The Squire pushed open the door of the oak parlour, and looked round on the pictures abstractedly. He had not been there for some time, and, seating himself on the table, he looked again for a while in Cooper’s face before he spoke.
“It’s not a great deal, Cooper, but it troubles me, and I would not tell it to the parson nor the doctor; for, God knows what they’d say, though there’s nothing to signify in it. But you were always true to the family, and I don’t mind if I tell you.”
“ ’Tis as safe with Cooper, Master Charles, as if ’twas locked in a chest, and sunk in a well.”
“It’s only this,” said Charles Marston, looking down on the end of his stick, with which he was tracing lines and circles, “all the time I was lying like dead, as you thought, after that fall, I was with the old master.” He raised his eyes to Cooper’s again as he spoke, and with an awful oath he repeated—“I was with him, Cooper!”
“He was a good man, sir, in his way,” repeated old Cooper, returning his gaze with awe. “He was a good master to me, and a good father to you, and I hope he’s happy. May God rest him!”
“Well,” said Squire Charles, “it’s only this: the whole of that time I was with him, or he was with me—I don’t know which. The upshot is, we were together, and I thought I’d never get out of his hands again, and all the time he was bullying me about some one thing; and if it was to save my life, Tom Cooper, by ⸻ from the time I waked I never could call to mind what it was; and I think I’d give that hand to know; and if you can think of anything it might be—for God’s sake! don’t be afraid, Tom Cooper, but speak it out, for he threatened me hard, and it was surely him.”
Here ensued a silence.
“And what did you think it might be yourself, Master Charles?” said Cooper.
“I han’t thought of aught that’s likely. I’ll never hit on’t—never. I thought it might happen he knew something about that d⸺ humpbacked villain, Scroope, that swore before Lawyer Gingham I made away with a paper of settlements—me and father; and, as I hope to be saved, Tom Cooper, there never was a bigger lie! I’d a had the law of him for them identical words, and cast him for more than he’s worth; only Lawyer Gingham never goes into nothing for me since money grew scarce in Gylingden; and I can’t change my lawyer, I owe him such a hatful of money. But he did, he swore he’d hang me yet for it. He said it in them identical words—he’d never rest till he hanged me for it, and I think it was, like enough, something about that, the old master was troubled; but it’s enough to drive a man mad. I can’t bring it to mind—I can’t remember a word he said, only he threatened awful, and looked—Lord a mercy on us!—frightful bad.”
“There’s no need he should. May the Lord a-mercy on him!” said the old butler.
“No, of course; and you’re not to tell a soul, Cooper—not a living soul, mind, that I said he looked bad, nor nothing about it.”
“God forbid!” said old Cooper, shaking his head. “But I was thinking, sir, it might ha’ been about the slight that’s bin so long put on him by having no stone over him, and never a scratch o’ a chisel to say who he is.”
“Ay! Well, I didn’t think o’ that. Put on your hat, old Cooper, and come down wi’ me; for I’ll look after that, at any rate.”
There is a bye-path leading by a turnstile to the park, and thence to the picturesque old burying-place, which lies in a nook by the roadside, embowered in ancient trees. It was a fine autumnal sunset, and melancholy lights and long shadows spread their peculiar effects over the landscape as “Handsome Charlie” and the old butler made their way slowly toward the place where Handsome Charlie was himself to lie at last.
“Which of the dogs made that howling all last night?” asked the Squire, when they had got on a little way.
“ ’Twas a strange dog, Master Charlie, in front of the house; ours was all in the yard—a white dog wi’ a black head, he looked to be, and he was smelling round them mounting-steps the old master, God be wi’ him! set up, the time his knee was bad. When the tyke got up a’ top of them, howlin’ up at the windows, I’d a liked to shy something at him.”
“Hullo! Is that like him?” said the Squire, stopping short, and pointing with his stick at a dirty-white dog, with a large black head, which was scampering round them in a wide circle, half crouching with that air of uncertainty and deprecation which dogs so well know how to assume.
He whistled the dog up. He was a large, half-starved bulldog.
“That fellow has made a long journey—thin as a whipping-post, and stained all over, and his claws worn to the stumps,” said the Squire, musingly. “He isn’t a bad dog, Cooper. My poor father liked a good bulldog, and knew a cur from a good ’un.”
The dog was looking up into the Squire’s face with the peculiar grim visage of his kind, and the Squire was thinking irreverently how strong a likeness it presented to the character of his father’s fierce pug features when he was clutching his horsewhip and swearing at a keeper.
“If I did right I’d shoot him. He’ll worry the cattle, and kill our dogs,” said the Squire. “Hey, Cooper? I’ll tell the keeper to look after him. That fellow could pull down a sheep, and he shan’t live on my mutton.”
But the dog was not to be shaken off. He looked wistfully
