Trevlyn Hold Part 96

"Nonsense," said Mr. Chattaway.

"It will not do to say nonsense to me, sir. Setting fire to the rick was your fault, not his; the crime was occasioned by you; and I, the actual owner of those ricks, shall hold you responsible for it. Yes, James Chattaway, those ricks were mine; you need not dispute what I say; the ricks were mine then, as they are now. They have been mine, in point of fact, ever since my father's death. You may rely upon one thing--that had I known the injustice that was being enacted, I should have returned long ago."

"Injustice!" cried Mr. Chattaway. "What injustice?"

"What injustice! Has there been anything _but_ injustice? When my father's breath left his body, his legitimate successor (in my absence and supposed death) was his grandson Rupert; this very Rupert you have been goading on to ill, perhaps to death. Had my brother Joe lived, would you have allowed _him_ to succeed, pray?"

"But your brother Joe did not live; he was dead."

"You evade the question."

"It is a question that will answer no end," cried Mr. Chattaway, biting his thin lips, and feeling very like a man being driven to bay. "Of course he would have succeeded. But he was dead, and Squire Trevlyn chose to make his will in my favour, and appoint me his successor."

"Beguiled by treachery. He was suffered to go to his grave never knowing that a grandson was born to him. Were I guilty of the like treachery, I could not rest in my bed. I should dread that the anger of G.o.d would be ever coming down upon me."

"The Squire did well," growled Mr. Chattaway. "What would an infant have done with Trevlyn Hold?"

"Granted for a single moment that it had been inexpedient to leave Trevlyn Hold to an infant, it was not to you it should have been left.

If Squire Trevlyn must have bequeathed it to a son-in-law, it should have been to him who was the husband of his eldest daughter, Thomas Ryle."

"Thomas Ryle!" contemptuously e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Mr. Chattaway. "A poor, hard-working farmer----"

"Don't attempt to disparage Thomas Ryle to me, sir," thundered the Squire; and the voice, the look, the rising anger were so like the old Squire of the days gone by, that Mr. Chattaway positively recoiled.

"Thomas Ryle was a good and honourable man, respected by all; he was a gentleman by birth and breeding; he was a gentleman in mind and manners--and that could never be said of you, James Chattaway. Work! To be sure he worked; and so did his father. They had to work to live.

Their farm was a poor one; and extra labour was needed to make up for the money which ought to have been spent upon it, but which they possessed not, for their patrimony had dwindled away. They might have taken a more productive farm; but they preferred to remain upon that one because it was their own, descended from their forefathers. It had to be sold at last, but they still remained on it, and they worked, always hoping to prosper. You used the word 'work' as a term of reproach! Let me tell you, that if the fact of working is to take the gentle blood out of a man, there will be little gentle blood left for the next generation. This is a working age, sir; the world has grown wise, and we most of us work with hands or head. Thomas Ryle's son is a gentleman, if I ever saw one--and I am mistaken if his looks belie his mind--and he works. Do not disparage Thomas Ryle again to me. I think a sense of the injury you did him, must induce you to do it."

"What injury did I do Thomas Ryle?"

"To usurp Trevlyn Hold over him was an injury. It was Rupert's: neither yours nor his; but had it come to one of you, it should have been to him; _you_ had no manner of right to it. And what about the two thousand pounds bond?"

Squire Trevlyn asked the last question in an altered and very significant tone. Mr. Chattaway's green face grew greener.

"I held the bond, and I enforced its payment in justice to my wife and children. I could do no less."

"In justice to your wife and children!" retorted Squire Trevlyn. "James Chattaway, did a thought ever cross you of G.o.d's justice? I believe from my very heart that my father cancelled that bond upon his dying bed, died believing Thomas Ryle released from it; and you, in your grasping, covetous nature, kept the bond with an eye to your own profit. Did you forget that the eye of the Great Ruler of all things was upon you, when you pretended to destroy that bond? Did you suppose that Eye was turned away when you usurped Trevlyn Hold to the prejudice of Rupert? Did you think you would be allowed to enjoy it in security to the end? It may look to you, James Chattaway, as it would to any superficial observer, that there has been wondrous favour shown you in this long delay of justice. I regard it differently. It seems to me that retribution has overtaken you at the worst time: not the worse for you, possibly, but for your children. By that inscrutable law which we learn in childhood, a man's ill-doings are visited on his children: I fear the result of your ill-doing will be felt by yours. Had you been deposed from Trevlyn Hold at the time you usurped it, or had you not usurped it, your children must have been brought up to play their parts in the busy walks of life; to earn their own living. As it is, they have been reared to idleness and luxury, and will feel their fall in proportion. Your son has lorded it as the heir of Trevlyn Hold, as the future owner of the works at Blackstone, and lorded it, as I hear, in a very offensive manner. He will not like to sink down to a state of dependency; but he will have to do it."

"Where have you been gathering your account of things?" interposed Mr.

Chattaway.

"Never mind where. I have gathered it, and that is sufficient. And now--to go back to Rupert Trevlyn. Will you give me a guarantee that he shall be held harmless?"

"No," growled Mr. Chattaway.

"Then it will be war to the knife between you and me. Mind you--I do not think there's any necessity to ask you this; as the ricks were not yours, but mine, at the time of the occurrence, you could not, as I believe, become the prosecutor. But I prefer to be on the safe side. On the return of Rupert, if you attempt to prosecute him, the first thing that I shall do will be to insist that he prosecutes you for the a.s.sault, and I shall prosecute you for the usurpation of Trevlyn Hold.

So it will be prosecution and counter-prosecution, you see. Mark you, James Chattaway, I promise you to do this, and you know I am a man of my word. I think we had better let bygones be bygones. What are you going to do about the revenues of the Hold?"

"The revenues of the Hold!" stammered Mr. Chattaway, wiping his hot face, for he did not like the question.

"The past rents. The mesne profits you have received and appropriated since Squire Trevlyn's death. Those profits are mine."

"In law, possibly," was the answer. "Not in justice."

"Well, we'll go by law," complacently returned the Squire, a spice of mischief in his eye. "Which have you gone by all these years? Law, or justice? The law would make you refund all to me."

"The law would be cunning to do it," was the answer. "If I have received the revenues, I have spent them in keeping up Trevlyn Hold."

"You have not spent them all, I suspect; and it would be productive of great trouble and annoyance to you were I to come upon you for them. But now, look you, James Chattaway: I will be more merciful than you have been to others, and say nothing about them, for my sister Edith's sake.

In the full sense of the word, I will let bygones be bygones."

The ex-master of Trevlyn Hold gazed out from the depths of his dull gray eyes: gazed upon vacancy, buried in thought. It might be well to make a friend of the Squire. On the one hand was the long-cherished revenge against Rupert; on the other was his own interest. Should he gratify revenge, or study himself? Ah, you need not ask; revenge may be sweet, but with Mr. Chattaway his own interest was sweeter. The scales were not equally balanced.

He saw that Squire Trevlyn's heart was determined on the pardon of Rupert; he knew that the less he beat about the bush the better; and he spoke at once. "I'll forgive him," he said. "Rupert Trevlyn behaved infamously, but----"

"Stop, James Chattaway. Pardon him, or don't pardon him, as you please; but we will have no names over it. Rupert Trevlyn shall have none cast at him in my presence."

"It is of no consequence. He did the wrong in the eyes of the neighbourhood, and they don't need to be reminded of what he is."

"And how have the neighbourhood judged?" sternly asked Squire Trevlyn.

"Which side have they espoused--yours, or his? Don't talk to me, sir; I have heard more than you suppose. I know what shame the neighbours have cast on you for years on the score of Rupert; the double shame cast on you since these ricks were burnt. Will you pardon him?"

"I have said so," was the sullen reply.

"Then come and ratify it in writing," rejoined the Squire, turning towards the Hold.

"You are ready to doubt my word," resentfully spoke Mr. Chattaway, feeling considerably aggrieved.

Squire Trevlyn threw back his head. It spoke as plainly as ever motion spoke that he did doubt it. As he strode on to the house, Chattaway in his wake, they came across Cris. Unhappy Cris! His day of authority and a.s.sumption had set. No longer was he the son of the master of Trevlyn Hold; henceforth Mr. Cris must set his wits to work, and take his share in the active labour of life. He stood leaning over the palings, biting a bit of straw as he gazed at Squire Trevlyn; but he did not say a word to the Squire or the Squire to him.

With the aid of pen and ink Mr. Chattaway gave an ungracious promise to pardon Rupert. Of course it had nothing formal in it, but the Squire was satisfied, and put it in his pocket.

"Which is Rupert's chamber here?" he asked. "It had better be got ready.

Is it an airy one?"

"For what purpose is it to be got ready?" returned Mr. Chattaway.

"In case we find him, you know."

"You would bring him home? Here? to my house?"

"No; I bring him home to mine."

Mr. Chattaway's face went quite dark with pain. In good truth it was Squire Trevlyn's house; no longer his; and he may be pardoned for momentarily forgetting the fact. There are brief intervals even in the deepest misery when we lose sight of the present.

Cris came in. "Dumps, the policeman, is outside," he said. "Some tale has been carried to the police-station that Rupert Trevlyn has returned, and Dumps has come to see about it. The felon Rupert!" pointedly exclaimed Cris.

"Don't call names, sir," said Squire Trevlyn to him as he went out.

"Look here, Mr. Christopher Chattaway," he stopped to add. "You may possibly find it to your advantage to be in my good books; but that is not the way to get into them; abuse of my nephew and heir, Rupert Trevlyn, will not recommend you to my favour."

The police-station had certainly heard a confused story of the return of Rupert Trevlyn, but before Dumps reached the Hold he learnt the wondrous fact that it was another Rupert; the one so long supposed to be dead; the real Squire Trevlyn. He had learnt that Mr. Chattaway was no longer master of the Hold, but had sunk down to a very humble individual indeed. Mr. Dumps was not particularly gifted with the perceptive faculties, but the thought struck him that it might be to the interest of the neighbourhood generally, including himself and the station, to be on friendly terms with Squire Trevlyn.