"What am I to say, sir? Shall I say as you are middle-aged?"

"The truth is, Matthew, I'm worn out."

"Then I wouldn't think of taking a wife."

"Troubles have been too heavy for me to bear. I don't think I was intended to bear trouble."

"'Man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upward,'" said Matthew.

"I suppose so. But one man's luck is harder than another's. They've been too many for me, and I feel that I'm sinking under them. It's no good my thinking of marrying now."

"That's what I was coming to when you said I was an old fool. Of course I am an old fool."

"Do have done with it! Mr. Harry hasn't been exactly what he ought to have been to me."

"He's a very comely young gentleman."

"What has comely to do with it?"

"Them as is plain-featured is more likely to stay at home and be quiet.

You couldn't expect one as is so handsome to stay at Buston and hear sermons."

"I don't expect him to be knocking men about in the streets at midnight."

"It ain't that, sir."

"I say it is that!"

"Very well, sir. Only we've all heard down-stairs as Mr. Harry wasn't him as struck the first blow. It was all about a young lady."

"I know what it was about."

"A young lady as is a young lady."--This was felt to the quick by Mr.

Prosper, in regard to the gin-drinking Miss Puffle and the brewer-bred Miss Thoroughbung; but as he was beginning to think that the continuation of the family of the Prospers must depend on the marriage which Harry might make, he pa.s.sed over the slur upon himself for the sake of the praise given to the future mother of the Prospers.--"And when a young gentleman has set his heart on a young lady he's not going to be braggydoshoed out of it."

"Captain Scarborough knew her first."

"First come first served isn't always the way with lovers. Mr. Harry was the conquering hero. 'Weni, widi, wici.'"

"Halloo, Matthew!"

"Them's the words as they say a young gentleman ought to use when he's got the better of a young lady's affections; and I dare say they're the very words as put the captain into such a towering pa.s.sion. I can understand how it happened, just as if I saw it."

"But he went away, and left him bleeding and speechless."

"He'd knocked his _weni, widi, wici_ out of him, I guess! I think, Mr.

Prosper, you should forgive him." Mr. Prosper had thought so too, but had hardly known how to express himself after his second burst of anger.

But he was at the present ill and weak, and was anxious to have some one near to him who should be more like a silk purse than his butler, Matthew. "Suppose you was to send for him, sir."

"He wouldn't come."

"Let him alone for coming! They tell me, sir--"

"Who tells you?"

"Why, sir, the servants now at the rectory. Of course, sir, where two families is so near connected, the servants are just as near: it's no more than natural. They tell me now that since you were so kind about the allowance, their talk of you is all changed." Then the squire's anger was heated hot again. Their talk had all been against him till he had opened his hand in regard to the allowance. And now when there was something again to be got they could be civil. There was none of that love of him for himself for which an old man is always hankering,--for which the sick man breaks his heart,--but which the old and sick find it so difficult to get from the young and healthy. It is in nature that the old man should keep the purse in his own pocket, or otherwise he will have so little to attract. He is weak, querulous, ugly to look at, apt to be greedy, cross, and untidy. Though he himself can love, what is his love to any one? Duty demands that one shall smooth his pillow, and some one does smooth it,--as a duty. But the old man feels the difference, and remembers the time when there was one who was anxious to share it.

Mr. Prosper was not in years an old man, and had not as yet pa.s.sed that time of life at which many a man is regarded by his children as the best of their playfellows. But he was weak in body, self-conscious, and jealous in spirit. He had the heart to lay out for himself a generous line of conduct, but not the purpose to stick to it steadily. His nephew had ever been a trouble to him, because he had expected from his nephew a kind of worship to which he had felt that he was ent.i.tled as the head of the family. All good things were to come from him, and therefore good things should be given to him. Harry had told himself that his uncle was not his father, and that it had not been his fault that he was his uncle's heir. He had not asked his uncle for an allowance. He had grown up with the feeling that Buston Hall was to be his own, and had not regarded his uncle as the donor. His father, with his large family, had never exacted much,--had wanted no special attention from him. And if not his father, then why his uncle? But his inattention, his absence of grat.i.tude for peculiar gifts, had sunk deep into Mr. Prosper's bosom.

Hence had come Miss Thoroughbung as his last resource, and Miss Thoroughbung had--called him Peter. Hence his mind had wandered to Miss Puffle, and Miss Puffle had gone off with the farmer's son, and, as he was now informed, had taken to drinking gin. Therefore he turned his face to the wall and prepared himself to die.

On the next day he sent for Matthew again. Matthew first came to him always in the morning, but on that occasion very little conversation ever took place. In the middle of the day he had a bowl of soup brought to him, and by that time had managed to drag himself out of bed, and to clothe himself in his dressing-gown, and to seat himself in his arm-chair. Then when the soup had been slowly eaten, he would ring his bell, and the conversation would begin. "I have been thinking over what I was saying yesterday, Matthew." Matthew simply a.s.sented, but he knew in his heart that his master had been thinking over what he himself had said.

"Is Mr. Harry at the rectory?"

"Oh yes; he's there now. He wouldn't stir from the rectory till he hears that you are better."

"Why shouldn't he stir? Does he mean to say that I'm going to die?

Perhaps I am. I'm very weak, but he doesn't know it."

Matthew felt that he had made a blunder, and that he must get out of it as well as he could. "It isn't that he is thinking anything of that, but you are confined to your room, sir. Of course he knows that."

"I never told him."

"He's most particular in his inquiries from day to day."

"Does he come here?"

"He don't venture on that, because he knows as how you wouldn't wish it."

"Why shouldn't I wish it? It'd be the most natural thing in the world."

"But there has been--a little--I'm quite sure Mr. Harry don't wish to intrude. If you'd let me give it to be understood that you'd like him to call, he'd be over here in a jiffy." Then, very slowly, Mr. Prosper did give it to be understood that he would take it as a compliment if his nephew would walk across the park and ask after him. He was most particular as to the mode in which this emba.s.sy should be conducted.

Harry was not to be made to think that he was to come rushing into the house after his old fashion,--"Halloo, uncle, aren't you well? Hope you'll be better when I come back. Have got to be off by the next train." Then he used to fly away and not be heard of again for a week.

And yet the message was to be conveyed with an alluring courtesy that might be attractive, and might indicate that no hostility was intended.

But it was not to be a positive message, but one which would signify what might possibly take place. If it should happen that Mr. Harry was walking in this direction, it might also happen that his uncle would be pleased to see him. There was no better amba.s.sador at hand than Matthew, and therefore Matthew was commissioned to arrange matters. "If you can get at Mrs. Weeks, and do it through his mother," suggested Mr. Prosper.

Then Matthew winked and departed on his errand.

In about two hours there was a ring at the back-door, of which Mr.

Prosper knew well the sound. Miss Thoroughbung had not been there very often, but he had learned to distinguish her ring or her servant's. In old days, not so very far removed, Harry had never been accustomed to ring at all. But yet his uncle knew that it was he, and not the doctor, who might probably come,--or Mr. Soames, of whose coming he lived in hourly dread. "You can show him up," he said to Matthew, opening the door with great exertion, and attempting to speak to the servant down the stairs. Harry, at any rate, was shown up, and in two minutes' time was standing over his uncle's sick-chair. "I have not been quite well just lately," he said, in answer to the inquiries made.

"We are very sorry to hear that, sir."

"I suppose you've heard it before."

"We did hear that you were a little out of sorts."

"Out of sorts! I don't know what you call out of sorts. I have not been out of this room for well-nigh a month. My sister came to see me one day, and that's the last Christian I've seen."

"My mother would be over daily if she fancied you'd like it."