Trevlyn Hold. Henry Wood

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СКАЧАТЬ style="font-size:15px;">      "That is not the sort of gentleman I meant," said George.

      "It is to be hoped not," replied the farmer. "A man may do this if he has a good fat balance at his banker's, but not else."

      George made no remark. To have explained how very different his ideas of a gentleman were from those of Farmer Apperley might have involved him in a long conversation. His silence was looked suspiciously upon by Mr. Chattaway.

      "Where idle and roving notions are taken up, there's only one cure for them!" he remarked, in short, uncompromising tones. "And that is hard work."

      But that George's spirit was subdued, he might have hotly answered that he had taken up neither idle nor roving notions. As it was, he sat in silence.

      "I doubt whether it will be prudent to keep George at home," said Mrs. Ryle, speaking generally, but not to Mr. Chattaway. "He is too young to do much on the farm. And there's John Pinder."

      "John Pinder would do his best, no doubt," said Mr. Chattaway.

      "The question is—if I do resolve to put George out, what can I put him to?" resumed Mrs. Ryle.

      "My father thought it best I should remain on the farm," interposed George, his heart beating a shade faster.

      "He thought it best that I should exercise my own judgment in the matter," corrected Mrs. Ryle. "The worst is, it takes money to place a lad out," she added, looking at Farmer Apperley.

      "It does that," replied the farmer.

      "There's nothing like a trade for boys," said Mr. Chattaway, impressively. "They earn a living, and are kept out of mischief. It appears to me that Mrs. Ryle will have expense enough upon her hands, without the cost and keep of George added to it. What good can so young a boy do the farm?"

      "True," mused Mrs. Ryle, agreeing for once with Mr. Chattaway. "He could not be of much use at present. But the cost of placing him out?"

      "Of course he could not," repeated Mr. Chattaway, with an eagerness which might have betrayed his motive, but that he coughed it down. "Perhaps I may be able to put him out for you without cost. I know of an eligible place where there's a vacancy. The trade is a good one, too."

      "I am not going to any trade," said George, looking Mr. Chattaway full in the face.

      "You are going where Mrs. Ryle thinks fit to send you," returned Mr. Chattaway, in his hard, cold tones. "If I can get you into the establishment of Wall and Barnes without premium, it will be a first-rate thing for you."

      All the blood in George Ryle's body seemed to rush to his face. Poor though they had become, trade had been unknown in their family, and its sound in George's ears, as applied to himself, was something terrible. "That is a retail shop!" he cried, rising from his seat.

      "Well?" said Mr. Chattaway.

      They remained gazing at each other. George with his changing face flushing to crimson, fading to paleness; Mr. Chattaway with his composed leaden features. His light eyes were sternly directed to George, but he did not glance at Mrs. Ryle. George was the first to speak.

      "You shall never force me there, Mr. Chattaway."

      Mr. Chattaway rose from his seat, took George by the shoulder, and turned him towards the window. The view did not take in much of the road to Barbrook; but a glimpse of it might be caught sight of here and there, winding along in the distance.

      "Boy! Do you remember what was carried down that road this afternoon—what you followed next to, with your younger brother? He said that you were not to oppose your mother, but obey her in all things. These are early moments to begin to turn against your father's dying charge."

      George sat down, heart and brain throbbing. He did not see his duty very distinctly before him then. His father certainty had charged him to obey his mother's requests; he had left him entirely subject to her control; but George felt perfectly sure that his father would never have placed him in a shop; would not have allowed him to enter one.

      Mr. Chattaway continued talking, but the boy heard him not. He was bending towards Mrs. Ryle, enlarging persuasively upon the advantages of the plan. He knew that Wall and Barnes had taken a boy into their house without premium, he said, and he believed he could induce them to waive it in George's case. He and Wall had been at school together; had passed many an impatient hour over the Latin previously spoken of; had often called in to have a chat with him in passing. Wall was a ten-thousand-pound man now; and George might become the same in time.

      "How would you like to place Christopher at it, Mr. Chattaway?" asked George, his heart beating rebelliously.

      "Christopher!" indignantly responded Mr. Chattaway. "Christopher's heir to Trev–Christopher isn't you," he concluded, cutting his first retort short. In the presence of Mrs. Ryle it might not be altogether prudent to allude to the heirship of Cris to Trevlyn Hold.

      The sum named conciliated the ear of Mr. Apperley, otherwise he had not listened with any favour to the plan. "Ten thousand pounds! And Wall hardly a middle-aged man! That's worth thinking of, George."

      "I could never live in a shop; the close air, the confinement, the pettiness of it, would stifle me," said George, with a groan, putting aside for the moment his more forcible objections.

      "You'd rather live in a thunder-storm, with the rain coming down on your head in bucketfuls," said Mr. Chattaway, sarcastically.

      "A great deal," said George.

      Farmer Apperley did not detect the irony of Mr. Chattaway's remark, or the bitterness of the answer. "You'll say next, boy, that you'd rather turn sailor, exposed to the weather night and day, perched midway between sky and water!"

      "A thousand times," was George's truthful answer. "Mother, let me stay at the farm!" he cried, the nervous motion of his hands, the strained countenance, proving how momentous was the question to his grieved heart. "You do not know how useful I should soon become! And my father wished it."

      Mrs. Ryle shook her head. "You are too young, George, to be of use. No."

      George seemed to turn white. He was approaching Mrs. Ryle with an imploring gesture; but Mr. Chattaway caught his arm and pushed him towards his seat again. "George, if I were you, I would not, on this day, cross my mother."

      George glanced at her. Not a shade of love, of relenting, was there on her countenance. Cold, haughty, self-willed, it always was; but more cold, more haughty, more self-willed than usual now. He turned and left the room, crossed the kitchen, and passed into the room whence his father had been carried only two hours before.

      "Oh, father! father!" he sobbed; "if you were only back again!"

      CHAPTER VIII

      REBELLION

      Borne down by the powers above him, George Ryle could only succumb to their will. Persuaded by the eloquence of Mr. Chattaway, Mrs. Ryle became convinced that placing George in the establishment of Wall and Barnes was the most promising thing that could be found for him. The wonder was, that she should have brought herself to listen to Chattaway at all, or have entertained for a moment any proposal emanating from him. There could have been but one solution to the riddle: that of her own anxiety to get George settled in something away from home. Deep down in the heart of Mrs. Ryle, there was seated a keen sense of injury—of injustice—of wrong. It had been seated there ever since the death of Squire Trevlyn, influencing her actions, warping СКАЧАТЬ