Johnny Ludlow, First Series. Henry Wood

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СКАЧАТЬ alone, except for three or four servants, and always fancied himself ill with one ailment or another. When I went in, for he said he’d see me, he was sitting in an easy-chair, with a geranium-coloured Turkish cap on his head, and two bottles of medicine at his elbow.

      “Well, Johnny, an invalid as usual, you see. And what is it you so particularly want?”

      “I want to ask you a favour, Mr. Brandon, if you’ll be good enough to grant it me.”

      “What is it?”

      “You know that cottage, sir, at the corner of Piefinch Lane. George Reed’s.”

      “Well?”

      “I have come to ask you not to let it be sold.”

      “Who wants to sell it?” asked he, after a pause.

      “Major Parrifer wants to buy it; and to turn Reed out. The lawyers are going to arrange it.”

      Mr. Brandon pushed the cap up on his brow and gave the tassel over his ear a twirl as he looked at me. People thought him incapable; but it was only because he had no work to do that he seemed so. He would get a bit irritable sometimes; very rarely though; and he had a squeaky voice: but he was a good and just man.

      “How did you hear this, Johnny?”

      I told him all about it. What Reed had said, and of our having met the Major on horseback as we drove along.

      “He came here, but I did not feel well enough to see him,” said Mr. Brandon. “Johnny, you know that I stand in place of your father, as regards your property; to do the best I can with it.”

      “Yes, sir. And I am sure you do it.”

      “If Major Parrifer—I don’t like the man,” broke off Mr. Brandon, “but that’s neither here nor there. At the last magistrates’ meeting I attended he was so overbearing as to shut us all up. My nerves were unstrung for four-and-twenty hours afterwards.”

      “And Squire Todhetley came home swearing,” I could not help putting in.

      “Ah,” said Mr. Brandon. “Yes; some people can throw bile off in that way. I can’t. But, Johnny, all that goes for nothing, in regard to the matter in hand: and I was about to point out to you that if Major Parrifer has set his mind upon buying Reed’s cottage and the bit of land attached to it, he is no doubt prepared to offer a good price; more, probably, than it is worth. If so, I should not, in your interests, be justified in refusing this.”

      I could feel my face flush with the sense of injustice, and the tears come into my eyes. They called me a muff for many things.

      “I would not touch the money myself, sir. And if you used it for me, I’m sure it would never bring any good.”

      “What’s that, Johnny?”

      “Money got by oppression or injustice never does. There was a fellow at school–”

      “Never mind the fellow at school. Go on with your own argument.”

      “To turn Reed out of the place where he has always lived, out of the garden he has done so well by, just because a rich man wants to get possession of it, would be fearfully unjust, sir. It would be as bad as the story of Naboth’s vineyard, that we heard read in church last Sunday, for the First Lesson. Tod said so as we came along.”

      “Who’s Tod?”

      “Joseph Todhetley. If you turned Reed out, sir, for the sake of benefiting me, I should be ashamed to look people in the face when they talked of it. If you please, sir, I do not think my father would allow it if he were living. Reed says the place is like his homestead.”

      Mr. Brandon measured two tablespoonfuls of medicine into a glass, drank it off, and ate a French plum afterwards. The plums were on a plate, and he handed them to me. I took one, and tried to crack the stone.

      “You have taken up a strong opinion on this matter, Master Johnny.”

      “Yes, sir. I like Reed. And if I did not, he has no more right to be turned out of his home than Major Parrifer has out of his. How would he like it, if some rich and powerful man came down on his place and turned him out?”

      “Major Parrifer can’t be turned out of his, Johnny. It is his own.”

      “And Reed’s place is mine, sir—if you won’t be angry with me for saying it. Please don’t let it be done, Mr. Brandon.”

      The pony-carriage came rattling up at this juncture, and we saw Tod look at the windows impatiently. I got up, and Mr. Brandon shook hands with me.

      “What you have said is all very good, Johnny, right in principle; but I cannot let it quite outweigh your interests. When this proposal shall be put before me—as you say it will be—it must have my full consideration.”

      I stopped when I got to the door and turned to look at him. If he would only have given me an assurance! He read in my face what I wanted.

      “No, Johnny, I can’t do that. You may go home easy for the present, however; for I will promise not to accept the offer to purchase without first seeing you again and showing you my reasons.”

      “I may have gone back to school, sir.”

      “I tell you I will see you again if I decide to accept the offer,” he repeated emphatically. And I went out to the pony-chaise.

      “Old Brandon means to sell,” said Tod, when I told him. And he gave the pony an angry cut, that made him fly off at a gallop.

      Will anybody believe that I never heard another word upon the subject, except what people said in the way of gossip? It was soon known that Mr. Brandon had declined to sell the cottage; and when his lawyer wrote him word that the sum, offered for it, was increased to quite an unprecedented amount, considering the value of the cottage and garden in question, Mr. Brandon only sent a peremptory note back again, saying he was not in the habit of changing his decisions, and the place was not for sale. Tod threw up his hat.

      “Bravo, old Brandon! I thought he’d not go quite over to the enemy.”

      George Reed wanted to thank me for it. One evening, in passing his cottage on my way home from the Court, I leaned over the gate to speak to his little ones. He saw me and came running out. The rays of the setting sun shone on the children’s white corded bonnets.

      “I have to thank you for this, sir. They are going to renew my lease.”

      “Are they? All right. But you need not thank me; I know nothing about it.”

      George Reed gave a decisive nod. “If you hadn’t got the ear of Mr. Brandon, sir, I know what box I should have been in now. Look at them girls!”

      It was not a very complimentary mode of speech, as applied to the Misses Parrifer. Three of them were passing, dressed outrageously in the fashion as usual. I lifted my straw hat, and one of them nodded in return, but the other two only looked out of the tail of their eyes.

      “The Major has been trying it on with me now,” remarked Reed, watching them out of sight. “When he found he could not buy the place, he thought he’d try and buy out me. He wanted the bit of land for a kitchen-garden, he said; and would give me a five-pound bank-note to go out of it. Much obliged, Major, СКАЧАТЬ