A Change of Air. Anthony Hope

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СКАЧАТЬ said:

      "I beat him in one thing, anyhow."

      "What's that, Jim?"

      "My wife. He has no wife like mine."

      "Has he a wife at all?" asked Mrs. Roberts, with increased interest. A wife was another matter.

      "I believe not, but if he had——"

      "Don't be silly. Did you leave Tom quiet?"

      "Hang Tom! he deserves it. And give me my tea."

      Then came the baby, and with it an end, for the time, of Dale Bannister.

      CHAPTER III.

       Table of Contents

      Denborough Determines to Call.

      "I will awake the world," Dale Bannister had once declared in the insolence of youth and talent and the privacy of a gathering of friends. The boast was perhaps as little absurd in his mouth as it could ever be; yet it was very absurd, for the world sleeps hard, and habit has taught it to slumber peacefully through the batterings of impatient genius at its door. At the most, it turns uneasily on its side, and, with a curse at the meddlesome fellow, snores again. So Dale Bannister did not awake the world. But, within a month of his coming to Littlehill, he performed an exploit which was, though on a smaller scale, hardly less remarkable. He electrified Market Denborough, and the shock penetrated far out into the surrounding districts of Denshire—even Denshire, which, remote from villas and season-tickets, had almost preserved pristine simplicity. Men spoke with low-voiced awe and appreciative twinkling of the eye of the "doings" at Littlehill: their wives thought that they might be better employed; and their children hung about the gates to watch the young man and his guests come out. There was disappointment when no one came to church from Littlehill; yet there would have been disappointment if anyone had: it would have jarred with the fast-growing popular conception of the household. To the strictness of Denborough morality, by which no sin was leniently judged save drunkenness, Littlehill seemed a den of jovial wickedness, and its inhabitants to reck nothing of censure, human or divine.

      As might be expected by all who knew him, the Mayor had no hand in this hasty and uncharitable judgment. London was no strange land to him; he went up four times a year to buy his stock; London ways were not Denshire ways, he admitted, but, for all that, they were not to be condemned offhand nor interpreted in the worst light without some pause for better knowledge.

      "It takes all sorts to make a world," said he, as he drank his afternoon draught at the "Delane Arms," where the civic aristocracy was wont to gather.

      "He's free enough and to spare with 'is money," said Alderman Johnstone, with satisfaction.

      "You ought to know, Johnstone," remarked the Mayor significantly.

      "Well, I didn't see no 'arm in him," said Mr. Maggs, the horse-dealer, a rubicund man of pleasant aspect; "and he's a rare 'un to deal with."

      Interest centered on Mr. Maggs. Apparently he had spoken with Dale Bannister.

      "He's half crazy, o' course," continued that gentleman, "but as pleasant-spoken, 'earty a young gent as I've seen."

      "Is he crazy?" asked the girl behind the bar.

      "Well, what do you say? He came down a day or two ago, 'e and 'is friend, Mr. 'Ume——"

      "Hume," said the Mayor, with emphasis. The Mayor, while occasionally following the worse, saw the better way.

      "Yes, 'Ume. Mr. Bannister wanted a 'orse. 'What's your figger, sir?' says I. He took no notice, but began looking at me with 'is eyes wide open, for all the world as if I'd never spoke. Then he says, 'I want a 'orse, broad-backed and fallen in the vale o' years.' Them was 'is very words."

      "You don't say?" said the girl.

      "I never knowed what he meant, no more than that pint-pot; but Mr. 'Ume laughed and says, 'Don't be a fool, Dale,' and told me that Mr. Bannister couldn't ride no more than a tailor—so he said—and wanted a steady, quiet 'orse. He got one from me—four-and-twenty years old, warranted not to gallop. I see 'im on her to day—and it's lucky she is quiet."

      "Can't he ride?"

      "No more than"—a fresh simile failed Mr. Maggs, and he concluded again—"that pint-pot. But Mr. 'Ume can. 'E's a nice set on a 'orse."

      The Mayor had been meditating. He was a little jealous of Mr. Maggs' superior intimacy with the distinguished stranger, or perhaps it was merely that he was suddenly struck with a sense of remissness in his official duties.

      "I think," he announced, "of callin' on him and welcomin' him to the town."

      There was a chorus of approbation, broken only by a sneer from Alderman Johnstone.

      "Ay, and take 'im a bottle of that cod-liver oil of yours at two-and-three. 'E can afford it."

      "Not after payin' your bill, Johnstone," retorted the Mayor, with a triumphant smile. A neat repartee maketh glad the heart of the utterer.

      The establishment at Littlehill and the proper course to be pursued in regard to it were also the subject of consideration in circles more genteel even than that which gathered at the "Delane Arms." At Dirkham Grange itself the topic was discussed, and Mr. Delane was torn with doubts whether his duty as landlord called upon him to make Dale Bannister's acquaintance, or his duty as custodian-general of the laws and proprieties of life in his corner of the world forbade any sanction being given to a household of which such reports were on the wing. People looked to the Squire, as he was commonly called, for guidance in social matters, and he was aware of the responsibility under which he lay. If he called at Littlehill, half the county would be likely enough to follow his example. And perhaps it might not be good for half the county to know Dale Bannister.

      "I must consider the matter," he said at breakfast.

      "Well, one does hear strange things," remarked Mrs. Delane. "And aren't his poems very odd, George?"

      The Squire had not accorded to the works referred to a very close study, but he answered offhand:

      "Yes, I hear so; not at all sound in tone. But then, my dear, poets have a standard of their own."

      "Of course, there was Byron," said Mrs. Delane.

      "And perhaps we mustn't be too hard on him," pursued the Squire. "He's a very young man, and no doubt has considerable ability."

      "I dare say he has never met anybody."

      "I'm sure, papa," interposed Miss Janet Delane, "that it would have a good effect on him to meet us."

      Mr. Delane smiled at his daughter.

      "Would you like to know him, Jan?" he asked.

      "Of course I should! He wouldn't be dull, at all events, like most of the men about here, Tora Smith said the Colonel meant to call."

      "Colonel Smith is hardly in your father's position, my dear."

      "Oh, СКАЧАТЬ