The Landleaguers Part 18

"It would be very unpleasant if some a.s.sa.s.sin were to take my back hair for Captain Clayton's brown head. They're very nearly the same colour."

And Edith prepared to leave the room, hearing her brother's slow, heavy step as he pa.s.sed before the door.

"Won't you go first and brush your hair?" said Ada; "and do put a ribbon on your neck."

"I'll do nothing of the kind. It would be a sheer manoeuvring to entrap a man who ought to be safeguarded against all such female wiles. Besides, I don't believe a bit that Captain Clayton would know the difference between a young lady with or without a ribbon. What evidence I can give;--that's the question."

So saying, Edith descended to her father's room.

She found Florian with his hand upon the door, and they both entered the room. I have said that Captain Clayton was a remarkably good-looking man, and I ought, perhaps, to give some explanation of the term when first introducing him to the reader in the presence of a lady who is intended to become the heroine of this story; but it must suffice that I have declared him to be good-looking, and that I add to that the fact that though he was thirty-five years old, he did not look to be more than five-and-twenty. The two peculiarities of his face were very light blue eyes, and very long moustachios.

"Florian and I have come to see the latter-day hero," said Edith laughing as she entered the room; "though I know that you are so done up with pistols that no peaceable young woman ought to come near you." To this he made some sportive reply, and then before a minute had pa.s.sed over their heads he had taken Florian by the hand.

CHAPTER XVI.

CAPTAIN CLAYTON COMES TO THE CASTLE.

"Well, my boy, how are you?" asked the Captain.

"There's nothing particularly the matter with me," said Florian.

"I suppose all this is troubling you?"

"All what? You mean about Pat Carroll. Of course it's troubling me.

n.o.body will believe a word that I say."

"But they do believe you now that you are telling the truth," said Edith.

"Do you hold your tongue, miss," said the boy, "I don't see why you should have so much to say about it."

"She has been your best friend from first to last," said the father.

"If it had not been for Edith I would have turned you out of the house. It is terrible to me to think that a boy of mine should refuse to say what he saw in such a matter as this. You are putting yourself on a par with the enemies of your own family. You do not know it, but you are nearly sending me to the grave." Then there was a long pause, during which the Captain kept his eyes fixed on the boy's face. And Edith had moved round so as to seat herself close to her brother, and had taken his hand in hers.

"Don't, Edith," said the boy. "Leave me alone, I don't want to be meddled with," and he withdrew his hand.

"Oh, Florian!" said the girl, "try to tell the truth and be a gentleman, whether it be for you or against you, tell the truth."

"I'm not to mind a bit about my religion then?"

"Does your religion bid you tell a lie?" asked the Captain.

"I'm not telling a lie, I am just holding my tongue. A Catholic has a right to hold his tongue when he is among Protestants."

"Even to the ruin of his father," suggested the Captain.

"I don't want to ruin papa. He said he was going to turn--to turn me out of the house. I would go and drown myself in the lake if he did, or in one of those big d.y.k.es which divide the meadows. I am miserable among them--quite miserable. Edith never gives me any peace, day or night. She comes and sits in my bedroom, begging me to tell the truth. It ought to be enough when I say that I will hold my tongue.

Papa can turn me out to drown myself if he pleases. Edith goes on cheating the words out of me till I don't know what I'm saying. If I am to be brought up to tell it all before the judge I shan't know what I have said before, or what I have not said."

"_Nil conscire tibi_," said the father, who had already taught his son so much Latin as that.

"But you did see the sluice gates torn down, and thrown back into the water?" said the Captain. Here Florian shook his head mournfully. "I understood you to acknowledge that you had seen the gates destroyed."

"I never said as much to you," said the boy.

"But you did to me," said Edith.

"If a fellow says a word to you, it is repeated to all the world.

I never would have you joined with me in a secret. You are a great deal worse than--, well, those fellows that you abuse me about. They never tell anything that they have heard among themselves, to people outside."

"Pat Carroll, you mean?" asked the Captain.

"He isn't the only one. There's more in it than him."

"Oh yes; we know that. There were many others in it besides Pat Carroll, when they let the waters in through the d.y.k.e gates. There must have been twenty there."

"No, there weren't--not that I saw."

"A dozen, perhaps?"

"You are laying traps for me, but I am not going to be caught. I was there, and I did see it. You may make the most of that. Though you have me up before the judge, I needn't say a word more than I please."

"He is more obstinate," said his father, "than any rebel that you can meet."

"But so mistaken," said the Captain, "because he can refuse to answer us who are treating him with such tenderness and affection, who did not even want to wound his feelings more than we can help, he thinks that he can hold his peace in the same fashion, before the entire court; and that he can do so, although he has owned that he knows the men."

"I have never owned that," said the boy.

"Not to your sister?"

"I only owned to one."

"Pat Carroll?" said the Captain; but giving the name merely as a hint to help the boy's memory.

But the boy was too sharp for him. "That's another of your traps, Captain Clayton. If she says Pat Carroll, I can say it was Tim Brady.

A boy's word will be as good as a girl's, I suppose."

"A lie can never be as good as the truth, whether from a boy or a girl," said the Captain, endeavouring to look him through and through. The boy quavered beneath his gaze, and the Captain went on with his questioning. "I suppose we may take it for granted that Pat Carroll was there, and that you did see him?"

"You may take anything for granted."

"You would have to swear before a jury that Pat Carroll was there."

Then there was another pause, but at last, with a long sigh, the boy spoke out. "He was there, and I did see him." Then he burst into tears and threw himself down on the ground, and hid his face in his sister's lap.

"Dear Flory," said she. "My own brother! I knew that you would struggle to be a gentleman at last."