FullReads

One grey afternoon he took the old road to the sea again. The wind was crying drearily, and the trees creaked as they swayed to each swift gust. He shivered when he came in sight of the sea, for the low sky was leaden. The very foam looked dull. Every few seconds came a muffled boom, as a roller shattered itself against the rocks, and a tower of spray shot up and fell on the sodden grass.

The wild flowers were gone, and the bents bowed themselves cheerlessly.

How many things else were gone! How many things else were cheerless!

He turned round when he could bear waiting no longer, and prepared to carry his miseries home. Something ill must have happened. At the bluff of the shrubbery where he had first seen Mary pass out of sight he heard a step, but it was not that sharp, steady step he had learnt to know so well. He was face to face with Mr. Casely. It had come at last. For weeks he had foreshadowed this meeting in his dreams, and the fear had so worked on him that he had learned a trick of glancing suddenly over his shoulder. Casely looked steadily down at the young Squire for a time that seemed long, and then, unclenching his tense jaw, said quietly–

“It wasn’t me you were expecting to meet.”

“I didn’t expect to meet you. No; how do you come to be passing this way?”

“I’ve been up to the Hall seeing your grandfather. You know what I’ve been for very near as well as I do. And now I have to talk to you. Speak straight, or I’ll break you in two across my knee.”

Ellington was not more of a coward than other men. But he didn’t heed the threat. His grandfather know. Nothing else was in his stunned mind. He stood staring–unable to get a word past his lips. Casely spoke, louder–

“What ails you? Have I to hit you?”

Then the young fellow found his voice.

“I wish you would. I wish you would kill me where I stand. I’m all in the wrong, and I have no right to answer you. It began well–I mean, I meant no harm. Never any man dared offer one of us a blow before, but it has come to that now. I wouldn’t lift a hand to stop you. I haven’t an excuse to give you.”

“A nice thing it is for your father’s son to be standing slavering there and cowering to me like a whelp. I don’t despise you for it, for I know what you mean; but isn’t it bonny? You haven’t an excuse! Have you nothing else–not a promise like them you’ve made to the lass?”

“I’d marry her now, but I know it would be a hundred thousand times worse for her than if she married a common sailor man. I’m past wretchedness. It couldn’t be.”

“And what about her? And, what about me? How is it for us? Now, look you, my fine young man! I’ll not stop a minute longer, or else there’ll be murder. But I’ll tell you this much. I know as well as you there can be nothing more. I’m not mad. She can’t marry you, and you knew that before you started lying to her. It’s all over, and we must face the folk in the place the best way we can. You’re sorry, I see you are; but understand this–sorry or not, if it wasn’t that me and my forebears has had nothing but good from them that went before you, and was better than you, I’d kill you now, and reckon you no more than a herring. You’d better get away out of my sight.”

Then Mr. Casely tramped towards the wicket, and went home. He sat long into the night, and when he went to bed he flung himself on the coverlid with his clothes on. Towards morning he said aloud–“I’m glad he didn’t think to offer me money. If he had, I would have pulled his windpipe out.”