Part 10 (1/2)

”Quite proper!” interposed the farmer.

”And you take this opportunity of insulting me afresh. You're a coward, sir! n.o.body but a coward would have insulted me in his own house.”

”Sit ye down, sit ye down, young master,” said the farmer, indicating the chair and cooling the outburst with his hand. ”Sit ye down. Don't ye be hasty. If ye hadn't been hasty t'other day, we sh'd a been friends yet. Sit ye down, sir. I sh'd be sorry to reckon you out a liar, Mr. Feverel, or anybody o' your name. I respects yer father though we're opp'site politics. I'm willin' to think well o'

you. What I say is, that as you say an't the trewth. Mind! I don't like you none the worse for't. But it an't what is. That's all! You knows it as well's I!”

Richard, disdaining to show signs of being pacified, angrily reseated himself. The farmer spoke sense, and the boy, after his late interview with Austin, had become capable of perceiving vaguely that a towering pa.s.sion is hardly the justification for a wrong course of conduct.

”Come,” continued the farmer, not unkindly, ”what else have you to say?”

Here was the same bitter cup he had already once drained br.i.m.m.i.n.g at Richard's lips again! Alas, poor human nature! that empties to the dregs a dozen of these evil drinks, to evade the single one which Destiny, less cruel, had insisted upon.

The boy blinked and tossed it off.

”I came to say that I regretted the revenge I had taken on you for your striking me.”

Farmer Blaize nodded.

”And now ye've done, young gentleman?”

Still another cupful!

”I should be very much obliged,” Richard formally began, but his stomach was turned; he could but sip and sip, and gather a distaste which threatened to make the penitential act impossible. ”Very much obliged,” he repeated: ”much obliged, if you would be so kind,” and it struck him that had he spoken this at first he would have given it a wording more persuasive with the farmer and more worthy of his own pride: more honest, in fact: for a sense of the dishonesty of what he was saying caused him to cringe and simulate humility to deceive the farmer, and the more he said the less he felt his words, and, feeling them less, he inflated them more. ”So kind,” he stammered, ”so kind” (fancy a Feverel asking this big brute to be so kind!) ”as to do me the favour” (_me_ the favour!) ”to exert yourself” (it's all to please Austin) ”to endeavour to--hem! to”

(there's no saying it!)----

The cup was full as ever. Richard dashed at it again.

”What I came to ask is, whether you would have the kindness to try what you could do” (what an infamous shame to have to beg like this!) ”do to save--do to ensure--whether you would have the kindness”---- It seemed out of all human power to gulp it down. The draught grew more and more abhorrent. To proclaim one's iniquity, to apologize for one's wrongdoing; thus much could be done; but to beg a favour of the offended party--that was beyond the self-abas.e.m.e.nt any Feverel could consent to. Pride, however, whose inevitable battle is against itself, drew aside the curtains of poor Tom's prison, crying a second time, ”Behold your Benefactor!” and, with the words burning in his ears, Richard swallowed the dose:

”Well, then, I want you, Mr. Blaize,--if you don't mind--will you help me to get this man Bakewell off his punishment?”

To do Farmer Blaize justice, he waited very patiently for the boy, though he could not quite see why he did not take the gate at the first offer.

”Oh!” said he, when he heard and had pondered on the request. ”Hum!

ha! we'll see about it t'morrow. But if he's innocent, you know, we shan't mak'n guilty.”

”It was I did it!” Richard declared.

The farmer's half-amused expression sharpened a bit.

”So, young gentleman! and you're sorry for the night's work?”

”I shall see that you are paid the full extent of your losses.”

”Thank'ee,” said the farmer drily.

”And, if this poor man is released to-morrow, I don't care what the amount is.”