"Well, I'm thinking," said Fewtrell, "as it's the young gent I've seen here more 'n once. Same as asked me one day why we didn't drill 'em in wider."
"The devil, he did!" the Squire exclaimed, kicking up the old mare, who was leaning over sleepily.
"Called 'em Radicals," said Fewtrell, grinning. "Them there Radical Swedes," says he. "Dunno what he meant. 'If you plant Radicals, best plant 'em Radical fashion,' says he."
"Devil he did!" repeated the Squire. "Said that, did he?"
"Ay, to be sure. He used to come across with a gun field-way from Acherley; oh, as much as once a week I'd see him. And he'd know every crop as we put in, a'most same as I did. Very spry he was about it, I'll say that."
"Is it the banker's son?" asked the Squire on a sudden suspicion.
"Well, I think he be," Fewtrell answered, shading his eyes. "He be going up to the house now."
"Well, you can take me in," to the groom. "I'll go by the gap."
The groom demurred timidly; the grey might leap at the gap. But the Squire was obstinate, and the old mare, who knew he was blind as well as any man upon the place, and knew, too, when she could indulge in a frolic and when not, bore, him out delicately, stepping over the thorn-stubs as if she walked on eggs.
He was at the door in the act of dismounting when Clement appeared.
"D'you want me?" the old man asked bluntly.'
"If you please, sir," Clement answered. He had walked all the way from Aldersbury, having much to think of and one question which lay heavy on his mind. That was--how would it be with him when he walked back?
"Then come in." And feeling for the door-post with his hand, the Squire entered the house and turned with the certainty of long practice into the dining-room. He walked to the table as firmly as if he could see, and touching it with one hand he drew up with the other his chair. He sat down. "You'd best sit," he said grudgingly. "I can't see, but you can. Find a chair."
"My father has sent me with the money," Clement explained. "I have a cheque here and the necessary papers. He would have come himself, sir, to renew his thanks for aid as timely as it was generous and--and necessary. But"--Clement boggled a little over the considered phrase, he was nervous and his voice betrayed it--"he thought--I was to say----"
"It's all there?"
"Yes, sir, principal and interest."
"Have you drawn a receipt?"
"Yes, sir, I've brought one with me. But if you would prefer that it should be paid to Mr. Welsh--my father thought that that might be so?"
"Umph! All there, is it?"
"Yes, sir."
The old man did not speak for awhile. He seemed to be at a loss, and Clement, who had other and more serious business on his mind, and had his own reasons for feeling ill at ease, waited anxiously. He was desperately afraid of making a false step.
Suddenly, "Who was your grandfather?" the Squire asked.
Clement started and colored. "He had the same name as my father," he said. "He was a clothier in Aldersbury."
"Ay, I mind him. I mind him now. And his father, young man?"
"His name was Clement," and foreseeing the next question, "he was a yeoman at Easthope."
"And his father?"
Clement reddened painfully. He saw only too well to what these questions were tending. "I don't know, sir," he said.
"And you set up--you set up," said the Squire, leaning forward and speaking very slowly, "to marry my heiress?"
"No, sir, your daughter!" Clement said, his face burning. "If she'd not a penny----"
"Pho! Don't tell me!" the old man growled, and to Clement's surprise--whose ears were tingling--he relapsed into silence again. It was a silence very ominous. It seemed to Clement that no silence had ever been so oppressive, that no clock had ever ticked so loudly as the tall clock that stood between the windows behind him. "You know,"
said the old man at last, "you're a d--d impudent fellow. You've no birth, you're nobody, and I don't know that you've much money. You've gone behind my back and you've stole my girl. You've stole her! My father'd ha' shot you, and good reason, before he'd ha' let it come to this. But it's part my fault," with a sigh. "She've seen naught of the world and don't know the difference between silk and homespun or what's fitting for her. You're nobody, and you've naught to offer--I'm plain, young gentleman, and it's better--but I believe you're a man, and I believe you're honest."
"And I love her!" Clement said softly, his eyes shining.
"Ay," drily, "and maybe it would be better for her if her father didn't! But there it is. There it is. That's all that's to be said for you." He sat silent, looking straight before him with his sightless eyes, his hands on the knob of his stick. "And I dunno as I make much of that--'tis easy for a man to love a maid--but the misfortune is that she thinks she loves you. Well, I'm burying things as have been much to me all my life, things I never thought to lose or part from while I lived. I'm burying them deep, and God knows I may regret it sorely. But you may go to her. She's somewhere about the place.
But"--arresting Clement's exclamation as he rose to his feet--"you'll ha' to wait. You'll ha' to wait till I say the word, and maybe 'tis all moonshine, and she'll see it is. Maybe 'tis all a girl's whimsy, and when she knows more of you she'll find it out."
"God bless you, sir!" Clement cried. "I'll wait. I'm not afraid. I've no fear of that. And if I can make myself worthy of her----"
"You'll never do that," said the old man sternly, as he bent lower over his stick. He heard the door close and he knew that Clement had gone--gone on wings, gone on feet lighter than thistle-down, gone, young and strong, his pulses leaping, to his love.
The Squire was too old for tears, but his lip trembled. It was not alone the sacrifice that he had made that moved him--the sacrifice of his pride, his prejudices, his traditions. It was not only the immolation of his own will, his hopes and plans--his cherished plans for her. But he was giving her up. He was resigning that of which he had only just learned the worth, that on which in his blindness he depended every hour, that which made up all of youth and brightness and cheerfulness that was left to him between this and the end. He had sent the man to her, and they would think no more of him. And in doing this he had belied every belief in which he had been brought up and the faith which he had inherited from an earlier day--and maybe he had been a fool!
But by and by it appeared that they had not forgotten him, or one, at any rate, had not. He had not been alone five minutes before the door opened behind him, and closed again, and he felt Josina's arms round his neck, her head on his breast. "Oh, father, I know, I know," she cried. "I know what you have done for me! And I shall never forget it--never! And he is good. Oh, father, indeed, indeed, he is good!"
"There, there," he said, stroking her head. "Go back to him. But, mind you," hurriedly, "I don't promise anything yet. In a year, maybe, I'll talk about it."
THE END.