"Well, sir," said the young man, strongly feeling this effect; "you have often surprised me by the things you have said. And strange as they seemed, they have generally proved correct in the end. But as to your first suggestion, it is impossible, I fear, to think of it; after what at least a dozen people saw, without hurry, and in broad daylight. The other matter may be as you say. If so, it only makes it worse for me. What hope can I have of ever getting at the bottom of it?"
"Time, my dear fellow, time will show. And the suspicion against you will be weakening every day, if you meet it with calm disdain. You already have the blacksmith's recantation—a blow in the teeth for your enemies. I am not exactly like your good parson, who exhorts you devoutly to trust in the Lord. 'The Lord helps those who help themselves,' is my view of that question. Though I begin to think highly of Penniloe. He was inclined to be rude about the flies I use, once or twice last summer. But I shall look over that, as he has been so ill. I shall call and enquire for him to-morrow."
"But what am I to do, to help myself? It is so easy to say, 'take it easily.' What is the first step for me to take? I could offer rewards, and all that sort of thing. I could send for experienced men from London. I have written to a friend of mine there already, but have had no answer. I could put myself in a clever lawyer's hands. I could do a lot of things, no doubt, and spread the matter far and wide. But the first result would be to kill my dear father. I told you in what a condition he lies."
"Yes. You are terribly 'handicapped' as the racing people call it. Penniloe's illness was much against you. So was your own absence. So were several other things. But the worst of all is your father's sad state. And the better he gets, the worse the danger. But for all that, I can give you one comfort. I have never yet known things combine against a man, persistently and relentlessly, if he went straight ahead at them. They jangle among themselves, by and by, even as his enemies are sure to do; and instead of being hunted down, he slips out between them. One thing I can undertake perhaps. But I won't talk of it until I know more, and have consulted Penniloe. What, have you never had a glass of wine? Well, that is too bad of me! These are the times, when even a young man wants it, and an old one should sympathise with him thus. Oh, you want to get back to the fair Miss Christie? Very well, take her half a dozen of my pears. These people about here don't know what a pear is, according to my interpretation of the word."
CHAPTER XIX. PERCUSSION.
This was not the right time of year for spring of hope, and bounding growth; the first bloom-bud of the young heart growing milky, and yet defiant; and the leaf-bud pricking up, hard and reckless, because it can never have a family. Not the right time yet for whispered openings, and shy blush of petals, still uncertain of the air, and creeping back into each other's clasp lest they should be tempted to come out too soon. Neither was there in the air itself that coy, delusive, tricksome way, which it cannot help itself for having, somewhere about the month of April, when the sun is apt to challenge and then shirks the brunt.
In a word (though no man can prove a negative, as Jemmy Fox had well remarked) it was the very time when no young man, acquainted with the calendar of his Church, should dream of falling into love, even though he had a waistcoat of otterskin, and fourteen pearl-buttons upon it.
In spite of all that, it was the positive which prevailed in this case. Frank Gilham had received such a blow upon his heart, that the season and the weather were nothing to it. The fall of the leaf, and retirement of the sap—though the Saps now tell us that it never does retire—had less than no effect upon his circulation. He went in vainly for a good day's ploughing, for he could hold as well as drive; but there was his waistcoat, and his heart inside it; and even when he hung the one upon an oak-tree, the other kept going on, upon its private business; and "Whoa! Stand still, hossy!" had no effect upon it.
He sneaked into the house, as if he had no right there—though his mother had only a life-interest—and he made a serious matter of the shortness of his nails, and felt a conscientious longing, when he saw his whiskers, to kick the barber at Pumpington, who had shorn them with a pair of tailor's scissors, so abominably on the last market-day. But last market-day, this young man's heart had been inditing of pigs and peas, whereof he had made a tidy penny, because he was a sharp fellow then.