The Last of the Foresters Part 90

"Where's your father?"'

"Here I am," said the bluff and good-humored voice of the Squire, from the door; "you are early--much obliged to you." And the Squire and lawyer shook hands. Mr. Rushton's hand fell coldly to his side, and regarding the Squire for a moment with what seemed an expression of contemptuous anger, he said, frowning, until his s.h.a.ggy, grey eye-brows met together almost:

"Early! I suppose I am to take up the whole forenoon--the most valuable part of the day--jogging over the country to examine t.i.tle-deeds and accounts? Humph! if you expect anything of the sort, you are mistaken. No, sir! I started from Winchester at day-break, without my breakfast, and here I am."

The jovial Squire laughed, and turning from Verty, with whom he had shaken hands, said to the lawyer:

"Breakfast?--is it possible? Well, Rushton, for once I will be magnanimous--magnificent, generous and liberal--"

"What!" growled the lawyer.

"You shall have some breakfast here!" finished the Squire, laughing heartily; and the merry old fellow caught Miss Redbud up from the porch, deposited a matutinal salute upon her lips, and kicking at old Caesar as he pa.s.sed, by way of friendly greeting, led the way into the breakfast room.

Verty made a movement to depart, inasmuch as he had breakfasted; but the vigilant eye of the lawyer detected this suspicious manoeuvre; and the young man found himself suddenly commanded to remain, by the formula "Wait!" uttered with a growl which might have done honor to a lion.

Verty was not displeased at this interference with his movements, and, obedient to a sign, followed the lawyer into the breakfast-room.

Everything was delightfully comfortable and cheerful there.

And ere long, at the head of the table sat Miss Lavinia, silent and dignified; at the foot, the Squire, rubbing his hands, heaping plates with the savory broil before him, and talking with his mouth full; at the sides, Mr. Rushton, Redbud and Verty, who sedulously suppressed the fact that he had already breakfasted, for obvious reasons, doubtless quite plain to the reader.

The sun streamed in upon the happy group, and seemed to smile with positive delight at sight of Redbud's happy face, surrounded by its waving ma.s.s of curls--and soft blue eyes, which were the perfection of tenderness and joy.

He smiled on Verty, too, the jovial sun, and illumined the young man's handsome, dreamy face, and profuse locks, and uncouth hunter costume, with a gush of light which made him like a picture of some antique master, thrown upon canvas in a golden mood, to live forever. All the figures and objects in the room were gay in the bright sunlight, too--the s.h.a.ggy head of Mr. Rushton, and the jovial, ruddy face of the Squire, and Miss Lavinia's dignified and stately figure, solemn and imposing, flanked by the silver jug and urn--and on the old ticking clock, and antique furniture, and smiling portraits, and rec.u.mbent Caesar, did it s.h.i.+ne, merry and laughing, taking its pastime ere it went away to other lands, like a great, cheerful simple soul, smiling at nature and all human life.

And the talk of all was like the suns.h.i.+ne. The old Squire was king of the breakfast table, and broke many a jesting shaft at one and all, not even sparing the stately Miss Lavinia, and the rugged bear who scowled across the table.

"Good bread for once," said the Squire, slas.h.i.+ng into the smoking loaf; astonis.h.i.+ng how dull those negroes are--not to be able to learn such a simple thing as baking."

"Simple!" muttered the lawyer, "it is not simple! If you recollected something of chemistry, you would acknowledge that baking bread was no slight achievement."

"Come, growl again," said his host, laughing; "come, now, indulge your habit, and say the bread is sour."

"It is!"

"What!--sour!"

"Yes."

The Squire stands aghast--or rather sits, laboring under that sentiment.

"It is the best bread we have had for six months," he says, at length, "and as sweet as a nut."

"You have no taste," says Mr. Rushton.

"No taste?"

"None: and the fact that it is the best you have had for six months is not material testimony. You may have had _lead_ every morning--humph!"

And Mr. Rushton continues his breakfast.

The Squire laughs.

"There you are--in a bad humor," he says.

"I am not."

"Come! say that the broil is bad!"

"It is burnt to a cinder."

"Burnt? Why it's underdone!"

"Well, sir--every man to his taste--you may have yours; leave me mine."

"Oh, certainly; I see you are determined to like nothing. You'll say next that Lavinia's b.u.t.ter is not sweet."

The lawyer growls.

"I have no desire to offend Miss Lavinia," he says, solemnly; "but I'll take my oath that there's garlic in it--yes, sir, garlic!"

The Squire bursts into a roar of laughter.

"Good!" he cries--"you are in a cheerful and contented mood. You drop in just when Lavinia has perfected her b.u.t.ter, and made it as fresh as a nosegay; and when the cook has sent up bread as sweet as a kernel, to say nothing of the broil, done to a turn--you come when this highly desirable state of things has been arrived at, and presume to say that this is done, that is burnt, the other is tainted with garlic! Admire your own judgment!"

And the Squire laughs jovially at his discomfited and growling opponent.

"True, Lavinia has had lately much to distract her attention," says the jest-hunting Squire; "but her things were never better in spite of--. Well we won't touch upon that subject!"

And the mischievous Squire laughs heartily at Miss Lavinia's stately and reproving expression.

"What's that?" says Mr. Rushton; "what subject?"

"Oh, nothing--nothing."

"What does he mean, madam?" asks Mr. Rushton, of the lady.

Miss Lavinia colors slightly, and looks more stately than ever.

"Nothing, sir," she says, with dignity.

"'Nothing!' n.o.body ever means anything!"

"Oh, never," says the Squire, and then he adds, mischievously,--"by-the-by, Rushton, how is my friend, Mr.

Roundjacket?"

"As villainous as ever," says the lawyer; "my opinion of Mr.

Roundjacket, sir, is, that he is a villain!"