“If I don’t return this evening you need not be alarmed. I shall come back at the latest tomorrow morning,” he said.
The children all rushed to the window to see him go away; even Ursula looking out dreamily remarked him too, as she seldom did; and Mrs. Sam Hurst at her window, wondering where her neighbour could be going, heaved a deep sigh of admiration, which though she was not “in love,” as the girls thought, with Mr. May, was a passing tribute to his good looks and training. He looked a gentleman every inch of him—an English gentleman, spotless in linen, speckless in broadcloth, though his dress was far from new; the freshness of sound health and a clear conscience on his handsome face, though he was no longer young. His abundant hair, steel-grey, slightly crisped under his hat, not curling exactly, but with a becoming twist in it—clerical, yet not too clerical, a man given to no extremes, decorously churchmanlike, yet liberal and tolerant of the world. Though she was too wise to compromise her own comfort by marrying him, Mrs. Hurst felt that there was a great pleasure in making his daughters anxious about her “intentions,” and that even to be said to be in love with such a man was no shame, but rather the reverse.
He went away accordingly, taking a shortcut to the railway, and thus missing Cotsdean, who came breathless ten minutes after he was gone, and followed him to the train; but too late.
“Well, well,” Cotsdean said to himself, wiping his forehead, “Old Tozer has plenty, it ain’t nothing to him to pay. They can settle it between ’em.”
Cotsdean himself was easier in his mind than he had ever been before on such an occasion. His clergyman, though personally an awful and respect-inspiring personage, was so far as money went a man of straw, as he well knew, and his name on a bill was very little worth; but Tozer was a man who could pay his way. A hundred and fifty pounds, or even ten times that, would not ruin the old shopkeeper. Cotsdean’s sense of commercial honour was not so very keen that the dishonouring of his bill in the circumstances should give him a very serious pang. He would not be sold up, or have an execution put into his shop when the other party to the bill was so substantial a person. Of course Tozer, when he signed it, must have been told all about it, and Cotsdean did not see how with two such allies against ruin, anything very serious could befall him. He was uneasy indeed, but his uneasiness had no such force in it as before. He went back to his shop and his business prepared to take the matter as calmly as possible. He was but passive in it. It could not harm him much in the eyes of his banker, who knew his affairs too well to be much astonished at any such incident, and Tozer and Mr. May must settle it between them. It was their affair.
Meanwhile Mr. May rattled along in the railway towards the Hall. He got a dogcart at the little inn at the station to take him over, though generally when he went to see the Dorsets it was his custom to walk. “But what were a few shillings?” he said to himself, the prodigality of desperation having seized upon him. In any case he could pay that, and if he was to be ruined, what did a few shillings more or less matter? but the discomfort of walking over those muddy roads, and arriving with dirty boots and a worn-out aspect, mattered a great deal. He reached the Hall at a propitious moment, when Mr. Copperhead was in the highest good-humour. He had been taken over the place, from one end to another, over the stables, the farm-buildings, the farm itself from end to end, the preserves, the shrubberies, the greenhouses, everything; all of which details he examined with an unfailing curiosity which would have been highly flattering to the possessors if it had not been neutralized by a strain of comment which was much less satisfactory. When Mr. May went in, he found him in the dining-room, with Sir Robert and his daughters standing by, clapping his wings and crowing loudly over a picture which the Dorsets prized much. It represented a bit of vague Italian scenery, mellow and tranquil, and was a true “Wilson,” bought by an uncle of Sir Robert’s, who had been a connoisseur, from the Master himself, in the very country where it was painted; and all these details pleased the imagination of the family, who, though probably they would have been but mildly delighted had they possessed the acquaintance of the best of contemporary painters, were proud that Uncle Charles had known Italian Wilson, and had bought a picture out of his studio. A Hobbema or a Poussin would scarcely have pleased them as much, for the worst of an old Master is that your friends look suspiciously upon it as a copy; whereas Wilson is scarcely old enough or precious enough to be copied. They were showing their picture and telling the story to the millionaire with an agreeable sense that, though they were not so rich, they must, at least, have the advantage of him in this way.
“Ha!” said Mr. Copperhead, “you should see my Turner. Didn’t I show you my Turner? I don’t venture to tell you, Sir Robert, what that picture cost me. It’s a sin, it
