'Esther,' he said, 'have pity on me.  What have I done?  Can
you not forgive me?  Esther, you loved me once - can you not
love me still?'

'How can I tell you?  How am I to know?' she answered.  'You
are all a lie to me - all a lie from first to last.  You were
laughing at my folly, playing with me like a child, at the
very time when you declared you loved me.  Which was true?
was any of it true? or was it all, all a mockery?  I am weary
trying to find out.  And you say I loved you; I loved my
father's friend.  I never loved, I never heard of, you, until
that man came home and I began to find myself deceived.  Give
me back my father, be what you were before, and you may talk
of love indeed!'

'Then you cannot forgive me - cannot?' he asked.

'I have nothing to forgive,' she answered.  'You do not
understand.'

'Is that your last word, Esther?' said he, very white, and
biting his lip to keep it still.

'Yes, that is my last word,' replied she.

'Then we are here on false pretences, and we stay here no
longer,' he said.  'Had you still loved me, right or wrong, I
should have taken you away, because then I could have made
you happy.  But as it is - I must speak plainly - what you
propose is degrading to you, and an insult to me, and a rank
unkindness to your father.  Your father may be this or that,
but you should use him like a fellow-creature.'

'What do you mean?' she flashed.  'I leave him my house and
all my money; it is more than he deserves.  I wonder you dare
speak to me about that man.  And besides, it is all he cares
for; let him take it, and let me never hear from him again.'

'I thought you romantic about fathers,' he said.

'Is that a taunt?' she demanded.

'No,' he replied, 'it is an argument.  No one can make you
like him, but don't disgrace him in his own eyes.  He is old,
Esther, old and broken down.  Even I am sorry for him, and he
has been the loss of all I cared for.  Write to your aunt;
when I see her answer you can leave quietly and naturally,
and I will take you to your aunt's door.  But in the meantime
you must go home.  You have no money, and so you are
helpless, and must do as I tell you; and believe me, Esther,
I do all for your good, and your good only, so God help me.'

She had put her hand into her pocket and withdrawn it empty.

'I counted upon you,' she wailed.

'You counted rightly then,' he retorted.  'I will not, to
please you for a moment, make both of us unhappy for our
lives; and since I cannot marry you, we have only been too
long away, and must go home at once.'

'Dick,' she cried suddenly, 'perhaps I might - perhaps in
time - perhaps - '

'There is no perhaps about the matter,' interrupted Dick.  'I
must go and bring the phaeton.'  And with that he strode from
the station, all in a glow of passion and virtue.  Esther,
whose eyes had come alive and her cheeks flushed during these
last words, relapsed in a second into a state of
petrifaction.  She remained without motion during his
absence, and when he returned suffered herself to be put back
into the phaeton, and driven off on the return journey like
an idiot or a tired child.  Compared with what she was now,
her condition of the morning seemed positively natural.  She
sat white and cold and silent, and there was no speculation
in her eyes.  Poor Dick flailed and flailed at the pony, and
once tried to whistle, but his courage was going down; huge
clouds of despair gathered together in his soul, and from
time to time their darkness was divided by a piercing flash
of longing and regret.  He had lost his love - he had lost
his love for good.

The pony was tired, and the hills very long and steep, and
the air sultrier than ever, for now the breeze began to fail
entirely.  It seemed as if this miserable drive would never
be done, as if poor Dick would never be able to go away and
be comfortably wretched by himself; for all his desire was to
escape from her presence and the reproach of her averted
looks.  He had lost his love, he thought - he had lost his
love for good.

They were already not far from the cottage, when his heart
again faltered and he appealed to her once more, speaking low
and eagerly in broken phrases.

'I cannot live without your love,' he concluded.

'I do not understand what you mean,' she replied, and I
believe with perfect truth.

'Then,' said he, wounded to the quick, 'your aunt might come
and fetch you herself.  Of course you can command me as you
please.  But I think it would be better so.'

'Oh yes,' she said wearily, 'better so.'

This was the only exchange of words between them till about
four o'clock; the phaeton, mounting the lane, 'opened out'
the cottage between the leafy banks.  Thin smoke went
straight up from the chimney; the flowers in the garden, the
hawthorn in the lane, hung down their heads in the heat; the
stillness was broken only by the sound of hoofs.  For right
before the gate a livery servant rode slowly up and down,
leading a saddle horse.  And in this last Dick shuddered to
identify his father's chestnut.

Alas! poor Richard, what should this portend?

The servant, as in duty bound, dismounted and took the
phaeton into his keeping; yet Dick thought he touched his hat
to him with something of a grin.  Esther, passive as ever,
was helped out and crossed the garden with a slow and
mechanical gait; and Dick, following close behind her, heard
from within the cottage his father's voice upraised in an
anathema, and the shriller tones of the Admiral responding in
the key of war.



CHAPTER VIII - BATTLE ROYAL



SQUIRE NASEBY, on sitting down to lunch, had inquired for
Dick, whom he had not seen since the day before at dinner;
and the servant answering awkwardly that Master Richard had
come back but had gone out again with the pony phaeton, his
suspicions became aroused, and he cross-questioned the man
until the whole was out.  It appeared from this report that
Dick had been going about for nearly a month with a girl in
the Vale - a Miss Van Tromp; that she lived near Lord
Trevanion's upper wood; that recently Miss Van Tromp's papa
had returned home from foreign parts after a prolonged
absence; that this papa was an old gentleman, very chatty and
free with his money in the public-house - whereupon Mr.
Naseby's face became encrimsoned; that the papa, furthermore,
was said to be an admiral - whereupon Mr. Naseby spat out a
whistle brief and fierce as an oath; that Master Dick seemed
very friendly with the papa - 'God help him!' said Mr.
Naseby; that last night Master Dick had not come in, and to-
day he had driven away in the phaeton with the young lady -

'Young woman,' corrected Mr. Naseby.

'Yes, sir,' said the man, who had been unwilling enough to
gossip from the first, and was now cowed by the effect of his
communications on the master.  'Young woman, sir!'

'Had they luggage?' demanded the Squire.

'Yes, sir.'

Mr. Naseby was silent for a moment, struggling to keep down
his emotion, and he mastered it so far as to mount into the
sarcastic vein, when he was in the nearest danger of melting
into the sorrowful.

'And was this - this Van Dunk with them?' he asked, dwelling
scornfully upon the name.

The servant believed not, and being eager to shift the
responsibility of speech to other shoulders, suggested that
perhaps the master had better inquire further from George the
stableman in person.

'Tell him to saddle the chestnut and come with me.  He can
take the gray gelding; for we may ride fast.  And then you
can take away this trash,' added Mr. Naseby, pointing to the
luncheon; and he arose, lordly in his anger, and marched
forth upon the terrace to await his horse.

There Dick's old nurse shrunk up to him, for the news went
like wildfire over Naseby House, and timidly expressed a hope
that there was nothing much amiss with the young master.

'I'll pull him through,' the Squire said grimly, as though he
meant to pull him through a threshing-mill; 'I'll save him
from this gang; God help him with the next!  He has a taste
for low company, and no natural affections to steady him.
His father was no society for him; he must go fuddling with a
Dutchman, Nance, and now he's caught.  Let us pray he'll take
the lesson,' he added more gravely, 'but youth is here to
make troubles, and age to pull them out again.'

Nance whimpered and recalled several episodes of Dick's
childhood, which moved Mr. Naseby to blow his nose and shake
her hard by the hand; and then, the horse arriving
opportunely, to get himself without delay into the saddle and
canter off.

He rode straight, hot spur, to Thymebury, where, as was to be
expected, he could glean no tidings of the runaways.  They
had not been seen at the George; they had not been seen at
the station.  The shadow darkened on Mr. Naseby's face; the
junction did not occur to him; his last hope was for Van
Tromp's cottage; thither he bade George guide him, and
thither he followed, nursing grief, anxiety, and indignation
in his heart.

'Here it is, sir,' said George stopping.

'What! on my own land!' he cried.  'How's this?  I let this
place to somebody - M'Whirter or M'Glashan.'

'Miss M'Glashan was the young lady's aunt, sir, I believe,'
returned George.

'Ay - dummies,' said the Squire.  'I shall whistle for my
rent too.  Here, take my horse.'

The Admiral, this hot afternoon, was sitting by the window
with a long glass.  He already knew the Squire by sight, and
now, seeing him dismount before the cottage and come striding
through the garden, concluded without doubt he was there to
ask for Esther's hand.

'This is why the girl is not yet home,' he thought: 'a very
suitable delicacy on young Naseby's part.'

And he composed himself with some pomp, answered the loud
rattle of the riding-whip upon the door with a dulcet
invitation to enter, and coming forward with a bow and a
smile, 'Mr. Naseby, I believe,' said he.

The Squire came armed for battle; took in his man from top to
toe in one rapid and scornful glance, and decided on a course
at once.  He must let the fellow see that he understood him.

'You are Mr. Van Tromp?' he returned roughly, and without
taking any notice of the proffered hand.

'The same, sir,' replied the Admiral.  'Pray be seated.'

'No sir,' said the Squire, point-blank, 'I will not be
seated.  I am told that you are an admiral,' he added.

'No sir, I am not an admiral,' returned Van Tromp, who now
began to grow nettled and enter into the spirit of the
interview.

'Then why do you call yourself one, sir?'

'I have to ask your pardon, I do not,' says Van Tromp, as
grand as the Pope.

But nothing was of avail against the Squire.

'You sail under false colours from beginning to end,' he
said.  'Your very house was taken under a sham name.'

'It is not my house.  I am my daughter's guest,' replied the
Admiral.  'If it WERE my house - '

'Well?' said the Squire, 'what then? hey?'

The Admiral looked at him nobly, but was silent.

'Look here,' said Mr. Naseby, 'this intimidation is a waste
of time; it is thrown away on me, sir; it will not succeed
with me.  I will not permit you even to gain time by your
fencing.  Now, sir, I presume you understand what brings me
here.'

'I am entirely at a loss to account for your intrusion,' bows
and waves Van Tromp.

'I will try to tell you then.  I come here as a father' -
down came the riding-whip upon the table - 'I have right and
justice upon my side.  I understand your calculations, but
you calculated without me.  I am a man of the world, and I
see through you and your manoeuvres.  I am dealing now with a
conspiracy - I stigmatise it as such, and I will expose it
and crush it.  And now I order you to tell me how far things
have gone, and whither you have smuggled my unhappy son.'

'My God, sir!' Van Tromp broke out, 'I have had about enough
of this.  Your son?  God knows where he is for me!  What the
devil have I to do with your son?  My daughter is out, for
the matter of that; I might ask you where she was, and what
would you say to that?  But this is all midsummer madness.
Name your business distinctly, and be off.'

'How often am I to tell you?' cried the Squire.  'Where did
your daughter take my son to-day in that cursed pony
carriage?'

'In a pony carriage?' repeated Van Tromp.

'Yes, sir - with luggage.'

'Luggage?' - Van Tromp had turned a little pale.

'Luggage, I said - luggage!' shouted Naseby.  'You may spare
me this dissimulation.  Where's my son.  You are speaking to
a father, sir, a father.'

'But, sir, if this be true,' out came Van Tromp in a new key,
'it is I who have an explanation to demand?'

'Precisely.  There is the conspiracy,' retorted Naseby.
'Oh!' he added, 'I am a man of the world.  I can see through
and through you.'

Van Tromp began to understand.

'You speak a great deal about being a father, Mr. Naseby,'
said he; 'I believe you forget that the appellation is common
to both of us.  I am at a loss to figure to myself, however
dimly, how any man - I have not said any gentleman - could so
brazenly insult another as you have been insulting me since
you entered this house.  For the first time I appreciate your
base insinuations, and I despise them and you.  You were, I
am told, a manufacturer; I am an artist; I have seen better
days; I have moved in societies where you would not be
received, and dined where you would be glad to pay a pound to
see me dining.  The so-called aristocracy of wealth, sir, I
despise.  I refuse to help you; I refuse to be helped by you.
There lies the door.'

And the Admiral stood forth in a halo.

It was then that Dick entered.  He had been waiting in the
porch for some time back, and Esther had been listlessly
standing by his side.  He had put out his hand to bar her
entrance, and she had submitted without surprise; and though
she seemed to listen, she scarcely appeared to comprehend.
Dick, on his part, was as white as a sheet; his eyes burned
and his lips trembled with anger as he thrust the door
suddenly open, introduced Esther with ceremonious gallantry,
and stood forward and knocked his hat firmer on his head like
a man about to leap.

'What is all this?' he demanded.

'Is this your father, Mr. Naseby?' inquired the Admiral.

'It is,' said the young man.

'I make you my compliments,' returned Van Tromp.

'Dick!' cried his father, suddenly breaking forth, 'it is not
too late, is it?  I have come here in time to save you.
Come, come away with me - come away from this place.'

And he fawned upon Dick with his hands.

'Keep your hands off me,' cried Dick, not meaning unkindness,
but because his nerves were shattered by so many successive
miseries.

'No, no,' said the old man, 'don't repulse your father, Dick,
when he has come here to save you.  Don't repulse me, my boy.
Perhaps I have not been kind to you, not quite considerate,
too harsh; my boy, it was not for want of love.  Think of old
times.  I was kind to you then, was I not?  When you were a
child, and your mother was with us.'  Mr. Naseby was
interrupted by a sort of sob.  Dick stood looking at him in a
maze.  'Come away,' pursued the father in a whisper; 'you
need not be afraid of any consequences.  I am a man of the
world, Dick; and she can have no claim on you - no claim, I
tell you; and we'll be handsome too, Dick - we'll give them a
good round figure, father and daughter, and there's an end.'

He had been trying to get Dick towards the door, but the
latter stood off.

'You had better take care, sir, how you insult that lady,'
said the son, as black as night.

'You would not choose between your father and your mistress?'
said the father.

'What do you call her, sir?' cried Dick, high and clear.

Forbearance and patience were not among Mr. Naseby's
qualities.

'I called her your mistress,' he shouted, 'and I might have
called her a - '

'That is an unmanly lie,' replied Dick, slowly.

'Dick!' cried the father, 'Dick!'

'I do not care,' said the son, strengthening himself against
his own heart; 'I - I have said it, and it is the truth.'

There was a pause.

'Dick,' said the old man at last, in a voice that was shaken
as by a gale of wind, 'I am going.  I leave you with your
friends, sir - with your friends.  I came to serve you, and
now I go away a broken man.  For years I have seen this
coming, and now it has come.  You never loved me.  Now you
have been the death of me.  You may boast of that.  Now I
leave you.  God pardon you.'

With that he was gone; and the three who remained together
heard his horse's hoofs descend the lane.  Esther had not
made a sign throughout the interview, and still kept silence
now that it was over; but the Admiral, who had once or twice
moved forward and drawn back again, now advanced for good.

'You are a man of spirit, sir,' said he to Dick; 'but though
I am no friend to parental interference, I will say that you
were heavy on the governor.'  Then he added with a chuckle:
'You began, Richard, with a silver spoon, and here you are in
the water like the rest.  Work, work, nothing like work.  You
have parts, you have manners; why, with application you may
die a millionaire!'  Dick shook himself.  He took Esther by
the hand, looking at her mournfully.

'Then this is farewell,' he said.

'Yes,' she answered.  There was no tone in her voice, and she
did not return his gaze.

'For ever,' added Dick.

'For ever,' she repeated mechanically.

'I have had hard measure,' he continued.  'In time I believe
I could have shown you I was worthy, and there was no time
long enough to show how much I loved you.  But it was not to
be.  I have lost all.'

He relinquished her hand, still looking at her, and she
turned to leave the room.

'Why, what in fortune's name is the meaning of all this?'
cried Van Tromp.  'Esther come back!'

'Let her go,' said Dick, and he watched her disappear with
strangely mingled feelings.  For he had fallen into that
stage when men have the vertigo of misfortune, court the
strokes of destiny, and rush towards anything decisive, that
it may free them from suspense though at the cost of ruin.
It is one of the many minor forms of suicide.

'She did not love me,' he said, turning to her father.

'I feared as much,' said he, 'when I sounded her.  Poor Dick,
poor Dick.  And yet I believe I am as much cut up as you are.
I was born to see others happy.'

'You forget,' returned Dick, with something like a sneer,
'that I am now a pauper.'

Van Tromp snapped his fingers.

'Tut!' said he; 'Esther has plenty for us all.'

Dick looked at him with some wonder.  It had never dawned
upon him that this shiftless, thriftless, worthless, sponging
parasite was yet, after and in spite of all, not mercenary in
the issue of his thoughts; yet so it was.

'Now,' said Dick, 'I must go.'

'Go?' cried Van Tromp.  'Where?  Not one foot, Mr. Richard
Naseby.  Here you shall stay in the meantime! and - well, and
do something practical - advertise for a situation as private
secretary - and when you have it, go and welcome.  But in the
meantime, sir, no false pride; we must stay with our friends;
we must sponge a while on Papa Van Tromp, who has sponged so
often upon us.'

'By God,' cried Dick, 'I believe you are the best of the
lot.'

'Dick, my boy,' replied the Admiral, winking, 'you mark me, I
am not the worst.'

'Then why,' began Dick, and then paused.  'But Esther,' he
began again, once more to interrupt himself.  'The fact is,
Admiral,' he came out with it roundly now, 'your daughter
wished to run away from you to-day, and I only brought her
back with difficulty.'

'In the pony carriage?' asked the Admiral, with the silliness
of extreme surprise.

'Yes,' Dick answered.

'Why, what the devil was she running away from?'

Dick found the question unusually hard to answer.

'Why,' said he, 'you know, you're a bit of a rip.'

'I behave to that girl, sir, like an archdeacon,' replied Van
Tromp warmly.

'Well - excuse me - but you know you drink,' insisted Dick.

'I know that I was a sheet in the wind's eye, sir, once -
once only, since I reached this place,' retorted the Admiral.
'And even then I was fit for any drawing-room.  I should like
you to tell me how many fathers, lay and clerical, go
upstairs every day with a face like a lobster and cod's eyes
- and are dull, upon the back of it - not even mirth for the
money!  No, if that's what she runs for, all I say is, let
her run.'

'You see,' Dick tried it again, 'she has fancies - '

'Confound her fancies!' cried Van Tromp.  'I used her kindly;
she had her own way; I was her father.  Besides I had taken
quite a liking to the girl, and meant to stay with her for
good.  But I tell you what it is, Dick, since she has trifled
with you - Oh, yes, she did though! - and since her old
papa's not good enough for her - the devil take her, say I.'

'You will be kind to her at least?' said Dick.

'I never was unkind to a living soul,' replied the Admiral.
'Firm I can be, but not unkind.'

'Well,' said Dick, offering his hand, 'God bless you, and
farewell.'

The Admiral swore by all his gods he should not go.  'Dick,'
he said, 'You are a selfish dog; you forget your old Admiral.
You wouldn't leave him alone, would you?'

It was useless to remind him that the house was not his to
dispose of, that being a class of considerations to which his
intelligence was closed; so Dick tore himself off by force,
and, shouting a good-bye, made off along the lane to
Thymebury.




CHAPTER IX - IN WHICH THE LIBERAL EDITOR RE-APPEARS AS 'DEUS
EX MACHINA'



IT was perhaps a week later, as old Mr. Naseby sat brooding
in his study, that there was shown in upon him, on urgent
business, a little hectic gentleman shabbily attired.

'I have to ask pardon for this intrusion, Mr. Naseby,' he
said; 'but I come here to perform a duty.  My card has been
sent in, but perhaps you may not know, what it does not tell
you, that I am the editor of the THYMEBURY STAR.'

Mr. Naseby looked up, indignant.

'I cannot fancy,' he said, 'that we have much in common to
discuss.'

'I have only a word to say - one piece of information to
communicate.  Some months ago, we had - you will pardon my
referring to it, it is absolutely necessary - but we had an
unfortunate difference as to facts.'

'Have you come to apologise?' asked the Squire, sternly.

'No, sir; to mention a circumstance.  On the morning in
question, your son, Mr. Richard Naseby - '

'I do not permit his name to be mentioned.'

'You will, however, permit me,' replied the Editor.

'You are cruel,' said the Squire.  He was right, he was a
broken man.

Then the Editor described Dick's warning visit; and how he
had seen in the lad's eye that there was a thrashing in the
wind, and had escaped through pity only - so the Editor put
it - 'through pity only sir.  And oh, sir,' he went on, 'if
you had seen him speaking up for you, I am sure you would
have been proud of your son.  I know I admired the lad
myself, and indeed that's what brings me here.'

'I have misjudged him,' said the Squire.  'Do you know where
he is?'

'Yes, sir, he lies sick at Thymebury.'

'You can take me to him?'

'I can.'

'I pray God he may forgive me,' said the father.

And he and the Editor made post-haste for the country town.

Next day the report went abroad that Mr. Richard was
reconciled to his father and had been taken home to Naseby
House.  He was still ailing, it was said, and the Squire
nursed him like the proverbial woman.  Rumour, in this
instance, did no more than justice to the truth; and over the
sickbed many confidences were exchanged, and clouds that had
been growing for years passed away in a few hours, and as
fond mankind loves to hope, for ever.  Many long talks had
been fruitless in external action, though fruitful for the
understanding of the pair; but at last, one showery Tuesday,
the Squire might have been observed upon his way to the
cottage in the lane.

The old gentleman had arranged his features with a view to
self-command, rather than external cheerfulness; and he
entered the cottage on his visit of conciliation with the
bearing of a clergyman come to announce a death.

The Admiral and his daughter were both within, and both
looked upon their visitor with more surprise than favour.

'Sir,' said he to Van Tromp, 'I am told I have done you much
injustice.'

There came a little sound in Esther's throat, and she put her
hand suddenly to her heart.

'You have, sir; and the acknowledgment suffices,' replied the
Admiral.  'I am prepared, sir, to be easy with you, since I
hear you have made it up with my friend Dick.  But let me
remind you that you owe some apologies to this young lady
also.'

'I shall have the temerity to ask for more than her
forgiveness,' said the Squire.  'Miss Van Tromp,' he
continued, 'once I was in great distress, and knew nothing of
you or your character; but I believe you will pardon a few
rough words to an old man who asks forgiveness from his
heart.  I have heard much of you since then; for you have a
fervent advocate in my house.  I believe you will understand
that I speak of my son.  He is, I regret to say, very far
from well; he does not pick up as the doctors had expected;
he has a great deal upon his mind, and, to tell you the
truth, my girl, if you won't help us, I am afraid I shall
lose him.  Come now, forgive him!  I was angry with him once
myself, and I found I was in the wrong.  This is only a
misunderstanding, like the other, believe me; and with one
kind movement, you may give happiness to him, and to me, and
to yourself.'

Esther made a movement towards the door, but long before she
reached it she had broken forth sobbing.

'It is all right,' said the Admiral; 'I understand the sex.
Let me make you my compliments, Mr. Naseby.'

The Squire was too much relieved to be angry.

'My dear,' said he to Esther, 'you must not agitate
yourself.'

'She had better go up and see him right away,' suggested Van
Tromp.

'I had not ventured to propose it,' replied the Squire.  'LES
CONVENANCES, I believe - '

'JE M'EN FICHE,' cried the Admiral, snapping his fingers.
'She shall go and see my friend Dick.  Run and get ready,
Esther.'

Esther obeyed.

'She has not - has not run away again?' inquired Mr. Naseby,
as soon as she was gone.

'No,' said Van Tromp, 'not again.  She is a devilish odd girl
though, mind you that.'

'But I cannot stomach the man with the carbuncles,' thought
the Squire.

And this is why there is a new household and a brand-new baby
in Naseby Dower House; and why the great Van Tromp lives in
pleasant style upon the shores of England; and why twenty-six
individual copies of the THYMEBURY STAR are received daily at
the door of Naseby House.