Down went the old butler, not altogether unused to such condescensions in that disorderly and lonely household; and let not those who can choose their company, be too hard on the Squire who couldn’t.
When he had got things tidy, as he said, he sat down in that big old kitchen, with his feet on the fender, the kitchen candle burning in a great brass candlestick, which stood on the deal table at his elbow, with the brandy bottle and tumblers beside it, and Cooper’s pipe also in readiness. And these preparations completed, the old butler, who had remembered other generations and better times, fell into rumination, and so, gradually, into a deep sleep.
Old Cooper was half awakened by someone laughing low, near his head. He was dreaming of old times in the Hall, and fancied one of “the young gentlemen” going to play him a trick, and he mumbled something in his sleep, from which he was awakened by a stern deep voice, saying, “You wern’t at the funeral; I might take your life, I’ll take your ear.” At the same moment, the side of his head received a violent push, and he started to his feet. The fire had gone down, and he was chilled. The candle was expiring in the socket, and threw on the white wall long shadows, that danced up and down from the ceiling to the ground, and their black outlines he fancied resembled the two men in cloaks, whom he remembered with a profound horror.
He took the candle, with all the haste he could, getting along the passage, on whose walls the same dance of black shadows was continued, very anxious to reach his room before the light should go out. He was startled half out of his wits by the sudden clang of his master’s bell, close over his head, ringing furiously.
“Ha, ha! There it goes—yes, sure enough,” said Cooper, reassuring himself with the sound of his own voice, as he hastened on, hearing more and more distinct every moment the same furious ringing. “He’s fell asleep, like me; that’s it, and his lights is out, I lay you fifty—”
When he turned the handle of the door of the oak parlour, the Squire wildly called, “Who’s there?” in the tone of a man who expects a robber.
“It’s me, old Cooper, all right, Master Charlie, you didn’t come to the kitchen after all, sir.”
“I’m very bad, Cooper; I don’t know how I’ve been. Did you meet anything?” asked the Squire.
“No,” said Cooper.
They stared on one another.
“Come here—stay here! Don’t you leave me! Look round the room, and say is all right; and gie us your hand, old Cooper, for I must hold it.” The Squire’s was damp and cold, and trembled very much. It was not very far from daybreak now.
After a time he spoke again: “I ’a done many a thing I shouldn’t; I’m not fit to go, and wi’ God’s blessin’ I’ll look to it—why shouldn’t I? I’m as lame as old Billy—I’ll never be able to do any good no more, and I’ll give over drinking, and marry, as I ought to ’a done long ago—none o’ yer fine ladies, but a good homely wench; there’s Farmer Crump’s youngest daughter, a good lass, and discreet. What for shouldn’t I take her? She’d take care o’ me, and wouldn’t bring a head full o’ romances here, and mantua-makers’ trumpery, and I’ll talk with the parson, and I’ll do what’s fair wi’ everyone; and mind, I said I’m sorry for many a thing I ’a done.”
A wild cold dawn had by this time broken. The Squire, Cooper said, looked “awful bad,” as he got his hat and stick, and sallied out for a walk, instead of going to his bed, as Cooper besought him, looking so wild and distracted, that it was plain his object was simply to escape from the house. It was twelve o’clock when the Squire walked into the kitchen, where he was sure of finding some of the servants, looking as if ten years had passed over him since yesterday. He pulled a stool by the fire, without speaking a word, and sat down. Cooper had sent to Applebury for the doctor, who had just arrived, but the Squire would not go to him. “If he wants to see me, he may come here,” he muttered as often as Cooper urged him. So the doctor did come, charily enough, and found the Squire very much worse than he had expected.
The Squire resisted the order to get to his bed. But the doctor insisted under a threat of death, at which his patient quailed.
“Well, I’ll do what you say—only this—you must let old Cooper and Dick Keeper stay wi’ me. I mustn’t be left alone, and they must keep awake o’ nights; and stay a while, do you. When I get round a bit, I’ll go and live in a town. It’s dull livin’ here, now that I can’t do nou’t, as I used, and I’ll live a better life, mind ye; ye heard me say that, and I don’t care who laughs, and I’ll talk wi’ the parson. I like ’em to laugh, hang ’em, it’s a sign I’m doin’ right, at last.”
The doctor sent a couple of nurses from the County Hospital, not choosing to trust his patient to the management he had selected, and he went down himself to Gylingden to meet them in the evening. Old Cooper was ordered to occupy the dressing-room, and sit up at night, which satisfied the Squire, who was in a strangely excited state, very low, and threatened, the doctor said, with fever.
The clergyman came, an old, gentle, “book-learned” man, and talked and prayed with him late that evening. After he had gone the Squire called the nurses to his bedside, and said:
“There’s a fellow sometimes comes; you’ll
