“Mamma, you know that I shall never separate myself from you and the girls.”
“Poor Larry!” said the woman sobbing. “Of course it is all for the best; but I don’t know what he’ll do now.”
“You must tell him, papa,” said Mary; “and give him my love and bid him be a man.”
LXXII
“Bid Him Be a Man”
The little phaeton remained in Dillsborough to take Mary back to Bragton. As soon as she was gone the attorney went over to the Bush with the purpose of borrowing Runciman’s pony, so that he might ride over to Chowton Farm and at once execute his daughter’s last request. In the yard of the inn he saw Runciman himself, and was quite unable to keep his good news to himself. “My girl has just been with me,” he said, “and what do you think she tells me?”
“That she is going to take poor Larry after all. She might do worse, Mr. Masters.”
“Poor Larry! I am sorry for him. I have always liked Larry Twentyman. But that is all over now.”
“She’s not going to have that tweedledum young parson, surely?”
“Reginald Morton has made her a set offer.”
“The squire!” Mr. Masters nodded his head three times. “You don’t say so. Well, Mr. Masters, I don’t begrudge it you. He might do worse. She has taken her pigs well to market at last!”
“He is to come to me at four this afternoon.”
“Well done, Miss Mary! I suppose it’s been going on ever so long?”
“We fathers and mothers,” said the attorney, “never really know what the young ones are after. Don’t mention it just at present, Runciman. You are such an old friend that I couldn’t help telling you.”
“Poor Larry!”
“I can have the pony, Runciman?”
“Certainly you can, Mr. Masters. Tell him to come in and talk it all over with me. If we don’t look to it he’ll be taking to drink regular.” At that last meeting at the club, when the late squire’s will was discussed, at which, as the reader may perhaps remember, a little supper was also discussed in honour of the occasion, poor Larry had not only been present, but had drunk so pottle-deep that the landlord had been obliged to put him to bed at the inn, and he had not been at all as he ought to have been after Lord Rufford’s dinner. Such delinquencies were quite outside the young man’s accustomed way of his life. It had been one of his recognised virtues that, living as he did a good deal among sporting men and with a full command of means, he had never drank. But now he had twice sinned before the eyes of all Dillsborough, and Runciman thought that he knew how it would be with a young man in his own house who got drunk in public to drown his sorrow. “I wouldn’t see Larry go astray and spoil himself with liquor,” said the good-natured publican, “for more than I should like to name.” Mr. Masters promised to take the hint, and rode off on his mission.
The entrance to Chowton Farm and Bragton gate were nearly opposite, the latter being perhaps a furlong nearer to Dillsborough. The attorney when he got to the gate stopped a moment and looked up the avenue with pardonable pride. The great calamity of his life, the stunning blow which had almost unmanned him when he was young, and from which he had never quite been able to rouse himself, had been the loss of the management of the Bragton property. His grandfather and his father had been powerful at Bragton, and he had been brought up in the hope of walking in their paths. Then strangers had come in, and he had been dispossessed. But how was it with him now? It had almost made a young man of him again when Reginald Morton, stepping into his office, asked him as a favour to resume his old task. But what was that in comparison with this later triumph? His own child was to be made queen of the place! His grandson, should she be fortunate enough to be the mother of a son, would be the squire himself! His visits to the place for the last twenty years had been very rare indeed. He had been sent for lately by old Mrs. Morton—for a purpose which if carried out would have robbed him of all his good fortune—but he could not remember when, before that, he had even passed through the gateway. Now it would all become familiar to him again. That pony of Runciman’s was pleasant in his paces, and he began to calculate whether the innkeeper would part with the animal. He stood thus gazing at the place for some minutes till he saw Reginald Morton in the distance turning a corner of the road with Mary at his side. He had taken her from the phaeton and had then insisted on her coming out with him before she took off her hat. Mr. Masters as soon as he saw them trotted off to Chowton Farm.
Finding Larry lounging at the little garden gate Mr. Masters got off the pony and taking the young man’s arm, walked off with him towards Dillsborough Wood. He told all his news at once, almost annihilating poor Larry by the suddenness of the blow. “Larry, Mr. Reginald Morton has asked my girl to marry him, and she has accepted him.”
“The new squire!” said Larry, stopping himself on the path, and looking as though a gentle wind would suffice to
