Mr. Crewe's Career — Complete. Winston Churchill

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СКАЧАТЬ he said, but his glance was fixed on the clipping in her hand.

      “Haven't you seen it?” she asked, giving it to him.

      He read it in silence, groaned, and handed it to Mr. Flint, who had been drumming on the table and glancing at Victoria with vague disapproval. Mr. Flint read it and gave it back to the Honourable Hilary, who groaned again and looked out of the window.

      “Why do you feel badly about it?” asked Victoria. “I'd be proud of him, if I were you.”

      “Proud of him” echoed Mr. Vane, grimly. “Proud of him!”

      “Victoria, what do you mean?” said Mr. Flint.

      “Why not?” said Victoria. “He's done nothing to make you ashamed. According to that clipping, he's punished a man who richly deserved to be punished, and he has the sympathy of an entire county.”

      Hilary Vane was not a man to discuss his domestic affliction with anybody, so he merely grunted and gazed persistently out of the window, and was not aware of the fact that Victoria made a little face at him as she left the room. The young are not always impartial judges of the old, and Victoria had never forgiven him for carrying to her father the news of an escapade of hers in Ripton.

      As he drove through the silent forest roads on his way homeward that afternoon, the Honourable Hilary revolved the new and intensely disagreeable fact in his mind as to how he should treat a prodigal who had attempted manslaughter and was a fugitive from justice. In the meantime a tall and spare young man of a red-bronze colour alighted from the five o'clock express at Ripton and grinned delightedly at the gentlemen who made the station their headquarters about train time. They were privately disappointed that the gray felt hat, although broad-brimmed, was not a sombrero, and the respectable, loose-fitting suit of clothes was not of buckskin with tassels on the trousers; and likewise that he came without the cartridge belt and holster which they had pictured in anticipatory sessions on the baggage-trucks. There could be no doubt of the warmth of their greeting as they sidled up and seized a hand somewhat larger than theirs, but the welcome had in it an ingredient of awe that puzzled the newcomer, who did not hesitate to inquire:—“What's the matter, Ed? Why so ceremonious, Perley?”

      But his eagerness did not permit him to wait for explanations. Grasping his bag, the only baggage he possessed, he started off at a swinging stride for Hanover Street, pausing only to shake the hands of the few who recognized him, unconscious of the wild-fire at his back. Hanover Street was empty that drowsy summer afternoon, and he stopped under the well-remembered maples before the house and gazed at it long and tenderly; even at the windows of that room—open now for the first time in years—where he had served so many sentences of imprisonment. Then he went cautiously around by the side and looked in at the kitchen door. To other eyes than his Euphrasia might not have seemed a safe person to embrace, but in a moment he had her locked in his arms and weeping. She knew nothing as yet of Mr. Blodgett's misfortunes, but if Austen Vane had depopulated a county it would have made no difference in her affection.

      “My, but you're a man,” exclaimed Euphrasia, backing away at last and staring at him with the only complete approval she had ever accorded to any human being save one.

      “What did you expect, Phrasie?”

      “Come, and I'll show you your room,” she said, in a gutter she could not hide; “it's got all the same pictures in, your mother's pictures, and the chair you broke that time when Hilary locked you in. It's mended.”

      “Hold on, Phrasie,” said Austen, seizing her by the apron-strings, “how about the Judge?” It was by this title he usually designated his father.

      “What about him?” demanded Euphrasia, sharply.

      “Well, it's his house, for one thing,” answered Austen, “and he may prefer to have that room—empty.”

      “Empty! Turn you out? I'd like to see him,” cried Euphrasia. “It wouldn't take me long to leave him high and dry.”

      She paused at the sound of wheels, and there was the Honourable Hilary, across the garden patch, in the act of slipping out of his buggy at the stable door. In the absence of Luke, the hired man, the chief counsel for the railroad was wont to put up the horse himself, and he already had the reins festooned from the bit rings when he felt a heavy, hand on his shoulder and heard a voice say:—“How are you, Judge?”

      If the truth be told, that voice and that touch threw the Honourable Hilary's heart out of beat. Many days he had been schooling himself for this occasion: this very afternoon he had determined his course of action, which emphatically did not include a fatted calf. And now surged up a dryad-like memory which had troubled him many a wakeful night, of startled, appealing eyes that sought his in vain, and of the son she had left him flinging himself into his arms in the face of chastisement. For the moment Hilary Vane, under this traitorous influence, was unable to speak. But he let the hand rest on his shoulder, and at length was able to pronounce, in a shamefully shaky voice, the name of his son. Whereupon Austen seized him by the other shoulder and turned him round and looked into his face.

      “The same old Judge,” he said.

      But Hilary was startled, even as Euphrasia had been. Was this strange, bronzed, quietly humorous young man his son? Hilary even had to raise his eyes a little; he had forgotten how tall Austen was. Strange emotions, unbidden and unwelcome, ran riot in his breast; and Hilary Vane, who made no slips before legislative committees or supreme courts, actually found himself saying:—“Euphrasia's got your room ready.”

      “It's good of you to take me in, Judge,” said Austen, patting his shoulder. And then he began, quite naturally to unbuckle the breechings and loose the traces, which he did with such deftness and celerity that he had the horse unharnessed and in the stall in a twinkling, and had hauled the buggy through the stable door, the Honourable Hilary watching him the while. He was troubled, but for the life of him could find no adequate words, who usually had the dictionary at his disposal.

      “Didn't write me why you came home,” said the Honourable Hilary, as his son washed his hands at the spigot.

      “Didn't I? Well, the truth was I wanted to see you again, Judge.”

      His father grunted, not with absolute displeasure, but suspiciously.

      “How about Blodgett?” he asked.

      “Blodgett? Have you heard about that? Who told you?”

      “Never mind. You didn't. Nothing in your letter about it.”

      “It wasn't worth mentioning,” replied Austen. “Tyner and the boys liked it pretty well, but I didn't think you'd be interested. It was a local affair.”

      “Not interested! Not worth mentioning!” exclaimed the Honourable Hilary, outraged to discover that his son was modestly deprecating an achievement instead of defending a crime. “Godfrey! murder ain't worth mentioning, I presume.”

      “Not when it isn't successful,” said Austen. “If Blodgett had succeeded, I guess you'd have heard of it before you did.”

      “Do you mean to say this Blodgett tried to kill you?” demanded the Honourable Hilary.

      “Yes,” said his son, “and I've never understood why he didn't. He's a good deal better shot than I am.”

      The Honourable Hilary grunted, and СКАЧАТЬ