"Wrong! I do not know that she is wrong in that sense. I do not know that you have any right to blame her. Why do not you speak to your grandfather?"

"So I have--as far as it was possible for me. But you do not know Sir Peregrine. No one has any influence over him, but my mother;--and now also your mother."

"And what does Mrs. Orme say?"

"She will say nothing. I know well that she disapproves of it. She must disapprove of it, though she will not say so. She would rather burn off both her hands than displease my grandfather. She says that he asked her and that she consented."

"It seems to me that it is for her and you to prevent this."

"No; it is for your mother to prevent it. Only think of it, Mason.

He is over seventy, and, as he says himself, he will not burden the estate with a new jointure. Why should she do it?"

"You are wronging her there. It is no affair of money. She is not going to marry him for what she can get."

"Then why should she do it?"

"Because he tells her. These troubles about the lawsuit have turned her head, and she has put herself entirely into his hands. I think she is wrong. I could have protected her from all this evil, and would have done so. I could have done more, I think, than Sir Peregrine can do. But she has thought otherwise, and I do not know that I can help it."

"But will you speak to her? Will make her perceive that she is injuring a family that is treating her with kindness?"

"If she will come here I will speak to her. I cannot do it there. I cannot go down to your grandfather's house with such an object as that."

"All the world will turn against her if she marries him," said Peregrine. And then there was silence between them for a moment or two.

"It seems to me," said Lucius at last, "that you wrong my mother very much in this matter, and lay all the blame where but the smallest part of the blame is deserved. She has no idea of money in her mind, or any thought of pecuniary advantage. She is moved solely by what your grandfather has said to her,--and by an insane dread of some coming evil which she thinks may be lessened by his a.s.sistance. You are in the house with them, and can speak to him,--and if you please to her also. I do not see that I can do either."

"And you will not help me to break it off?"

"Certainly,--if I can see my way."

"Will you write to her?"

"Well; I will think about it."

"Whether she be to blame or not it must be your duty as well as mine to prevent such a marriage if it be possible. Think what people will say of it?"

After some further discussion Peregrine remounted his horse, and rode back to The Cleeve, not quite satisfied with young Mason.

"If you do speak to her,--to my mother, do it gently." Those were the last words whispered by Lucius as Peregrine Orme had his foot in the stirrup.

Young Peregrine Orme, as he rode home, felt that the world was using him very unkindly. Everything was going wrong with him, and an idea entered his head that he might as well go and look for Sir John Franklin at the North Pole, or join some energetic traveller in the middle of Central Africa. He had proposed to Madeline Staveley and had been refused. That in itself caused a load to lie on his heart which was almost unendurable;--and now his grandfather was going to disgrace himself. He had made his little effort to be respectable and discreet, devoting himself to the county hunt and county drawing-rooms, giving up the pleasures of London and the glories of dissipation. And for what?

Then Peregrine began to argue within himself as some others have done before him--

"Were it not better done as others use--" he said to himself, in that or other language; and as he rode slowly into the courtyard of The Cleeve, he thought almost with regret of his old friend Carroty Bob.

CHAPTER x.x.xVII.

PEREGRINE'S ELOQUENCE.

In the last chapter Peregrine Orme called at Orley Farm with the view of discussing with Lucius Mason the conduct of their respective progenitors; and, as will be remembered, the young men agreed in a general way that their progenitors were about to make fools of themselves. Poor Peregrine, however, had other troubles on his mind.

Not only had his grandfather been successful in love, but he had been unsuccessful. As he had journeyed home from Noningsby to The Cleeve in a high-wheeled vehicle which he called his trap, he had determined, being then in a frame of mind somewhat softer than was usual with him, to tell all his troubles to his mother. It sounds as though it were lack-a-daisical--such a resolve as this on the part of a dashing young man, who had been given to the pursuit of rats, and was now a leader among the sons of Nimrod in the pursuit of foxes. Young men of the present day, when got up for the eyes of the world, look and talk as though they could never tell their mothers anything,--as though they were harder than flint, and as little in want of a woman's counsel and a woman's help as a colonel of horse on the morning of a battle. But the rigid virility of his outward accoutrements does in no way alter the man of flesh and blood who wears them; the young hero, so stern to the eye, is, I believe, as often tempted by stress of sentiment to lay bare the sorrow of his heart as is his sister. On this occasion Peregrine said to himself that he would lay bare the sorrow of his heart. He would find out what others thought of that marriage which he had proposed to himself; and then, if his mother encouraged him, and his grandfather approved, he would make another attack, beginning on the side of the judge, or perhaps on that of Lady Staveley.

But he found that others, as well as he, were labouring under a stress of sentiment; and when about to tell his own tale, he had learned that a tale was to be told to him. He had dined with Lady Mason, his mother, and his grandfather, and the dinner had been very silent. Three of the party were in love, and the fourth was burdened with the telling of the tale. The baronet himself said nothing on the subject as he and his grandson sat over their wine; but later in the evening Peregrine was summoned to his mother's room, and she, with considerable hesitation and much diffidence, informed him of the coming nuptials.

"Marry Lady Mason!" he had said.

"Yes, Peregrine. Why should he not do so if they both wish it?"

Peregrine thought that there were many causes and impediments sufficiently just why no such marriage should take place, but he had not his arguments ready at his fingers' ends. He was so stunned by the intelligence that he could say but little about it on that occasion. By the few words that he did say, and by the darkness of his countenance, he showed plainly enough that he disapproved. And then his mother said all that she could in the baronet's favour, pointing out that in a pecuniary way Peregrine would receive benefit rather than injury.

"I'm not thinking of the money, mother."

"No, my dear; but it is right that I should tell you how considerate your grandfather is."

"All the same, I wish he would not marry this woman."

"Woman, Peregrine! You should not speak in that way of a friend whom I dearly love."

"She is a woman all the same." And then he sat sulkily looking at the fire. His own stress of sentiment did not admit of free discussion at the present moment, and was necessarily postponed. On that other affair he was told that his grandfather would be glad to see him on the following morning; and then he left his mother.

"Your grandfather, Peregrine, asked for my a.s.sent," said Mrs. Orme; "and I thought it right to give it." This she said to make him understand that it was no longer in her power to oppose the match.

And she was thoroughly glad that this was so, for she would have lacked the courage to oppose Sir Peregrine in anything.

On the next morning Peregrine saw his grandfather before breakfast.

His mother came to his room door while he was dressing to whisper a word of caution to him. "Pray, be courteous to him," she said. "Remember how good he is to you--to us both! Say that you congratulate him."

"But I don't," said Peregrine.

"Ah, but, Peregrine--"

"I'll tell you what I'll do, mother. I'll leave the house altogether and go away, if you wish it."

"Oh, Peregrine! How can you speak in that way? But he's waiting now.

Pray, pray, be kind in your manner to him."

He descended with the same sort of feeling which had oppressed him on his return home after his encounter with Carroty Bob in Smithfield.

Since then he had been on enduring good terms with his grandfather, but now again all the discomforts of war were imminent.

"Good morning, sir," he said, on going into his grandfather's dressing-room.

"Good morning, Peregrine." And then there was silence for a moment or two.

"Did you see your mother last night?"