The Ordeal of Richard Feverel — Complete. George Meredith

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СКАЧАТЬ not to press the prosecution.”

      “Of course he won't,” Algernon remarked. “Confound him! he'll have his money, and what does he want besides?”

      “These agricultural gentlemen are delicate customers to deal with. However, if he really consents”—

      “I have his promise,” said the baronet, fondling his son.

      Young Richard looked up to his father, as if he wished to speak. He said nothing, and Sir Austin took it as a mute reply to his caresses; and caressed him the more. Adrian perceived a reserve in the boy's manner, and as he was not quite satisfied that his chief should suppose him to have been the only idle, and not the most acute and vigilant member of the family, he commenced a cross-examination of him by asking who had last spoken with the tenant of Belthorpe?

      “I think I saw him last,” murmured Richard, and relinquished his father's hand.

      Adrian fastened on his prey. “And left him with a distinct and satisfactory assurance of his amicable intentions?”

      “No,” said Richard.

      “Not?” the Feverels joined in astounded chorus.

      Richard sidled away from his father, and repeated a shamefaced “No.”

      “Was he hostile?” inquired Adrian, smoothing his palms, and smiling.

      “Yes,” the boy confessed.

      Here was quite another view of their position. Adrian, generally patient of results, triumphed strongly at having evoked it, and turned upon Austin Wentworth, reproving him for inducing the boy to go down to Belthorpe. Austin looked grieved. He feared that Richard had faded in his good resolve.

      “I thought it his duty to go,” he observed.

      “It was!” said the baronet, emphatically.

      “And you see what comes of it, sir,” Adrian struck in. “These agricultural gentlemen, I repeat, are delicate customers to deal with. For my part I would prefer being in the hands of a policeman. We are decidedly collared by Blaize. What were his words, Ricky? Give it in his own Doric.”

      “He said he would transport Tom Bakewell.”

      Adrian smoothed his palms, and smiled again. Then they could afford to defy Mr. Blaize, he informed them significantly, and made once more a mysterious allusion to the Punic elephant, bidding his relatives be at peace. They were attaching, in his opinion, too much importance to Richard's complicity. The man was a fool, and a very extraordinary arsonite, to have an accomplice at all. It was a thing unknown in the annals of rick-burning. But one would be severer than law itself to say that a boy of fourteen had instigated to crime a full-grown man. At that rate the boy was 'father of the man' with a vengeance, and one might hear next that 'the baby was father of the boy.' They would find common sense a more benevolent ruler than poetical metaphysics.

      When he had done, Austin, with his customary directness, asked him what he meant.

      “I confess, Adrian,” said the baronet, hearing him expostulate with Austin's stupidity, “I for one am at a loss. I have heard that this man, Bakewell, chooses voluntarily not to inculpate my son. Seldom have I heard anything that so gratified me. It is a view of innate nobleness in the rustic's character which many a gentleman might take example from. We are bound to do our utmost for the man.” And, saying that he should pay a second visit to Belthorpe, to inquire into the reasons for the farmer's sudden exposition of vindictiveness, Sir Austin rose.

      Before he left the room, Algernon asked Richard if the farmer had vouchsafed any reasons, and the boy then spoke of the tampering with the witnesses, and the Bantam's “Not upon oath!” which caused Adrian to choke with laughter. Even the baronet smiled at so cunning a distinction as that involved in swearing a thing, and not swearing it upon oath.

      “How little,” he exclaimed, “does one yeoman know another! To elevate a distinction into a difference is the natural action of their minds. I will point that out to Blaize. He shall see that the idea is native born.”

      Richard saw his father go forth. Adrian, too, was ill at ease.

      “This trotting down to Belthorpe spoils all,” said he. “The affair would pass over to-morrow—Blaize has no witnesses. The old rascal is only standing out for more money.”

      “No, he isn't,” Richard corrected him. “It's not that. I'm sure he believes his witnesses have been tampered with, as he calls it.”

      “What if they have, boy?” Adrian put it boldly. “The ground is cut from under his feet.”

      “Blaize told me that if my father would give his word there had been nothing of the sort, he would take it. My father will give his word.”

      “Then,” said Adrian, “you had better stop him from going down.”

      Austin looked at Adrian keenly, and questioned him whether he thought the farmer was justified in his suspicions. The wise youth was not to be entrapped. He had only been given to understand that the witnesses were tolerably unstable, and, like the Bantam, ready to swear lustily, but not upon the Book. How given to understand, he chose not to explain, but he reiterated that the chief should not be allowed to go down to Belthorpe.

      Sir Austin was in the lane leading to the farm when he heard steps of some one running behind him. It was dark, and he shook off the hand that laid hold of his cloak, roughly, not recognizing his son.

      “It's I, sir,” said Richard panting. “Pardon me. You mustn't go in there.”

      “Why not?” said the baronet, putting his arm about him.

      “Not now,” continued the boy. “I will tell you all to-night. I must see the farmer myself. It was my fault, sir. I-I lied to him—the Liar must eat his Lie. Oh, forgive me for disgracing you, sir. I did it—I hope I did it to save Tom Bakewell. Let me go in alone, and speak the truth.”

      “Go, and I will wait for you here,” said his father.

      The wind that bowed the old elms, and shivered the dead leaves in the air, had a voice and a meaning for the baronet during that half-hour's lonely pacing up and down under the darkness, awaiting his boy's return. The solemn gladness of his heart gave nature a tongue. Through the desolation flying overhead—the wailing of the Mother of Plenty across the bare-swept land—he caught intelligible signs of the beneficent order of the universe, from a heart newly confirmed in its grasp of the principle of human goodness, as manifested in the dear child who had just left him; confirmed in its belief in the ultimate victory of good within us, without which nature has neither music nor meaning, and is rock, stone, tree, and nothing more.

      In the dark, the dead leaves beating on his face, he had a word for his note-book: “There is for the mind but one grasp of happiness: from that uppermost pinnacle of wisdom, whence we see that this world is well designed.”

CHAPTER XI

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      Of all the chief actors in the Bakewell Comedy, Master Ripton СКАЧАТЬ