“Take me to the house,” said the Squire.
“Shadows as pass! Birds i’ the smoke!” continued the irrepressible Calamy, smacking his lips with enjoyment. “Leaves and the wind blows! Mr. Arthur—but there, your honor knows best where the shoe pinches. Squire Acherley’s gone through on his bay, and Parson Hoggins with him, and ‘Where’s that d—d young banker?’ he asks. Thinks I, if the Squire heard you, you’d get a flip o’ the tongue you wouldn’t like! But he’s a random-tandem talker as ever was! And”—halting abruptly—“by gum, I expect here’s another for Mr. Arthur! There’s some one drove up the drive now, and gone to the front door.”
“Take me in! Take me in!” said the Squire peevishly, his heart very bitter within him. For this was worse than anything that he had foreseen. His twelve thousand pounds was gone, but even that loss—monstrous, incredible, heart-breaking loss as it was—was not the worst. Ruin was abroad, stalking the countryside, driving rich and poor, the widow and the orphan to one bourne, and his name—his name through his nephew—would be linked with it, and dragged through the mire by it, no man so poor that he might not have a fling at it. He had held his head high, he had refused to stoop to such things, he had condemned others of his class, Woosenham and Acherley, and their like, because they had lowered themselves to the traffic of the market-place. But now—now, wherever men met and bragged of their losses and cursed their deluders, the talk would be of his nephew! His nephew! They might even say that he had had a share in it himself, and canvass and discuss him, and hint that he was not above robbing his neighbors—but only above owning to the robbery!
This was worse, far worse than the worst that he had foreseen when the lad had insisted on going his own way. Worse, far worse! Even his sense of Arthur’s dishonor, even his remembrance of the vile, wicked, reckless act which the young man had committed, faded beside the prospect before him; beside the certainty that wherever, in shop or tavern, men cursed the name of Ovington, or spoke of those who had ruined the country-side, his name would come up and his share in the matter be debated.
Ay, he would be mixed up in it! He could not but be mixed up in it! His nephew! His nephew! He hung so heavily on Calamy’s arm, that the servant for once held his tongue in alarm. They went into the house—the house that until now dishonor had never touched, though hard times had often straitened it, and more than once in the generations poverty had menaced it.
CHAPTER XXXVIII
But before they crossed the threshold they were intercepted. Miss Peacock, her plumage ruffled, and that which the Squire was wont to call her “clack” working at high pressure, met them at the door. “Bless me, sir, here’s a visitor,” she proclaimed, “at this hour! And won’t take any denial, but will see you, whether or no. Though I told Jane to tell him——”
“Who is it?”
“Goodness knows, but it’s not my fault, sir! I told Jane—but Jane’s that feather-headed, like all of them, she never listens, and let him in, and he’s in the dining-parlor. All she could say, the silly wench, was, it was something about the bank—great goggle-eyes as she is! And of course there’s no one in the way when they’re wanted. Calamy with you, and Josina traipsing out, feeding her turkeys. And Jane says the man’s got a portmanteau with him as if he’s come to stay. Goodness knows, there’s no bed aired, and I’m sure I should have been told if——”
“Peace, woman!” said the Squire. “Did he ask to see me, or——” with an effort, “my nephew?”