his meaning, taking it for granted that they were two friends, two brothers, as they ought to have been. Thus he led them with him to the Castle, neither of them venturing upon a word which was in opposition to the rôle he assigned them. Once, indeed, it occurred to Featherstonhaugh to take advantage of the interruption and to go home; for it was not particularly agreeable to him to visit his betrothed wife, under the risk of being exposed by her brother. But unfortunately this blessed fancy, which might have been the saving of all of them, though thus suggested by some good angel, was never carried out. He went on, unconscious that he was going to his fate.
The meeting with the squire and Mary was cordial and friendly. They were both anxious to show their pleasure at the sight of the vicar, and Mary gave her brother to understand that she would be personally offended should he steal away, as he had been too much in the habit of doing. Mistaken precaution; he would have taken the first opportunity to get away, and go back to the beach and waylay Lily on her return, had it not been for this warning and for that attraction of hostility which kept him fascinated to the place in which his adversary was. But Mary's senses were too fine not to perceive that there was storm in the air, that her brother and her lover were on anything but friendly terms—that they never addressed each other, never even looked at each other, and showed every symptom of a recent quarrel. The relations between them had been sufficiently strained and difficult before, and she was anxious and watchful. To keep them together, to beguile them into talk, to interest one in the other, was her womanish way of mending matters. Even in ordinary cases of incompatibility of temper it is better to leave things alone; but an anxious woman is slow to think so. She was glad and relieved when more visitors arrived, being Charley Landale and Murray, who now haunted the house at all times and seasons. Abel had never met old Mr Weston before. The vicar had been ill, as we have said, and the meeting now was quite unexpected. Murray had become foolhardy,—he had ceased to take his usual precautions. A man who has passed his own mother unrecognised on Saturday, how is he likely to fear a stranger on Sunday? He came in quite fearlessly, giving himself up to the pleasure of Mary Ridley's presence. She welcomed him as a most happy diversion in the smouldering discord of the moment, and eagerly introduced him to the vicar. "This is Mr Murray, whom I am sure you have heard of," she said.
"Yes, I have heard of him: Mr Murray, the great Oxford scholar you have all been talking of. I'm a little blind, and a little deaf, and you must forgive an old man. There is a youth at one of your colleges I would like to ask you about. By the way, he's of your own name; I forget what his college is. Abel Murray, a young man from this parish. God bless us!" cried the vicar, with a sudden start.
"What is the matter, sir?" cried Mary; "you are over-tired; you are unwell."
"No, no, nothing of the kind. It was just a sudden fancy. Perhaps you may know the young man I am asking about, Mr Murray? It's your own name."