no, my dear, don’t bother me. I don’t want to sit down, Glynne.”
“Yes, yes, dear, and tell me all about it.”
Fighting against it all the while, the choleric baronet allowed himself to be pressed down into one of the easy-chairs, Glynne drawing a footstool to his side, sitting at his feet, and clasping and resting her hands upon his knees.
“Well, there, now; are you satisfied?” he said, half laughing, half angry.
“No, papa. I want to know why you and uncle quarrelled.”
“Oh, the old reason,” said Sir John, colouring. “He will be as obstinate as a mule, and the more you try to reason with him, the more he turns to you his hind legs and kicks.”
“Did you try to reason with Uncle James, papa?”
“Did I try to reason with him? Why, of course I did, but you might as well try to reason with a stone trough.”
“What was it about?” said Glynne, quietly.
“What was it about? Oh, about the – about the – bless my soul, what did it begin about? Some, some, some – dear me, how absurd, Glynne. He upset me so that it has completely gone out of my head. What do you mean? What do you mean by shaking your head like that? Confound it all, Glynne, are you going to turn against me?”
“Oh, papa, papa, how sad it is,” said Glynne, gently. “You have upset poor uncle like this all about some trifle of so little consequence that you have even forgotten what it was.”
“I beg your pardon, madam,” cried Sir John, trying to rise, but Glynne laid her hand upon his chest and kept him back. “It was no trifle, and it is no joke for your Uncle James to launch out in his confounded haughty, military way, and try to take the reins from my hands. I’m master here. I remember now; it was about Rob.”
“Indeed, papa!” said Glynne, with a sad tone in her voice.
“Yes, finding fault about his training. I don’t want him to go about like some confounded foot-racing fellow, but he’s my son-in-law elect, and he shall do as he pleases. What next, I wonder? Your uncle will be wanting to manage my farm.”
Glynne remained very thoughtful and silent for a few minutes, during which time her father continued to fume, and utter expressions of annoyance, till Glynne said suddenly as she looked up in his face, —
“You were wrong, papa, dear. You should not quarrel with Uncle James.”
“Wrong? Wrong? Why, the girl’s mad,” cried Sir John. “Do you approve of his taking your future husband to task over his amusements?”
“I don’t know,” said Glynne slowly, as she turned her great, frank-looking eyes upon her father. “I don’t know, papa, dear. I don’t think I do; but Uncle James is so good and wise, and I know he loves me very much.”
“Of course he does; so does everybody else,” cried the baronet, excitedly. “I should like to see the man who did not. But I will not have his interference here, and I’m very glad – very glad indeed – that he is going.”
“Uncle James meant it for the best, I’m sure, papa,” said Glynne, thoughtfully, “and it was wrong of you to quarrel with him.”
“I tell you I did not quarrel with him, Glynne; he quarrelled with me,” roared Sir John.
“And you ought to go and apologise to him.”
“I’d go and hang myself sooner. I’d sooner go and commit suicide in my new patent thrashing-machine.”
“Nonsense, papa, dear,” said Glynne quietly. “You ought to go and apologise. If you don’t, Uncle James will leave us.”
“Let him.”
“And then you will be very much put out and grieved.”
“And a good job too. I mean a good job if he’d leave, for then we should have peace in the place.”
“Now, papa!”
“I tell you I’d be very glad of it; a confounded peppery old Nero, talking to me as if I were a private under him. Bully me, indeed! I won’t stand it. There!”
“Papa, dear, go upstairs and apologise to Uncle James.”
“I won’t, Glynne. There’s an end of it now. Just because he can’t have everything his own way. He has never forgiven me for being the eldest son and taking the baronetcy. Was it my fault that I was born first?”
“Now, papa, dear, that’s talking at random; I don’t believe Uncle James ever envied you for having the title.”
“Then he shouldn’t act as if he did. Confound him!”
“Then you’ll go up and speak to him. Come, dear, don’t let’s have this cloud over the house!”
“Cloud? I’ll make it a regular tempest,” cried Sir John, furiously. “I’ll go upstairs and see that he does go, and at once. See if I ferret him out of his nasty, dark, stuffy, dismal chambers again. Brought him down here, and made a healthy, hearty man of him, and this is my reward.”
“Is that you talking, papa?” said Glynne, rising with him, for he made a rush now out of his seat, and she smiled in his face as she put her arms round his neck and kissed him.
“Bah! Get out! Pst! Puss!” cried Sir John, and swinging round, he strode out of the library, and banged the door as if he had caught his brother’s habit.
Glynne stood looking after him, smiling as she listened to his steps on the polished oak floor of the hall, and then seemed quite satisfied as she detected the fact that he had gone upstairs. Then it was that a dreamy, strange look came into her eyes, and she stood there, with one hand resting upon the table, thinking – thinking – thinking of the cause of the quarrel, of the words her uncle had spoken regarding Rolph; and it seemed to her that there was a mist before her, stretching out farther and farther, and hiding the future.
For the major was always so gentle and kind to her. He never spoke to her about Rolph as he had spoken to her father; but she had noticed that he was a little cold and sarcastic sometimes towards her lover.
Was there trouble coming? Did she love Robert as dearly as she should?
She wanted answers to these questions, and the responses were hidden in the mist ahead. Then, as she gazed, it seemed to her that her future was like the vast space into which she had looked from her window by night; and though for a time it was brightened with dazzling, hopeful points, these again became clouded over, and all was misty and dull once more.
Volume One – Chapter Twelve.
The Professor in Company
Sir John went upstairs furiously, taking three steps at a time – twice. Then he finished that flight two at a time; walked fast up the first half of the second flight, one step at a time; slowly up the second half; paused on the landing, and then went deliberately along the corridor, with its row of painted ancestors watching him from one side, as if wondering when he was coming to join them there.
Sir John Day was a man who soon made up his mind, whether it was about turning an arable field into
