“Or he keeps us,” suggested Richard.
“By my soul,” exclaimed Mr. Boythorn, suddenly firing another volley, “that fellow is, and his father was, and his grandfather was, the most stiff-necked, arrogant imbecile, pigheaded numskull, ever, by some inexplicable mistake of Nature, born in any station of life but a walking-stick’s! The whole of that family are the most solemnly conceited and consummate blockheads! But it’s no matter; he should not shut up my path if he were fifty baronets melted into one and living in a hundred Chesney Wolds, one within another, like the ivory balls in a Chinese carving. The fellow, by his agent, or secretary, or somebody, writes to me ‘Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, presents his compliments to Mr. Lawrence Boythorn, and has to call his attention to the fact that the green pathway by the old parsonage-house, now the property of Mr. Lawrence Boythorn, is Sir Leicester’s right of way, being in fact a portion of the park of Chesney Wold, and that Sir Leicester finds it convenient to close up the same.’ I write to the fellow, ‘Mr. Lawrence Boythorn presents his compliments to Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, and has to call his attention to the fact that he totally denies the whole of Sir Leicester Dedlock’s positions on every possible subject and has to add, in reference to closing up the pathway, that he will be glad to see the man who may undertake to do it.’ The fellow sends a most abandoned villain with one eye to construct a gateway. I play upon that execrable scoundrel with a fire-engine until the breath is nearly driven out of his body. The fellow erects a gate in the night. I chop it down and burn it in the morning. He sends his myrmidons to come over the fence and pass and repass. I catch them in humane man traps, fire split peas at their legs, play upon them with the engine—resolve to free mankind from the insupportable burden of the existence of those lurking ruffians. He brings actions for trespass; I bring actions for trespass. He brings actions for assault and battery; I defend them and continue to assault and batter. Ha, ha, ha!”
To hear him say all this with unimaginable energy, one might have thought him the angriest of mankind. To see him at the very same time, looking at the bird now perched upon his thumb and softly smoothing its feathers with his forefinger, one might have thought him the gentlest. To hear him laugh and see the broad good nature of his face then, one might have supposed that he had not a care in the world, or a dispute, or a dislike, but that his whole existence was a summer joke.
“No, no,” he said, “no closing up of my paths by any Dedlock! Though I willingly confess,” here he softened in a moment, “that Lady Dedlock is the most accomplished lady in the world, to whom I would do any homage that a plain gentleman, and no baronet with a head seven hundred years thick, may. A man who joined his regiment at twenty and within a week challenged the most imperious and presumptuous coxcomb of a commanding officer that ever drew the breath of life through a tight waist—and got broke for it—is not the man to be walked over by all the Sir Lucifers, dead or alive, locked or unlocked. Ha, ha, ha!”
“Nor the man to allow his junior to be walked over either?” said my guardian.
“Most assuredly not!” said Mr. Boythorn, clapping him on the shoulder with an air of protection that had something serious in it, though he laughed. “He will stand by the low boy, always. Jarndyce, you may rely upon him! But speaking of this trespass—with apologies to Miss Clare and Miss Summerson for the length at which I have pursued so dry a subject—is there nothing for me from your men Kenge and Carboy?”
“I think not, Esther?” said Mr. Jarndyce.
“Nothing, guardian.”
“Much obliged!” said Mr. Boythorn. “Had no need to ask, after even my slight experience of Miss Summerson’s forethought for everyone about her.” (They all encouraged me; they were determined to do it.) “I inquired because, coming from Lincolnshire, I of course have not yet been in town, and I thought some letters might have been sent down here. I dare say they will report progress tomorrow morning.”
I saw him so often in the course of the evening, which passed very pleasantly, contemplate Richard and Ada with an interest and a satisfaction that made his fine face remarkably agreeable as he sat at a little distance from the piano listening to the music—and he had small occasion to tell us that he was passionately fond of music, for his face showed it—that I asked my guardian as we sat at the backgammon board whether Mr. Boythorn had ever been married.
“No,” said he. “No.”
“But he meant to be!” said I.
“How did you find out that?” he returned with a smile. “Why, guardian,” I explained, not without reddening a little at hazarding what was in my thoughts, “there is something so tender in his manner, after all, and he is so very courtly and gentle to us, and—”
Mr. Jarndyce directed his eyes to where he was sitting as I have just described him.
I said no more.
“You are right, little woman,” he answered. “He was all but married once. Long ago. And once.”
“Did the lady die?”
“No—but she died to him. That time has had its influence on all his later life. Would you suppose him to have a head and a heart full of romance yet?”
“I think, guardian, I might have supposed so. But it is easy to say that when you have told me so.”
“He has never since been what he might have been,” said Mr. Jarndyce, “and now you see him in his age with no one near him but his servant and his little yellow friend. It’s your throw, my dear!”
I felt, from my guardian’s manner, that
