CHAPTER II
THE SQUIRE.
The next morning the poor old farmer came down to the plentiful breakfast prepared by Dorothy Burrow looking ten years older than when he had left the kitchen the night before. He refused all food, and sat in the settle by the fire, holding his thin hands over the smouldering embers, and shuddering every now and then and moaning to himself.
'You ain't cold now, father?' Dorothy bawled in his ear. 'It is hot enow in the fields, even now, I can tell you. Do you want a bigger fire—eh?'
The old man shook his head.
'What do you want then? Don't sit there as if you was crazy—sighing and muttering.'
'Here, grandfather,' Betty said, approaching the settle and sitting down by her grandfather's side, 'here. I've put a drop of rum in the new milk, now take a draught of it, do, and you will feel quite spry and lively. Come!'
Betty always took a common sense view of things, and she added—
'You can't feel well if you don't break your fast.'
She succeeded in making the old man swallow half the contents of the thick-lipped mug. Then she put another faggot on the fire, not heeding Dorothy's remark that they should all be smothered with heat, and sat down on the bench at the table, by Bryda's side, to discuss her own breakfast with a keen appetite.
Bryda, who was thinking over the loud, angry voices she had heard on the previous night, connected her grandfather's appearance with some mysterious visitor, who had evidently left the house in anger. So she did not do justice to the particular griddle cake, done to a turn, which Betty had put on her plate.
'Something is wrong,' she whispered to Betty. 'I know there is. I wish we knew what it is.'
They were not left long in doubt. As soon as the scraping of the heavy boots of the farm servants was heard on the brick floor of the back kitchen, where they took their meals, and the benches pushed back by the general servant of the farm, Mr. Palmer spoke, jerking his thumb in the direction of the open door.
'Shut yonder door,' he said, 'and come here all of you.'
The girls obeyed, Bryda and Betty seating themselves on either side of their grandfather, while Dorothy Burrow stood before him, her stout red arms uncovered, her elbows stuck on either side of her thick waist, and the frills of her big calico cap blown back from her stolid face.
'Well,' she said, 'what's up, father?'
The old man shook his head, and thumped his fist irritably.
'Didn't I say I was going to tell you summat?' he said. 'Hold your tongue till I've done it. Years agone,' he began, 'I had a son—your father, Biddy and Bet. You don't remember him—how should you. He and your poor silly mother died when you were babes.'
'I remember him well enow,' Dorothy began; 'I had cause for he disgraced the family.'
'Hold you tongue, Doll.'
'Yes, Aunt Dorothy, do be quiet,' Bryda said in a trembling voice.
'Well, he went wrong, very wrong, and I wanted to get him out of the country, to escape the justices. It was a big sum, and I borrowed it of Squire Bayfield up Binegar way. I put my name to a paper that I'd be surety it should be paid on demand. The old Squire was a kind-hearted chap, and he never pressed me. I spoke to him last fall, when he was out with the beagles, as stout and as strong as ever, I thought. I told him times were bad, and the crops scarce, and I had lost a lot of sheep in the hard winter. And says he, "All right, I'll not come down on you." So I was easy in my mind, and if he had lived it would have been all right; but he dropped down dead last Candlemas, and his son, who has come back from foreign parts, says he will have the cash or sell me up.'
'How much is it?' Betty asked, with white trembling lips.
'Three hundred pounds. I paid interest, I did, but this chap, curse him, says he will have the lump sum or he'll put the bailiffs in.'
'Are you bound to pay him the sum?' Bryda asked. 'I expect not.'
'Yes, the paper says, or heirs of his body.'
'Ask a lawyer about it. Ask Mr. Lambert,' Betty said.
'It ain't no good. The young fellow was here blustering last night. He says he is in want of cash, and he must have it. That's the long and the short of it. No, there's no hope. So the stock must go, and the bits of furniture that have stood here since I was no higher than the table.'
'Lor'!' the old man said, wandering back into the past, 'I can see my mother now a-polishing and rubbing yonder bureau till I could see my face in it. Well, well, it's not for myself I grieve, it's for you children.'
Bryda had risen, and stood with one hand on her grandfather's shoulder and the other grasping the carved elbow of the old oak settle. Her lips were firmly shut, and her whole bearing determined, almost defiant. Presently she said—
'I never knew before it was as bad as this. I never knew my father was what Aunt Dorothy says—a disgrace. But did you know it, Betty?'
'I guessed something, not much; but, Bryda, it is all over now.'
'All over,' the girl said, with flashing eyes, 'all over! Such a stain can never be wiped away.' Then, with a sudden impulse of pity and tenderness, Bryda stooped, and kissing the furrowed brow of the old man, she said—
'Ah, poor grandfather!'
'He was such a fine, handsome boy, was our Phil. There was not one to match him—straight as a dart, and that strong, he could get the better of the strongest in the wrestling matches. Oh, he was a fine fellow was Phil! To see him on horseback was a treat.'
'What did he do? I wish to know now, grandfather.'
But the old father shook his head.
'It is so long ago, now—near nineteen years. Yes, nineteen years. Betty was born just after, and her mother died of a broken heart, they said. Hearts don't break.'
'Do you know, Aunt Dorothy, what my father did?'
'Well, if you must know—he forged a cheque. If he hadn't been got off to America he would have been—hung. Father scraped up a hundred pounds, and sent him packing, and borrowed the three hundred to pay the man Phil had robbed. That's the long and short of it. I wasn't here, but that's what father told me, and I suppose it's gospel truth. It's over and done with now, and no one need have been the wiser if that fool, young Bayfield, had not come and stormed at father. Shameful, I call it.' Then Dorothy threw her apron over her face, and leaving the kitchen, called Betty to come and look after the butter. 'It is churning day,' she said, 'and to spoil pounds of good butter won't mend matters.'
Betty obeyed, and Bryda was left with her grandfather.
'Is my father dead?' she asked, putting her mouth close to the old man's ear.
'Dead? Yes. I never heard a word of him since the ship sailed from Bristol one dark night. I put him aboard. No one knew. When I got back there was Bet wailing. She was born—and your poor silly mother died. Poor thing! poor thing! She said, "I am glad to die, take care of my babes." And I said I would, and so I did—eh, Biddy?'
'Yes, yes, grandfather; and now we will take care of you. I'll go and earn my keep at any rate; but first I shall go and see Mr. Bayfield.'
'No, no; it's like a lamb running into the jaws of a lion. He will only storm at you. There's nought to be done but sell up, and pay the cash down. But I'll do it myself. He