Roger Ingleton, Minor Part 14

Captain Oliphant chose to take a very serious view of this disclosure.

It fitted in exactly with his theory that the tutor was an adventurer of "shady antecedents," and, as such, an undesirable companion for the late "dear one's" orphan-boy.

"I should not feel I was doing my duty," said he to Mr Pottinger that afternoon, "if I were not to follow this up. We don't know whom we have to deal with; and the fact of Mr Ingleton having confided in him really, you know, weighs very little with me; old men of enfeebled intellect, my dear Pottinger, are so easily hoodwinked."

"Quite so. Does it not occur to you, Captain, that a simple solution of the difficulty would be for Mrs Ingleton to send her boy to college?"

"Mrs Ingleton," said the Captain, "is unfortunately incapable of regarding this subject in any light but that of her son's likings. And Roger Ingleton, minor, is infatuated."

"Humph!" said the lawyer, "I thought so. Then I agree with you, it will be useful to inst.i.tute a few inquiries."

"Leave that to me," said the captain. "By the way, what about that piece of land you were speaking of?"

"Ah!" said the lawyer, making as near an approach to a blush as he could muster, "the fact is, Hodder's lease falls in next week. He has had it at a ridiculously low figure, and is not a profitable tenant."

"That is the old dotard who is always croaking about Maxfield in the days before the Flood?"

"Well, almost as remote a period. He was here in the time of the late squire's father. At any rate his lease falls in; and I happen to know a person who is willing to give twenty per cent more for the land than he pays. I can't tell you his name," said the lawyer, looking sufficiently conscious, "but I happen to know he would be a better tenant to Maxfield than the old man."

Mr Pottinger amused himself with making a little mystery about a matter that was no secret to Captain Oliphant. That gallant gentleman knew as well as the lawyer did that Mr Pottinger himself, whose land adjoined Hodder's, was the eligible tenant in question.

"There will be no difficulty about that, Pottinger. Of course, you must give Hodder the option of offering your friend's price. If he does not, it is clearly the duty of the executors to take the better tenant."

He took up his hat and turned to go.

"By the way," said he at the door, "it will hardly be necessary, I take it, to go through the farce of bringing a trifling matter of this kind before the other executors; Mrs Ingleton should really be spared all worry of this sort; and as for the other one--well, he chooses to be somewhere else."

"Quite so, quite so. If you and Mrs Ingleton sign the lease it will be sufficient," said Mr Pottinger.

Unluckily for the pleasantly arranged plan of these two good gentlemen, Miss Rosalind Oliphant took it into her pretty head a day or so afterwards to call at old Hodder's cottage in pa.s.sing, to ask for a gla.s.s of milk. The young lady was in a very discontented frame of mind.

She was angry with Mr Armstrong for staying away so long. Not that she cared what he did, but till he came back she felt she did not know the full extent of the forces arrayed against her at Maxfield; and she wanted to know the worst. Besides, although Roger was diligently prosecuting his art studies and displaying the most docile obedience to her discipline, she could not help thinking he would not have taken to art except to please her; and that displeased her mightily. Besides, Tom, her brother, was too silly for anything; he insisted on enjoying himself, whoever else was miserable; and Jill was very little better.

Altogether, Miss Oliphant was out of humour, and felt this walk would do her good.

She found the Hodder family in mighty tribulation. The old man sat in his corner with his hat on the floor beside him, crying and boohing like a child. And his two little granddaughters looked on at his grief, pale and half-frightened, knowing something bad had happened, but unable to guess what.

"Why, Hodder," said Miss Rosalind, "whatever's the matter? What a noise you're making! What has happened?"

"Happened!" cried the old man with a voice quavering into a shrill treble. "How would he like it himself? Seventy years, boy and man, have I sat here, like my father before me. I've seen yon elm grow from a stick to what she is now. I've buried all my kith and kin bar them two la.s.sies."

"Of course, I know you're very old. But why are you crying?" demanded Rosalind.

"Crying! Wouldn't you cry, Missy, if you was to be turned neck and crop into the road at threescore years and ten?"

"Nonsense. What do you mean?"

"Come Tuesday," sobbed the old man, "me and the la.s.sies will be trespa.s.sers in this here very place."

"What!" exclaimed Miss Rosalind, "do you mean you're to be turned out?

Who dares to do such a thing?"

"You go and ask Mr Pottinger, if you doubt it," blubbered the old man.

"He ought to know."

Without another word, Miss Rosalind flung herself from the cottage and marched straight for the lawyer's, pale, with bosom heaving and a light in her eyes, that Armstrong, had he been there to see it, would have shivered at.

"Mr Pottinger," said she, breaking unceremoniously into the lawyer's private room, "what is this I hear! How dare you frighten old Hodder by talking about his leaving his farm?"

The lawyer stared at this beautiful apparition, not knowing whether to be amused or angry. It was the first time any one in Maxfield had addressed him in this strain, and the sensation was so novel that he felt fairly taken aback.

"Really, dear young lady, I am delighted with any excuse that gives me the pleasure of a visit from--"

"Mr Pottinger," said the young lady in a tone which made him open his eyes still wider, "will you tell me, yes or no, if what Hodder tells me is true?"

"That depends on what Hodder says," replied the lawyer, trying to look cheerful.

"He says he has had notice to leave his farm next week. Is that true?"

"That entirely depends on himself, if I _must_ suffer cross-examination from so charming a counsel."

"You mean--"

"I mean, my pretty young lady, that if he chooses to pay the new rent he is ent.i.tled to stay."

"You have raised his rent?--a poor old man of seventy-five?"

"I have no power to do that. But I understand he has had the land for next to nothing. It is worth more now."

"Mr Pottinger," said Miss Rosalind, "let me tell you that if you have any hand in this wicked business you are a bad man, whatever you profess to be. I shouldn't sleep to-night if I failed to tell you that. So is everybody who dares treat an old man thus."

"Pardon me, Miss Oliphant, that is not quite respectful to your own father."

She rounded on him with trembling lips.

"My father," she began and faltered--"my father is not the sort of man to do a thing of this kind unless he were cajoled into it by some-- some--some one like you, Mr Pottinger--"

With which she left the room, much to the lawyer's relief, who tried to laugh to himself at the pretty vixen, but couldn't be as merry as he would have wished.

Rosalind, on her return to Maxfield, went straight with flashing eyes to Roger's room, and told him the story.

"Roger," she said, "if you are half a man you will stop it. You are master here, or will be. Are you going to let this poor old man be turned out of his home? You are not the dear boy I take you for, if you are."

"Of course it must be stopped," said Roger, amazed at her vehemence; "and it shall be. I always thought Pottinger a sneak. I a.s.sure you, Rosalind, I shall make poor old Hodder happy before we are a day older.

So good-bye; I'll go at once."

But he was no match for the lawyer, who politely recounted the circ.u.mstances and referred him to his guardians, who, however, as he pointed out, had no choice but to accept the best-paying tenant.

"It is done in your interest, my dear boy," said Mr Pottinger. "We are bound to consider your interests, whether you like it or not."

Mortified beyond measure, both on his own account and at the prospect of facing Rosalind, Roger returned slowly to Maxfield. As he entered, a hand was laid on his shoulder; Mr Armstrong had come back.