yet had man gone forth to his daily toil, and there was peaceful slumber in the trim cottage and the snug farmhouse alike. Now and then the shrill cry of the petted peacock awoke the woods, or the clamour of the early cock.
Sir Watkin lingered to enjoy the loveliness of the rural scene and the freshness of the morning air. For awhile something even of sentiment filled his heart. What had he done that all that lovely landscape should he his? How could he have lived as he had in London and Paris, in Vienna or Rome? Was it true that there was a God, as they told him in church, and as he had learned on his mother’s knee – who had given him all these things richly to enjoy, and would demand, sooner or later, an account of his stewardship? Then he looked at the glass, and was shocked as he saw how bloodshot were his eyes, how dark the skin underneath; how clear were the lines marked by dissipation on his cheek and brow.
Well, it was time he settled down. He had not behaved well to his first wife, he admitted, but that was no reason why be should not treat his second wife well. Then he was little better than a lad – now he was a man who had seen something of the world and who knew the value of peace and quietness. And so resolving, he dismissed his man and undressed.
Even then sleep was shy in coming. He had a puzzle to distract him to which he could find no answer. What had that old tipsy female at the cattle-show got to tell him? – what was the secret she pretended to have in her possession? Was the mystery ever to be solved? He had seen in her something to remind him of a girl who had once been in his service, but it could not be her. Surely she had not become what he saw. Sir Watkin forgot that the beauty of a woman, when she takes to drink and low company, is of a very evanescent character.
Sleep – Nature’s restorer, balmy sleep – how hard it is to get when you want it! The morrow was to be an important day. It was to decide his fate. The fair guest had looked lovingly on him as she left the drawing-room. There was something in the way in which her hand lingered in his own that suggested to the Baronet hope. The worldly-minded father was, at any rate, safe, and was prepared to invest handsomely in a titled son-in-law. He, the latter, had been of late in a somewhat shady state; there were many whispers about him in society, and not to his credit. It was clear that in certain transactions, like other young and foolish scions (considering how they are brought up it is almost impossible for them to be otherwise), he had suffered considerable pecuniary loss – or, in other words, been uncommonly well fleeced. Stately dames who ruled in Belgravia did not seem to him as genial as formerly; doors that were once opened freely were now closed. Low Radical newspapers occasionally hinted that he was no credit to the class who neither toil nor spin. It even began to dawn on the Baronet that his career had not been a brilliant one.
Half sleeping and half waking, there came to him unpleasant thoughts, and dreams equally so – of women whom he had betrayed, of friends who had trusted to him in vain, of splendid opportunities he had missed, of time and strength frittered away on trifles, or what was worse. He must yet be a power in the land – he would yet leave behind him a name – he would yet have the world at his feet. With a title and with money what cannot a man do in this land of ours? asked the Baronet of himself. Fellows of whom he thought nothing, whom he knew as inferiors at Eton or at College – poor, patient, spiritless plodders – had passed him in that battle of life which after all is only a Vanity Fair.
Such thoughts as these kept the Baronet wide awake, much to his disgust. It was the dinner, it was the wine, it was the cigar that kept him awake. Perhaps they did. But there was something else that did so, though the Baronet did not see it – the accusal of a conscience in which he did not believe, the workings of a divine law which he laughed at.
The next day no one was up early, and no one made his appearance at the breakfast-table save the elderly members of the party. Most of the gentlemen visitors overslept themselves, and the ladies were served in their own rooms. Then came the carriages and the departure of the guests – some to town, some to fashionable health resorts. Business required the presence of the great merchant in London, and he took his daughter with him. Sir Watkin managed to get down in time to see them off, and to promise to follow them next day. The lady left quite content; she knew what was to come, and what would be her reply.
Very dull and gloomy seemed the old house as the company one by one departed. Sir Watkin took up the morning papers – there was nothing in them; the society journals – he was better informed than their writers. No novel could interest him in his then state of mind. He had a headache; he would go for a ride, a sovereign remedy for such maladies as gentlemen in his station suffer from. Accordingly the horse was brought round, and he was in the saddle. He would be back before dark, and did not require his groom, and he trotted gaily away from the ancestral Hall under the ancestral oaks, along the gravelled drive through the park, feeling a little fresher for the effort. He would see his steward, and have a talk with him on business matters.
At the lodge-gate he stopped for a moment to order a general smartening up of that quarter. Alas! on the other side was an objectionable old woman, a friend who had before given him so much trouble. Sir Watkin’s disgust was only equalled by his anger. He was in no amiable mood, as the old woman clearly saw. She almost wished she had not come; she felt all of a tremble, as she said, as she asked him kindly to stop and hear what she had got to say. He muttered something very much unlike a blessing on his tormentor. He would have ridden over her had he not stopped his horse, which strongly opposed the idea of stopping. Could that old creature have any claim on him? The idea was ridiculous. And as to listening to her, why, that was quite out of the question for so fine a gentleman. She made an effort to clutch the rein. The high-spirited steed resented the indignity. In the scuffle the Baronet was unseated, and was taken up insensible.
‘Sure ’nough he’s dead as a stone,’ said the ploughman, who had first noticed him.
‘He’s nothing of the kind,’ said the gate-keeper, who was soon on the spot, ‘Get on the horse and ride to Sloville for the doctor,’ said he to the ploughman, while he and the other servants bore the body to the lodge-gate, where it was laid upon a bed.
The doctor came. ‘No bones broken,’ said he, after a cursory examination, ‘but a severe concussion of the brain. Draw down the blinds; put ice on his forehead; keep him quiet, and he may yet rally. In the meantime I will telegraph to London for the great surgeon, Sir Henry Johnson. If anybody can save him he can.’
The hours that day in that low lodge moved very slowly. No wife, no mother, no sister was there. The old mother had left that day for Scotland. Only one sister was alive, and she was with her husband in Italy; only the housekeeper from the Hall was there to sit and watch and sigh, for she had known Sir Watkin from a baby, and was as proud of him as it behoved her to be, never believing any of the scandals connected with his name, and, indeed, scarcely hearing of them, for his wilder life was out of her sight and hearing. At home he was the model English gentleman; and then, again, when evil things were said of him, she refused to listen.
‘It was not her place,’ she said, ‘to hear bad spoken of any of the family of which she and hers generations before had been retainers.’
About mid-day came a telegram to say that the great Sir Henry was coming down, and that there was to be a carriage at the railway-station to meet him. In a couple of hours after came Sir Henry himself – a calm, dignified man of science, who lived in a world of which science is god, and was interested in humanity as a subject of dissection or operation. Apart from that, he had a poor opinion of human nature.
‘It is a bad case – very bad,’ said he to the country doctor, who had explained to him all the particulars of the accident. ‘It is a very bad case, but I think science is equal to the emergency. I suppose we must have an operation. I have brought my assistant with me, and my case of instruments. We’d better begin at once.’ Turning to look at the insensible patient, the great Sir Henry exclaimed: ‘I have come down for nothing; Sir Watkin is dead!’
CHAPTER
