Chapter XIV.

Otago Witness, Issue 1987, 24 March 1892, Page 38

Chapter XIV.

At the Corner.

Tliat long continued silence was the first sign of egotism Sir Charles had manifested to his young companion. Considering their relative ages and positions he had hitherto shown an unlooked for abnegation of self; had thrown himself, if not heart and soul, at all events with tbe appearance of so doing, into th,e other's affairs, with a complete abnegation of bis own. Bub now, it seemed, he had begun to think of them. His smooth brow was furrowed, his " Cupidon " lips twitched with strange excitement, or closed together tightly. The impassive, gracious man was troubled with some reminiscence of his past. There were still many men who would have said, " and no wonder," but they were not those who had known him best. His nature was not one given to retrospection, far less to cry over spilt milk. But that recollection of having been rejeoted for the county was bitter to him, for it had been one of the few occasions when his amour prqpre had been wounded. So it often happens in the long catalogue of our sins against God and man, that the consequence of one of them, though ib may have been a very inadequate punishment for it, stands out in our memory, and makes us appear to ourselves aggrieved. It had been almost the only time, and was certainly the last in which Sir Charles Walden had ever appealed to the opinion of his fellow creatures, and it had been recorded against him. It had been a small matter— a very small one in comparison with other subjects of regret in his career, but none had made so great an impression upon him. There are some of us who have no remorse for serious offences, but ib takes very little to embitter our lives. Hitherbo Sir Charles had seemed to give himself up to the mood of his young companion, and even to take pains to say nothing of discouragement ; but for the remainder of the walk he was at first distrait, and when he gradually recovered his self-possession, cynical. " Ib is amazing to me," he presently said, " that with all this love of yours for Nature you should have such an ambition for things outsidq of it. You ought to be a philosopher, or rather a philosophic poet-, content with 1 the root and the sprig '—and never wish to stray from these charmiDg surroundings." " Well, I don't wish to exchange them for Singapore, ib is very true," said Laurence, his sense of gratitude to his companion (not perhaps unmixed with that of favours to come) struggling with a feeling of indignation at what seemed very like a sneer ; " but though you may not see the necessity of it, Sir Oharles, I must live, and even ' the root 1 you speak of would in my case not be forthcoming." Though the lad's tone was quiet, his face showed what he felt.

" Forgive me, my dear boy," said the other impulsively. " I spoke like a brute to whom roots are the proper nutriment., I wanted — or rather the devil within me wanted— to say something spiteful, and I said it to the wrong person. Why, that is Hurlby, is it not, out yonder?"

" Yes ; your round tower just peeps above the trees. When the flag is flying, which I suppose betokens your presence, it looks still more picturesque."

" You will see it nearer soon, I hope, when the flag is flying," returned the other graciously. " There are some things in the castle that will please you." Laurence murmured a few words of thanks for the invitation, which indeed gave him great pleasure; and the more since it was wholly unexpected; for he knew that Sir Charles lived the life of a recluse.

" I hope you won't find it so dull as I do," continued the baronet. "It is my experience, however, bhat one can stand a visit to almost everywhere once, always supposing one can get away when one likes."

"I trust that that tribute to the delights of hospitality," said Laurence, laughing, "does not imply that we shall not see you again at Hillsland ? "

"If so, ib will not be because the Hall wants attractions, I do assure you," said the other earnestly; then, more lightly, "Per-

haps the Rajah may not ask me again, I have a suspicion that I have not made a favourable impression on him, and still less on your uncle Robert."

"If ib be so, that comes of befriending me," observed Laurence gratefully.

" That is sad, for so far as I can I shall continue to earn his ill-will in that respect," answered the other smiling. '• Now we are getting home agairj. Whose is that melan-choly-looking house yonder, with the ' garden of the sluggard ' attached to it 1 "

•• That is Mr Salesby's," said Laurence with a slight flush.

" Then let us drop in and pay him a call ; 1 owe him one, for he voted for me at the election. If Mr Grueby is to be trusted — which, however, is doubtful — we shall get the latest Derby tip from him."

Laurence cared nothing for Derby tips, though perhaps as much as Sir Charles did. The latter indeed was simply curious to see the young lady on whom, as he had reason to suspect, his young friend had set his affections, and of whom be had already caught, a fleeting glance in the orchard on the previous day. He might also have wished to renew his acquaintance, if the very little he knew of him could be so called, with Mr Salesby, who was a " character " in his way, though not a good one. He belonged to one of the oldest families in the county, who though they had never occupied a prominent position, had been in a fairly elevated one, till horse and hound had ruined their present representative. Dick Salesby had still a " bit of blood " on which he hunted twice a week in the season, but it was the last link with his palmy days that was left to him. His neighbours of the gentry still nodded to him in familiar fashion, but not even the humblest labourer touched his cap. The agricultural mind is dull, but it is keen to recognise superiority of position, and the want of it. His friends were only found in the pot-house, mostly hangers-on of the turf. Laurence was ashamed of the man who (in his brightest dreams) he pictured as his father-in-law, and of the ramshackly dwelling he called his home ; but since his companion was bent on visiting it there was no escape. He only hoped that Kitty would be away somewhere, for it would be dreadful if Sir Charles would see her — like a jewel set in pewter — amid such sordid surroundings.

" Why, the place is to let," exclaimed Sir Charles, pointing to a notice-board that leant like a drunken flag over the broken paling which fringed the npglected garden.

"No; it is Mr Salesby 's peculiar way of informing strangers of the name of his house; he calls it "The Corner." Some allusion to the Derby course, I believe."

" Ob, I Bee; Tattenham Corner, Our friend must be an original."

At that moment, as if to illustrate the fact, Mr Salesby appeared at hi 3 own front door. He was a spare little man, who, if he had been youngei, might well have been taken for a jockey out of place ; he looked as if he had been "sweated down," and had suffered in health in consequence. Bis appearance was " horsey," from the straw in his mouth to the spur on his old, ill-kept top boots. He had just come in from his morning ride through the back door of his residence, which opened conveniently on the stable yard.

" Well, Master Lorry, how goes it ? " he shouted, almost as loud ad a view holloa. " Come in, and bring your friend with you."

As they obeyed the invitation and walked up the well-worn gravel walk, the visitor took note of the desolate aspect of the house — the stains of weather it showed, the patched windows, and the blank spaces where others had long ago been builb over to avoid the tax, and left so when it had been done away with.

" What I Sir Charles Walden is it ? " exclaimed the host with pleased surprise as they drew nearer. " Welcome to The Corner. You must be dry after a walk in this weather ; have a glass of claret."

He pronounced the word — perhaps to modestly intimate tho mildness of the vintage — as though it were monosyllabic.

" I would rather have a glass of ale," replied the other, smiling. " I remember how good your tap used to be, though it is many years ago since I tasted it last."

" Aye, that was at the great election time 15 years ago. It was not my fault that you did not get in. What I said was, when people said anything against you, 'Let bygones be bygones.' Take a seat, Sir Charles."

He led them into a barely-furnished room, the walls hung round with pictures of Darby winner?, looking very much alike, and a portrait of the hosb on horseback, very unlike him, at all events what he had since become. Ib was a spic and span model of mounted propriety, and suggested a M.F.H. considering whether he should accept the office of churchwarden. The handles of the bell ropes were foxes' " pads " ; upon the mantlepiece, stuck in cheap vases, as though they had been flowers, were foxes' brushes ; above them, as though it had just bitten its way through tbe wall, was a fox's head. There was a litter of clay pipes, fragments of tobacco, and bills headed "accounts rendered " upon the table, which Mr Salesby cleared away by the simple process of sweeping them on to the floor with his "crop," which he still held in his hand. " They may just as well lie there as anywhere else," he griDned, "so far as any chance of their being paid is concerned."

"Yes, the times are bad indeed for us who live by the land," observed Sir Charles sympathetically.

"They're deuced bad with me, at all events," replied the host, nob without a touch of satire and a use of the figure termed ellipsis, though he was unconscious of his obligation to it. He disliked the other's pretence of being in the same boat — " Impecuniosity " — with himself, but bis sense of the duties of hospitality forbade his resenting it. He rang the bell, and on its being answered by a slatternly girl, exclaimed, "Yell, and glasses round;" then added as she was leaving the room, "and tell your youug missis to come down." Laurence sighed and looked out of tbe window, while Sir Charles fixed his attention on the portrait of their host. " Aye, that's Stickaback," cried Mr Salesby — it was not from modesty that he attributed the interest of the picture to the horse rather than to its rider, but simply that in his eyes the equine race was superior to the human — " the best timber-jumper of

his day bar none. He'd ha' won the • Liverpool' but for a cussed storm, which made the ground slippery." " What great events hang on small cause?/' observed the baronet demurely.

" You may say thar, for I lost L4OO by his not keeping his legs — but here's the yell ; Where's Miss Kitty, lass ? "

" She's coming up the walk now," returned the handmaid.

Laurence was already acquainted with the fact, and indeed had been making appealing but unmistakeable signs to her to go back again. Sir Charles turned to the window, and beheld, as it struck him, at least one flower in the garderj, which for grace and beauty it would have been difficult to match. Kitty Salesby was " tall, and most divinely fair, 1 ' but she looked her best when she moved. Ib has been said that only a few women know how to walk, and she had this art, which in her case was nature, to perfection. Every limb in her body was full of grace, every line a line of beauty. Her father went to the window and beckoned her in impatiently, and she replied with a nod of assent ; but such a nod ! The two gestures might have been taken as examples of the coarseness and refinement of which the same sign language is capable. Yet strange to say the girl was not very refined except in a physical sense. Her manner indeed was never awkward — she had no mauvaise honte — but there was an absence of that delicate reserve about it which, when it is not affected, is the crown of maidenly grace. She was far from bold or forward; quite free from anything that could be called vulgarity ; but her bringing up and surroundings, and above all the necessity for self-assertion in domestic matters, which circumstances had imposed upon her, had given to her for so young a girl an unusual air of independence. When her father introduced his guest to hVr with some touch of ostentation as Sir Charles Walden, of Huilby Castle, she took the outstretched hand without the least sign of perturbation, and when Mr Salesby added with a dry chuckle, " Master Laurence, I think you know," she nodded to him familiarly without embarrassment.

Naturalness, so wholly unlooked for, was not likely to escape the baronet's observation, but so far from takiDg advantage of ir, he continued his conversation with his hosb, leaving the two young people to themselves. His attention, however, seemed inclined to wander ; and when the ale was being poured out by Kitty, very deftly and with a fine froth upon "it, "You are not listening to what I am telling you about Ganymede," said Mr Salesby querulous'y. "I beg your pardon," eaid Sir Charles, '• but for the moment-," here he bowed his thanks to the young lady, " I was rather thinking about Hebe." This classical illusion was lost both upon father and daughter, but Kitty would have rightly understood thatacomplimei.t had been paid her, even had nob Laurence laughed and gently clupped his hands.. It pleased the young fellow that the beauty of his inamorata had awakened the admiration of his fastidious friend.

(To he continued.)