Ralph the Heir Part 34

But before he left the Moonbeam things had a.s.sumed a shape which, when looked at all round, was not altogether pleasant to him. Before he had been three days at the place he received a letter from his lawyer, telling him that his uncle had given his formal a.s.sent to the purchase, and had offered to pay the stipulated sum as soon as Ralph would be willing to receive it. As to any further sum that might be forthcoming, a valuer should be agreed upon at once. The actual deed of sale and transfer would be ready by the middle of November; and the lawyer advised Ralph to postpone his acceptance of the money till that deed should have been executed. It was evident from the letter that there was no need on his part to hurry back to town. This letter he found waiting for him on his return one day from hunting. There had been a pretty run, very fast, with a kill, as there will be sometimes in cub-hunting in October,--though as a rule, of all sports, cub-hunting is the sorriest. Ralph had ridden his favourite horse Brag, and Mr. Pepper had taken out,--just to try him,--a little animal of his that he had bought, as he said, quite at haphazard. He knew nothing about him, and was rather afraid that he had been done.

But the little horse seemed to have a dash of pace about him, and in the evening there was some talk of the animal. Fred Pepper thought that the little horse was faster than Brag. Fred Pepper never praised his own horses loudly; and when Brag's merits were chaunted, said that perhaps Ralph was right. Would Ralph throw his leg over the little horse on Friday and try him? On the Friday Ralph did throw his leg over the little horse, and there was another burst. Ralph was obliged to confess, as they came home together in the afternoon, that he had never been better carried. "I can see what he is now," said Fred Pepper;--"he is one of those little horses that one don't get every day. He's up to a stone over my weight, too." Now Ralph and Fred Pepper each rode thirteen stone and a half.

On that day they dined together, and there was much talk as to the future prospects of the men. Not that Fred Pepper said anything of his future prospects. No one ever presumed him to have a prospect, or suggested to him to look for one. But c.o.x had been very communicative and confidential, and Ralph had been prompted to say something of himself. Fred Pepper, though he had no future of his own, could he pleasantly interested about the future of another, and had quite agreed with Ralph that he ought to settle himself. The only difficulty was in deciding the when. c.o.x intended to settle himself too, but c.o.x was quite clear as to the wisdom of taking another season out of himself. He was prepared to prove that it would be sheer waste of time and money not to do so. "Here I am," said c.o.x, "and a fellow always saves money by staying where he is." There was a sparkle of truth in this which Ralph Newton found himself unable to deny.

"You'll never have another chance," said Pepper.

"That's another thing," said c.o.x. "Of course I shan't. I've turned it round every side, and I know what I'm about. As for horses, I believe they sell better in April than they do in October. Men know what they are then." Fred Pepper would not exactly back this opinion, but he ventured to suggest that there was not so much difference as some men supposed.

"If you are to jump into the cold water," said Ralph, "you'd better take the plunge at once."

"I'd sooner do it in summer than winter," said Fred Pepper.

"Of course," said c.o.x. "If you must give up hunting, do it at the end of the season, not at the beginning. There's a time for all things.

Ring the bell, Dormouse, and we'll have another bottle of claret before we go to dummy."

"If I stay here for the winter," said Ralph, "I should want another horse. Though I might, perhaps, get through with four."

"Of course you might," said Pepper, who never spoilt his own market by pressing.

"I'd rather give up altogether than do it in a scratch way," said Ralph. "I've got into a fashion of having a second horse, and I like it."

"It's the greatest luxury in the world," said c.o.x.

"I never tried it," said Pepper; "I'm only too happy to get one." It was admitted by all men that Fred Pepper had the art of riding his horses without tiring them.

They played their rubber of whist and had a little hot whisky and water. On this evening Mr. Horsball was admitted to their company and made a fourth. But he wouldn't bet. Shilling points, he said, were quite as much as he could afford. Through the whole evening they went on talking of the next season, of the absolute folly of giving up one thing before another was begun, and of the merits of Fred Pepper's little horse. "A clever little animal, Mr. Pepper," said the great man, "a very clever little animal; but I wish you wouldn't bring so many clever un's down here, Mr. Pepper."

"Why not, Horsball?" asked c.o.x.

"Because he interferes with my trade," said Mr. Horsball, laughing.

It was supposed, nevertheless, that Mr. Horsball and Mr. Pepper quite understood each other. Before the evening was over, a price had been fixed, and Ralph had bought the little horse for 130. Why shouldn't he take another winter out of himself? He could not marry Mary Bonner and get into a farm all in a day,--nor yet all in a month. He would go to work honestly with the view of settling himself; but let him be as honest about it as he might, his winter's hunting would not interfere with him. So at last he a.s.sured himself. And then he had another argument strong in his favour. He might hunt all the winter and yet have this thirty thousand pounds,--nay, more than thirty thousand pounds at the end of it. In fact, imprudent and foolish as had been his hunting in all previous winters, there would not even be any imprudence in this winter's hunting. Fortified by all these unanswerable arguments he did buy Mr. Fred Pepper's little horse.

On the next morning, the morning of the day on which he was to return to town, the arguments did not seem to be so irresistible, and he almost regretted what he had done. It was not that he would be ruined by another six months' fling at life. Situated as he now was so much might be allowed to him almost without injury. But then how can a man trust in his own resolutions before he has begun to keep them,--when, at the very moment of beginning, he throws them to the winds for the present, postponing everything for another hour? He knew as well as any one could tell him that he was proving himself to be unfit for that new life which he was proposing to himself. When one man is wise and another foolish, the foolish man knows generally as well as does the wise man in what lies wisdom and in what folly. And the temptation often is very slight. Ralph Newton had hardly wished to buy Mr. Pepper's little horse. The balance of desire during the whole evening had lain altogether on the other side. But there had come a moment in which he had yielded, and that moment governed all the other minutes. We may almost say that a man is only as strong as his weakest moment.

But he returned to London very strong in his purpose. He would keep his establishment at the Moonbeam for this winter. He had it all laid out and planned in his mind. He would at once pay Mr. Horsball the balance of the old debt, and count on the value of his horses to defray the expense of the coming season. And he would, without a week's delay, make his offer to Mary Bonner. A dim idea of some feeling of disappointment on Clary's part did cross his brain,--a feeling which seemed to threaten some slight discomfort to himself as resulting from want of sympathy on her part; but he must a.s.sume sufficient courage to brave this. That he would in any degree be an evil-doer towards Clary,--that did not occur to him. Nor did it occur to him as at all probable that Mary Bonner would refuse his offer. In these days men never expect to be refused. It has gone forth among young men as a doctrine worthy of perfect faith, that young ladies are all wanting to get married,--looking out for lovers with an absorbing anxiety, and that few can dare to refuse any man who is justified in proposing to them.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

THE NEW HEIR COUNTS HIS CHICKENS.

The Squire was almost lost in joy when he received his son's letter, telling him that Ralph the heir had consented to sell everything.

The one great wish of his life was to be accomplished at last! The property was to be his own, so that he might do what he liked with it, so that he might leave it entire to his own son, so that for the remainder of his life he might enjoy it in that community with his son which had always appeared to him to be the very summit of human bliss. From the sweet things which he had seen he had been hitherto cut off by the record of his own fault, and had spent the greater part of his life in the endurance of a bitter punishment. He had been torn to pieces, too, in contemplating the modes of escape from the position in which his father's very natural will had placed him. He might of course have married, and at least have expected and have hoped for children. But in that there would have been misery. His son was the one human being that was dear to him above all others, and by such a marriage he would have ruined his son. Early in life, comparatively early, he had made up his mind that he would not do that;--that he would save his money, and make a property for the boy he loved. But then it had come home to him as a fact, that he could be happy in preparing no other home for his son than this old family house of his, with all its acres, woods, and homesteads. The acres, woods, and homesteads gave to him no delight, feeling as he did every hour of his life that they were not his own for purposes of a real usufruct. Then by degrees he had heard of his nephew's follies, and the idea had come upon him that he might buy his nephew out. Ralph, his own Ralph, had told him that the idea was cruel; but he could not see the cruelty. "What a bad man loses a good man will get," he said; "and surely it must be better for all those who are to live by the property that a good man should be the master of it." He would not interfere, nor would he have any power of interfering, till others would interfere were he to keep aloof. The doings would be the doings of that spendthrift heir, and none of his. When Ralph would tell him that he was cruel, he would turn away in wrath; but hiding his wrath, because he loved his son. But now everything was set right, and his son had had the doing of it.

He was nearly mad with joy throughout that day as he thought of the great thing which he had accomplished. He was alone in the house, for his son was still in London, and during the last few months guests had been unfrequent at the Priory. But he did not wish to have anybody with him now. He went out, roaming through the park, and realising to himself the fact that now, at length, the very trees were his own. He gazed at one farmhouse after another, not seeking the tenants, hardly speaking to them if he met them, but with his brain full of plans of what should be done. He saw Gregory for a moment, but only nodded at him smiling, and pa.s.sed on. He was not in a humour just at present to tell his happiness to any one. He walked all round Darvell's premises, the desolate, half-ruined house of Brumbys, telling himself that very shortly it should be desolate and half-ruined no longer. Then he crossed into the lane, and stood with his eyes fixed upon Brownriggs,--Walker's farm, the pearl of all the farms in those parts, the land with which he thought he could have parted so easily when the question before him was that of becoming in truth the owner of any portion of the estate. But now, every acre was ten times dearer to him than it had been then. He would never part with Brownriggs. He would even save Ingram's farm, in Twining, if it might possibly be saved. He had not known before how dear to him could be every bank, every tree, every sod. Yes;--now in very truth he was lord and master of the property which had belonged to his father, and his father's fathers before him. He would borrow money, and save it during his lifetime. He would do anything rather than part with an acre of it, now that the acres were his own to leave behind him to his son.

On the following day Ralph arrived. We must no longer call him Ralph who was not the heir. He would be heir to everything from the day that the contract was completed! The Squire, though he longed to see the young man as he had never longed before, would not go to the station to meet the welcome one. His irrepressible joy was too great to be exhibited before strangers. He remained at home, in his own room, desiring that Mr. Ralph might come to him there. He would not even show himself in the hall. And yet when Ralph entered the room he was very calm. There was a bright light in his eyes, but at first he spoke hardly a word. "So, you've managed that little job," he said, as he took his son's hand.

"I managed nothing, sir," said Ralph, smiling.

"Didn't you? I thought you had managed a good deal. It is done, anyway."

"Yes, sir, it's done. At least, I suppose so." Ralph, after sending his telegram, had of course written to his father, giving him full particulars of the manner in which the arrangement had been made.

"You don't mean that there is any doubt," said the Squire with almost an anxious tone.

"Not at all, as far as I know. The lawyers seem to think that it is all right. Ralph is quite in earnest."

"He must be in earnest," said the Squire.

"He has behaved uncommonly well," said the namesake. "So well that I think you owe him much. We were quite mistaken in supposing that he wanted to drive a sharp bargain." He himself had never so supposed, but he found this to be the best way of speaking of that matter to his father.

"I will forgive him everything now," said the Squire, "and will do anything that I can to help him."

Ralph said many things in praise of his namesake. He still almost regretted what had been done. At any rate he could see the pity of it. It was that other Ralph who should have been looked to as the future proprietor of Newton Priory, and not he, who was hardly ent.i.tled to call himself a Newton. It would have been more consistent with the English order of things that it should be so. And then there was so much to say in favour of this young man who had lost it all, and so little to say against him! And it almost seemed to him for whose sake the purchase was being made, that advantage,--an unscrupulous if not an unfair advantage,--was being taken of the purchaser. He could not say all this to his father; but he spoke of Ralph in such a way as to make his father understand what he thought.

"He is such a pleasant fellow," said Ralph, who was now the heir.

"Let us have him down here as soon as the thing is settled."

"Ah;--I don't think he'll come now. Of course he's wretched enough about it. It is not wonderful that he should have hesitated at parting with it."

"Perhaps not," said the Squire, who was willing to forgive past sins; "but of course there was no help for it."

"That was what he didn't feel so sure about when he declined your first offer. It was not that he objected to the price. As to the price he says that of course he can say nothing about it. When I told him that you were willing to raise your offer, he declared that he would take nothing in that fashion. If those who understood the matter said that more was coming to him, he supposed that he would get it. According to my ideas he behaved very well, sir."

In this there was something that almost amounted to an accusation against the Squire. At least so the Squire felt it; and the feeling for the moment robbed him of something of his triumph. According to his own view there was no need for pity. It was plain that to his son the whole affair was pitiful. But he could not scold his son;--at any rate not now. "I feel this, Ralph," he said;--"that from this moment everybody connected with the property, every tenant on it and every labourer, will be better off than they were a month ago. I may have been to blame. I say nothing about that. But I do say that in all cases it is well that a property should go to the natural heir of the life-tenant. Of course it has been my fault," he added after a pause; "but I do feel now that I have in a great measure remedied the evil which I did." The tone now had become too serious to admit of further argument. Ralph, feeling that this was so, pressed his father's hand and then left him. "Gregory is coming across to dinner," said the Squire as Ralph was closing the door behind him.

At that time Gregory had received no intimation of what had been done in London, his brother's note not reaching him till the following morning. Ralph met him before the Squire came down, and the news was soon told. "It is all settled," said Ralph, with a sigh.

"Well?"

"Your brother has agreed to sell."

"No!"

"I have almost more pain than pleasure in it myself, because I know it will make you unhappy."

"He was so confident when he wrote to me!"

"Yes;--but he explained all that. He had hoped then that he could have saved it. But the manner of saving it would have been worse than the loss. He will tell you everything, no doubt. No man could have behaved better." As it happened, there was still some little s.p.a.ce of time before the Squire joined them,--a period perhaps of five minutes. But the parson spoke hardly a word. The news which he now heard confounded him. He had been quite sure that his brother had been in earnest, and that his uncle would fail. And then, though he loved the one Ralph nearly as well as he did the other,--though he must have known that Ralph the base-born was in all respects a better man than his own brother, more of a man than the legitimate heir,--still to his feelings that legitimacy was everything. He too was a Newton of Newton; but it may be truly said of him that there was nothing selfish in his feelings. To be the younger brother of Newton of Newton, and parson of the parish which bore the same name as themselves, was sufficient for his ambition. But things would be terribly astray now that the right heir was extruded. Ralph, this Ralph whom he loved so well, could not be the right Newton to own the property. The world would not so regard him. The tenants would not so think of him. The county would not so repute him. To the thinking of parson Gregory, a great misfortune had been consummated. As soon as he had realised it, he was silent and could speak no more.

Nor did Ralph say a word. Not to triumph in what had been done on his behalf,--or at least not to seem to triumph,--that was the lesson which he had taught himself. He fully sympathised with Gregory; and therefore he stood silent and sad by his side. That there must have been some triumph in his heart it is impossible not to imagine. It could not be but that he should be alive to the glory of being the undoubted heir to Newton Priory. And he understood well that his birth would interfere but little now with his position. Should he choose to marry, as he would choose, it would of course be necessary that he should explain his birth; but it was not likely, he thought, that he should seek a wife among those who would reject him, with all his other advantages, because he had no just t.i.tle to his father's name. That he should take joy in what had been done on his behalf was only natural; but as he stood with Gregory, waiting for his father to come to them, he showed no sign of joy. At last the Squire came. There certainly was triumph in his eye, but he did not speak triumphantly. It was impossible that some word should not be spoken between them as to the disposition of the property. "I suppose Ralph has told you," he said, "what he has done up in London?"

"Yes;--he has told me," said Gregory.