Then Mr. Masters and Larry entered the room. On that evening two things had occurred to the attorney. Nickem had returned, and had asked for and received an additional week’s leave of absence. He had declined to explain accurately what he was doing but gave the attorney to understand that he thought that he was on the way to the bottom of the whole thing. Then, after Nickem had left him, Mr. Masters had a letter of instructions from Lord Rufford’s steward. When he received it, and found that his paid services had been absolutely employed on behalf of his Lordship, he almost regretted the encouragement he had given to Nickem. In the first place he might want Nickem. And then he felt that in his present position he ought not to be a party to anything underhand. But Nickem was gone, and he was obliged to console himself by thinking that Nickem was at any rate employing his intellect on the right side. When he left his house with Larry Twentyman he had told his wife nothing about Lord Rufford. Up to this time he and his wife had not as yet reconciled their difference, and poor Mary was still living in misery. Larry, though he had called for the attorney, had not sat down in the parlour, and had barely spoken to Mary. “For gracious sake, Mr. Twentyman, don’t let him stay in that place there half the night,” said Mrs. Masters. “It ain’t fit for a father of a family.”
“Father never does stay half the night,” said Kate, who took more liberties in that house than anyone else.
“Hold your tongue, miss. I don’t know whether it wouldn’t be better for you, Mr. Twentyman, if you were not there so often yourself.” Poor Larry felt this to be hard. He was not even engaged as yet, and as far as he could see was not on the way to be engaged. In such condition surely his possible mother-in-law could have no right to interfere with him. He condescended to make no reply, but crossed the passage and carried the attorney off with him.
“You’ve heard what that American gentleman has been about, Mr. Masters?” asked the landlord.
“I’m told he’s been with Bearside.”
“And has offered to pay his bill for him if he’ll carry on the business for Goarly. Whoever heard the like of that?”
“What sort of a man is he?” asked the doctor.
“A great man in his own country everybody says,” answered Runciman. “I wish he’d stayed there. He comes over here and thinks he understands everything just as though he had lived here all his life. Did you say gin cold, Larry;—and rum for you, Mr. Masters?” Then the landlord gave the orders to the girl who had answered the bell.
“But they say he’s actually going to Lord Rufford’s,” said young Botsey who would have given one of his fingers to be asked to the lord’s house.
“They are all going from Bragton,” said Runciman.
“The young squire is going to ride one of my horses,” said Harry Stubbings.
“That’ll be an easy three pounds in your pockets, Harry,” said the doctor. In answer to which Harry remarked that he took all that as it came, the heavies and lights together, and that there was not much change to be got out of three sovereigns when some gentlemen had had a horse out for the day—particularly when a gentleman didn’t pay perhaps for twelve months.
“The whole party is going,” continued the landlord. “How he is to have the cheek to go into his Lordship’s house after what he is doing is more than I can understand.”
“What business is it of his?” said Larry angrily. “That’s what I want to know. What’d he think if we went and interfered over there? I shouldn’t be surprised if he got a little rough usage before he’s out of the county. I’m told he came across Bean when he was ferretting about the other day, and that Bean gave him quite as good as he brought.”
“I say he’s a spy,” said Ribbs the butcher from his seat on the sofa. “I hates a spy.”
Soon after that Mr. Masters left the room and Larry Twentyman followed him. There was something almost ridiculous in the way the young man would follow the attorney about on these Saturday evenings—as though he could make love to the girl by talking to the father. But on this occasion he had something special to say. “So Mary’s going to Cheltenham, Mr. Masters.”
“Yes, she is. You don’t see any objection to that, I hope.”
“Not in the least, Mr. Masters. I wish she might go anywhere to enjoy herself. And from all I’ve heard Lady Ushant is a very good sort of lady.”
“A very good sort of lady. She won’t do Mary any harm, Twentyman.”
“I don’t suppose she will. But there’s one thing I should like to know. Why shouldn’t she tell me before she goes that she’ll have me?”
“I wish she would with all my heart.”
“And Mrs. Masters is all on my side.”
“Quite so.”
“And the girls have always been my friends.”
“I think we are all your friends, Twentyman. I’m sure Mary is. But that isn’t marrying;—is it?”
“If you would speak to her, Mr. Masters.”
“What would you have me say? I couldn’t bid my girl to have one man or another. I could only tell her what I think, and that she knows already.”
“If you were to say that you wished it! She thinks so much about you.”
“I couldn’t tell her that I wished it in a manner that would drive her into it. Of course it would be a very good match. But I have only to think of her happiness and I must leave her to judge what will make her happy.”
“I should like to have it fixed some way before she starts,” said Larry in an altered tone.
“Of course you are your own master, Twentyman. And you have behaved very well.”
“This is a kind of thing that a man
