“Sit down, Peregrine,” he said, when his grandson entered his room with his thick boots and muddy gaiters. “I have been thinking of something.”
“I and Samson have been cutting down trees all day,” said Peregrine. “You’ve no conception how the water lies down in the bottom there; and there’s a fall every yard down to the river. It’s a sin not to drain it.”
“Any sins of that kind, my boy, shall lie on your own head for the future. I will wash my hands of them.”
“Then I’ll go to work at once,” said Peregrine, not quite understanding his grandfather.
“You must go to work on more than that, Peregrine.” And then the old man paused. “You must not think that I am doing this because I am unhappy for the hour, or that I shall repent it when the moment has gone by.”
“Doing what?” asked Peregrine.
“I have thought much of it, and I know that I am right. I cannot get out as I used to do, and do not care to meet people about business.”
“I never knew you more clearheaded in my life, sir.”
“Well, perhaps not. We’ll say nothing about that. What I intend to do is this;—to give up the property into your hands at Lady-day. You shall be master of The Cleeve from that time forth.”
“Sir?”
“The truth is, you desire employment, and I don’t. The property is small, and therefore wants the more looking after. I have never had a regular land steward, but have seen to that myself. If you’ll take my advice you’ll do the same. There is no better employment for a gentleman. So now, my boy, you may go to work and drain wherever you like. About that Crutchley bottom I have no doubt you’re right. I don’t know why it has been neglected.” These last words the baronet uttered in a weak, melancholy tone, asking, as it were, forgiveness for his fault; whereas he had spoken out the purport of his great resolution with a clear, strong voice, as though the saying of the words pleased him well.
“I could not hear of such a thing as that,” said his grandson, after a short pause.
“But you have heard it, Perry, and you may be quite sure that I should not have named it had I not fully resolved upon it. I have been thinking of it for days, and have quite made up my mind. You won’t turn me out of the house, I know.”
“All the same, I will not hear of it,” said the young man, stoutly.
“Peregrine!”
“I know very well what it all means, sir, and I am not at all astonished. You have wished to do something out of sheer goodness of heart, and you have been balked.”
“We will not talk about that, Peregrine.”
“But I must say a few words about it. All that has made you unhappy, and—and—and—” He wanted to explain that his grandfather was ashamed of his baffled attempt, and for that reason was cowed and down at heart at the present moment; but that in the three or four months when this trial would be over and the wonder passed away, all that would be forgotten, and he would be again as well as ever. But Peregrine, though he understood all this, was hardly able to express himself.
“My boy,” said the old man, “I know very well what you mean. What you say is partly true, and partly not quite true. Some day, perhaps, when we are sitting here together over the fire, I shall be better able to talk over all this; but not now, Perry. God has been very good to me, and given me so much that I will not repine at this sorrow. I have lived my life, and am content.”
“Oh yes, of course all that’s true enough. And if God should choose that you should—die, you know, or I either, some people would be sorry, but we shouldn’t complain ourselves. But what I say is this: you should never give up as long as you live. There’s a sort of feeling about it which I can’t explain. One should always say to oneself, No surrender.” And Peregrine, as he spoke, stood up from his chair, thrust his hands into his trouser-pockets, and shook his head.
Sir Peregrine smiled as he answered him. “But Perry, my boy, we can’t always say that. When the heart and the spirit and the body have all surrendered, why should the voice tell a foolish falsehood?”
“But it shouldn’t be a falsehood,” said Peregrine. “Nobody should ever knock under of his own accord.”
“You are quite right there, my boy; you are quite right there. Stick to that yourself. But, remember, that you are not to knock under to any of your enemies. The worst that you will meet with are folly, and vice, and extravagance.”
“That’s of course,” said Peregrine, by no means wishing on the present occasion to bring under discussion his future contests with any such enemies as those now named by his grandfather.
“And now, suppose you dress for dinner,” said the baronet. “I’ve got ahead of you there you see. What I’ve told you today I have already told your mother.”
“I’m sure she doesn’t think you right.”
“If she thinks me wrong, she is too kind and well-behaved to say so—which is more than I can say for her son. Your mother, Perry, never told me that I was wrong yet, though she
