Part 19 (1/2)

Immediately after church, the Leslie family dined; and as soon as dinner was over, Randal set out on his foot journey to Hazeldean Hall.

Delicate and even feeble though his frame, he had the energy and quickness of movement which belongs to nervous temperaments; and he tasked the slow stride of a peasant, whom he took to serve him as a guide for the first two or three miles. Though Randal had not the gracious open manner with the poor which Frank inherited from his father, he was still (despite many a secret hypocritical vice at war with the character of a gentleman) gentleman enough to have no churlish pride to his inferiors. He talked little, but he suffered his guide to talk; and the boor, who was the same whom Frank had accosted, indulged in eulogistic comments on that young gentleman's pony, from which he diverged into some compliments on the young gentleman himself. Randal drew his hat over his brows. There is a wonderful tact and fine breeding in your agricultural peasant; and though Tom Stowell was but a brutish specimen of the cla.s.s, he suddenly perceived that he was giving pain.

He paused, scratched his head, and, glancing affectionately towards his companion, exclaimed,--

”But I shall live to see you on a handsomer beastis than that little pony, Master Randal; and sure I ought, for you be as good a gentleman as any in the land.”

”Thank you,” said Randal. ”But I like walking better than riding,--I am more used to it.”

”Well, and you walk bra'ly,--there ben't a better walker in the county.

And very pleasant it is walking; and 't is a pretty country afore you, all the way to the Hall.”

Randal strode on, as if impatient of these attempts to flatter or to soothe; and coming at length into a broader lane, said, ”I think I can find my way now. Many thanks to you, Tom;” and he forced a s.h.i.+lling into Tom's h.o.r.n.y palm. The man took it reluctantly, and a tear started to his eye. He felt more grateful for that s.h.i.+lling than he had for Frank's liberal half-crown; and he thought of the poor fallen family, and forgot his own dire wrestle with the wolf at his door.

He stayed lingering in the lane till the figure of Randal was out of sight, and then returned slowly. Young Leslie continued to walk on at a quick pace. With all his intellectual culture and his restless aspirations, his breast afforded him no thought so generous, no sentiment so poetic, as those with which the unlettered clown crept slouchingly homeward.

As Randal gained a point where several lanes met on a broad piece of waste land, he began to feel tired, and his step slackened. Just then a gig emerged from one of these byroads, and took the same direction as the pedestrian. The road was rough and hilly, and the driver proceeded at a foot's pace; so that the gig and the pedestrian went pretty well abreast.

”You seem tired, sir,” said the driver, a stout young farmer of the higher cla.s.s of tenants, and he looked down compa.s.sionately on the boy's pale countenance and weary stride. ”Perhaps we are going the same way, and I can give you a lift?”

It was Randal's habitual policy to make use of every advantage proffered to him, and he accepted the proposal frankly enough to please the honest farmer.

”A nice day, sir,” said the latter, as Randal sat by his side. ”Have you come far?”

”From Rood Hall.”

”Oh, you be young Squire Leslie,” said the farmer, more respectfully, and lifting his hat.

”Yes, my name is Leslie. You know Rood, then?”

”I was brought up on your father's land, sir. You may have heard of Farmer Bruce?”

RANDAL.--”I remember, when I was a little boy, a Mr. Bruce who rented, I believe, the best part of our land, and who used to bring us cakes when he called to see my father. He is a relation of yours?”

FARMER BRUCE.--”He was my uncle. He is dead now, poor man.”

RANDAL.-”Dead! I am grieved to hear it. He was very kind to us children.

But it is long since he left my father's farm.”

FARMER BRUCE (apologetically).--”I am sure he was very sorry to go. But, you see, he had an unexpected legacy--”

RANDAL.--”And retired from business?”

FARMER BRUCE.--”No. But, having capital, he could afford to pay a good rent for a real good farm.”

RANDAL (bitterly).--”All capital seems to fly from the lands of Rood.

And whose farm did he take?”

FARMER BRUCE.--”He took Hawleigh, under Squire Hazeldean. I rent it now.

We've laid out a power o' money on it. But I don't complain. It pays well.”