Ovington's Bank

by Stanley John Weyman

“And we’ve got to lift him in,” said Arthur, more practical. “He’s a big weight.”

It was not an easy task. But they tied up the horses to the thorn-tree, and lifting the old man between them, they carried him with what care they might to the carriage, raised him, heavy and helpless as he was, to the step, and then, while one maintained him there, the other climbed in and lifted him to the front seat. Clement got up behind and supported his shoulders and head, while Arthur, first tying the saddle-horse behind the carriage, released the pair, and with the reins in his hands scrambled to his place.

The thing was done and cleverly done, and they set off. But they dared not travel at more than a walk, and never had the three miles to Garthmyle seemed so long or so tedious.

They were both anxious and both excited. But while in Clement’s mind pity, a sense of the tragedy before him, and thought for Josina contended with an honest pride in what he had done, the other, as they drove along, was already calculating chances and busy with contingencies. The Squire’s death—if the Squire died—would work a great change, an immense change. Things which had yesterday been too doubtful and too distant to deserve much thought would be within reach, would be his for the asking. And he was the more inclined to consider this because Betty—dear little creature as she was—had shown a spirit that day that was not to his liking. Whereas Josina, mild and docile—it might be that after all she would suit him better. And Garth—Garth with its wide acres and its rich rent-roll would be hers; Garth that would give any man a position to be envied. Its charms, while uncertain and dependent on the whim and caprice of an arbitrary old man, had not fixed him, for to attain to them he must give up other things, equally to his mind. But now the case was or might be altered. He must wait and watch events, and keep an open mind. If the Squire died——

A word or two passed between the couple, but for the most part they were silent. Once and again the Squire moaned, and so proved that he still lived. At last, where the road to Garth branched off, at the entrance to the village, they saw a light in front, and old Fewtrell carrying a lanthorn met them. The Squire’s absence had alarmed the house, and he had come thus far in quest of news.

“Oh, Lord, ha’ mercy! Lord, ha’ mercy!” the old fellow quavered as he lifted his lanthorn and the light disclosed the group in the carriage, and his master’s huddled form and ghastly visage. “Miss Jos said ’twas so! Said as summat had happened him! Beside herself, she be! She’ve been down at the gate this half-hour waiting on him!”

“Don’t let her see him,” Clement cried. “Go, man, and send her back.”

But, “That’s no good,” Arthur objected with more sense but less feeling. “She must see him. This is women’s work, we can do nothing. Let Fewtrell take your place and do you go for the doctor. You know where he lives, and you’ll go twice as quick as he will, and there’s no more that you can do. Take your horse.”

Clement was unwilling to go, unwilling to have no farther part in the matter. But he could not refuse. Things were as they were; in spite of all that he had done and suffered, he had no place there, no standing in the house, no right beside his mistress or call to think for her. He was a stranger, an outsider, and when he had fetched the doctor, there would, as Arthur had said, be nothing more that he could do.

Nothing more, though as he rode over the bridge and trotted through the village his heart was bursting with pity for her whom he could not comfort, could not see; from whose side in her troubles and her self-arraignment—for he knew that she would reproach herself—he must be banished. It was hard.