"There is a young gentleman would be glad to speak to you, if you will let him."
"Who is he?" asked the Colonel, though by old John's manner he divined.
"Can't ye guess?"
"Don't know why I should. It is your business to announce my visitors."
"Oh, I'll announce him, when I am made safe that he will be welcome."
"What! isn't he sure of a welcome—good, dutiful son like him?"
"Well, sir, he deserves a welcome. Why, he is the returning prodigal."
"We are not told that he deserved a welcome."
"What signifies?—he got one, and Scripture is the rule of life for men of our age, now we are out of the army."
"I think you had better let him plead his own cause, John; and if he takes the tone you do, he will get turned out of the house pretty quick; as you will some of these days, Mr. Baker."
"We sha'n't go, neither of us," said Mr. Baker, but with a sudden tone of affectionate respect, which disarmed the words of their true meaning. He added, hanging his head for the first time, "Poor young gentleman! afraid to face his own father!"
"What's he afraid of?" asked the Colonel, roughly.
"Of you cursing and swearing at him," said John.
"Cursing and swearing!" cried the Colonel—"a thing I never do now.
Cursing and swearing, indeed! You be——!"
"There you go," said old John. "Come, Colonel, be a father. What has the poor boy done?"
"He has deserted—a thing I have seen a fellow shot for, and he has left me a prey to parental anxieties."
"And so he has me, for that matter. But I forgive him. Anyway, I should like to hear his story before I condemn him. Why, he's only nineteen and four months, come Martinmas. Besides, how do we know?—he may have had some very good reason for going."
"His age makes that probable, doesn't it?"
"I dare say it was after some girl, sir."
"Call that a good reason?"
"I call it a strong one. Haven't you never found it?" (the Colonel was betrayed into winking). "From sixteen to sixty a woman will draw a man where a horse can't."
"Since that is so," said the Colonel, dryly, "you can tell him to come to breakfast."
"Am I to say that from you?"
"No; you can take that much upon yourself. I have known you presume a good deal more than that, John."
"Well, sir," said John, hanging his head for a moment, "old servants are like old friends—they do presume a bit; but then" (raising his head proudly) "they care for their masters, young and old. New servants, sir—why, this lot that we've got now, they would not shed a tear for you if you was to be hanged."
"Why should they?" said the Colonel. "A man is not hanged for building churches. Come, beat a retreat. I've had enough of you. See there's a good breakfast."
"Oh," said John, "I've took care of that."
When the Colonel came down he found his son leaning against the mantel-piece; but he left it directly and stood erect, for the Colonel had drilled him with his own hands.
"Ugh!" said the Colonel, giving a snort peculiar to himself, but he thought, "How handsome the dog is!" and was proud of him secretly, only he would not show it. "Good-morning, sir," said the young man, with civil respect.
"Your most obedient, sir," said the old man, stiffly.
After that neither spoke for some time, and the old butler glided about like a cat, helping both of them, especially the young one, to various delicacies from the side table. When he had stuffed them pretty well, he retired softly and listened at the door. Neither of the gentlemen was in a hurry to break the ice; each waited for the other.
Walter made the first remark—"What delicious tea!"
"As good as where you come from?" inquired Colonel Clifford, insidiously.
"A deal better," said Walter.
"By-the-bye," said the Colonel, "where do you come from?"
Walter mentioned the town.
"You astonish me," said the Colonel. "I made sure you had been enjoying the pleasures of the capital."
"My purse wouldn't have stood that, sir."
"Very few purses can," said Colonel Clifford. Then, in an off-hand way,
"Have you brought her along with you?"
"Certainly not," said Walter, off his guard. "Her? Who?"
"Why, the girl that decoyed you from your father's roof."
"No girl decoyed me from here, sir, upon my honor."
"Whom are we talking about, then? Who is her?"
"Her? Why, Lucy Monckton."
"And who is Lucy Monckton?"
"Why, the girl I fell in love with, and she deceived me nicely; but I found her out in time."
"And so you came home to snivel?"
"No, sir, I didn't; I'm not such a muff. I'm too much your son to love any woman long when I have learned to despise her. I came home to apologize, and to place myself under your orders, if you will forgive me, and find something useful for me to do."
"So I will, my boy; there's my hand. Now out with it. What did you go away for, since it wasn't a petticoat?"
"Well, sir, I am afraid I shall offend you."
"Not a bit of it, after I've given you my hand. Come, now, what was it?"
Walter pondered and hesitated, but at last hit upon a way to explain.
"Sir," said he, "until I was six years old they used to give me peaches from Oddington House; but one fine day the supply stopped, and I uttered a small howl to my nurse. Old John heard me, and told me Oddington was sold, house, garden, estate, and all."
Colonel Clifford snorted.
Walter resumed, modestly but firmly:
"I was thirteen; I used to fish in a brook that ran near Drayton Park. One day I was fishing there, when a brown velveteen chap stopped me, and told me I was trespassing. 'Trespassing?' said I. 'I have fished here all my life; I am Walter Clifford, and this belongs to my father.' 'Well,' said the man, 'I've heerd it did belong to Colonel Clifford onst, but now it belongs to Muster Mills; so you must fish in your own water, young gentleman, and leave ourn to us as owns it.' Till I was eighteen I used to shoot snipes in a rushy bottom near Calverley Church. One day a fellow in black velveteen, and gaiters up to his middle, warned me out of that in the name of Muster Cannon."
Colonel Clifford, who had been drumming on the table all this time, looked uneasy, and muttered, with some little air of compunction: "They have plucked my feathers deucedly, that's a fact. Hang that fellow Stevens, persuading me to keep race-horses; it's all his fault. Well, sir, proceed with your observations."
"Well, I inquired who could afford to buy what we were too poor to keep, and I found these wealthy purchasers were all in trade, not one of them a gentleman."
"You might have guessed that," said Colonel Clifford: "it is as much as a gentleman can do to live out of jail nowadays."
"Yes, sir," said Walter. "Cotton had bought one of these estates, tallow another, and lucifer-matches the other."
"Plague take them all three!" roared the Colonel.
"Well,