They walked down the carriage-road, through the desolate, untenanted grounds, to the gate, before either of them spoke a word. Kate was waiting for George to tell her of the will, but did not dare to ask any question. George intended to tell her of the will, but was not disposed to do so without some preparation. It was a thing not to be spoken of open-mouthed, as a piece of ordinary news. “Which way shall we go?” said Kate, as soon as they had passed through the old rickety gate, which swung at the entrance of the place. “Up across the fell,” said George; “the day is fine, and I want to get away from my uncle for a time.” She turned round, therefore, outside the hill of firs, and led the way back to the beacon wood through which she and Alice had walked across to Haweswater upon a memorable occasion. They had reached the top of the beacon hill, and were out upon the Fell, before George had begun his story. Kate was half beside herself with curiosity, but still she was afraid to ask. “Well,” said George, when they paused a moment as they stepped over a plank that crossed the boundary ditch of the wood: “don’t you want to know what that dear old man has done for you?” Then he looked into her face very steadfastly. “But perhaps you know already,” he added. He had come out determined not to quarrel with his sister. He had resolved, in that moment of thought which had been allowed to him, that his best hope for the present required that he should keep himself on good terms with her, at any rate till he had settled what line of conduct he would pursue. But he was, in truth, so sore with anger and disappointment—he had become so nearly mad with that continued, unappeased wrath in which he now indulged against all the world, that he could not refrain himself from bitter words. He was as one driven by the Furies, and was no longer able to control them in their driving of him.
“I know nothing of it,” said Kate. “Had I known I should have told you. Your question is unjust to me.”
“I am beginning to doubt,” said he, “whether a man can be safe in trusting anyone. My grandfather has done his best to rob me of the property altogether.”
“I told you that I feared he would do so.”
“And he has made you his heir.”
“Me?”
“Yes; you.”
“He told me distinctly that he would not do that.”
“But he has, I tell you.”
“Then, George, I shall do that which I told him I should do in the event of his making such a will; for he asked me the question. I told him I should restore the estate to you, and upon that he swore that he would not leave it to me.”
“And what a fool you were,” said he, stopping her in the pathway. “What an ass! Why did you tell him that? You knew that he would not, on that account, do justice to me.”
“He asked me, George.”
“Psha! now you have ruined me, and you might have saved me.”
“But I will save you still, if he has left the estate to me. I do not desire to take it from you. As God in heaven sees me, I have never ceased to endeavour to protect your interests here at Vavasor. I will sign anything necessary to make over my right in the property to you.” Then they walked on over the Fell for some minutes without speaking. They were still on the same path—that path which Kate and Alice had taken in the winter—and now poor Kate could not but think of all that she had said that day on George’s behalf;—how had she mingled truth and falsehood in her efforts to raise her brother’s character in her cousin’s eyes! It had all been done in vain. At this very moment of her own trouble Kate thought of John Grey, and repented of what she had done. Her hopes in that direction were altogether blasted. She knew that her brother had ill-treated Alice, and that she must tell him so if Alice’s name were mentioned between them. She could no longer worship her brother, and hold herself at his command in all things. But, as regarded the property to which he was naturally the heir, if any act of hers could give it to him, that act would be done. “If the will is as you say, George, I will make over my right to you.”
“You can make over nothing,” he answered. “The old robber has been too cunning for that; he has left it all in the hands of my uncle John. D⸺ him. D⸺ them both.”
“George! George! he is dead now.”
“Dead; of course he is dead. What of that? I wish he had been dead ten years ago—or twenty. Do you suppose I am to forgive him because he is dead? I’ll heap his grave with curses, if that can be of avail to punish him.”
“You can only punish the living that way.”
“And I will punish them;—but not by cursing them. My uncle John shall have such a life of it for the next year or two that he shall bitterly regret the hour in which he has stepped between me and my rights.”
“I do not believe that he has done so.”
“Not done so! What was he down here for at Christmas? Do you pretend to think that that make-believe will was concocted without his knowledge?”
“I’m sure that he knew nothing of it. I don’t think my grandfather’s mind was made up a week before he died.”
“You’ll have to swear that, remember, in a court. I’m not going to let the matter rest, I can tell you. You’ll have to prove that. How long is it
