cause for extravagance now, living here alone; and shall endeavour to free the estate from the burden by degrees. When I die, it will, in accordance with my present purpose, go to your cousin George.' As this was said, John thought he perceived something like a quiver in his father's voice, which, up to that point, had been hard, clear, and unshaken. 'As to that, however, I do not intend to pledge myself,' he continued. 'The estate will now be my own, subject to the claim from Messrs. Bolton's bank. I don't know that there is anything else to be said.'
'Not about business, sir.'
'And it is business, I suppose, that has brought you here—and to Cambridge. I do not know what little things you have of your own in the house.'
'Not much, sir.'
'If there be anything that you wish to take, take it. But with you now, I suppose, money is the only possession that has any value.'
'I should like to have the small portrait of you—the miniature.'
'The miniature of me,' said the father, almost scoffingly, looking up at his son's face, suspiciously. And yet, though he would not show it, he was touched. Only if this were a ruse on the part of the young man, a mock sentiment, a little got-up theatrical pretence—then—then how disgraced he would be in his own estimation at having been moved by such mockery!
The son stood square before his father, disdaining any attempt to evince a supplicating tenderness either by his voice or by his features. 'But, perhaps, you have a special value for it,' he said.
'No, indeed. It is others, not oneself, that ought to have such trifles—that is, if they are of value at all.'
'There is none but myself that can care much for it.'
'There is no one to care at all. No one else that is,' he added, wishing to avoid any further declaration. 'Take that or anything else you want in the house. There will be things left, I suppose—clothes and books and suchlike.'
'Hardly anything, sir. Going so far, I had better give them away. A few books I shall take.' Then the conversation was over; and in a few minutes John Caldigate found himself roaming alone about the place.
It was so probable that he might never see it again! Indeed it seemed to him now that were he to return to England with a fortune made, he would hardly come to Folking. Years and years must roll by before that could be done. If he could only come back to Cambridge and fetch that wife away with him, then he thought it would be better for him to live far from England, whether he were rich or whether he were poor. It was quite evident that his father's heart was turned from him altogether. Of course he had himself to blame—himself only; but still it was strange to him that a father should feel no tenderness at parting with an only son. While he had been in the room he had constrained himself manfully; not a drop of moisture had glittered in his eye; not a tone of feeling had thrilled in his voice; his features had never failed him. There had always been that look of audacity on his brow joined to a certain manliness of good-humour in his mouth, as though he had been thoroughly master of himself and the situation. But now, as he pushed his hat from off his forehead, he rubbed his hand across his eyes to dash away the tears. He felt almost inclined to rush back to the house and fall on his knees before his father, and kiss the old man's hands, and beg the old man's blessing. But though he was potent for much he was not potent for that. Such expression of tenderness would have been true; but he knew that he would so break down in the attempt as to make it seem to be false.
He got out upon Twopenny Drove and passed over the ferry, meaning to walk across the farm and so out on to the Causeway, and round home by the bridge. But on the other side of the Wash he encountered Mr. Ralph Holt, the occupier of Twopenny farm, whose father also and grandfather had lived upon the same acres. 'And so thou be'est going away from us, Mr. John,' said the farmer, with real tenderness, almost with solemnity, in his voice, although there was at the same time something ridiculous in the far-fetched sadness of his tone and gait.
'Yes, indeed, Holt, I want to travel and see the world at a distance from here.'
'If it was no more than that, Mr. John, there would be nothing about it. Zeeing the world! You young collegers allays does that. But be'est thou to come back and be Squoire o'Folking?'
'I think not, Holt, I think not. My father, I hope, will be Squire for many a year.'
'Like enough. And we all hope that, for there aren't nowhere a juster man nor the Squoire, and he's hale and hearty. But in course of things his time'll run out. And it be so, Mr. John, that thou be'est going for ever and allays?'
'I rather think I am.'
'It's wrong, Mr. John. Though maybe I'm making over-free to talk of what don't concern me. Yet I say it's wrong. Sons should come arter fathers, specially where there's land. We don't none of us like it;—none of us! It's worse nor going, any one of ourselves. For what's a lease? But when a man has a freehold he should stick to it for ever and aye. It's just as though the old place was a-tumbling about all our ears.' Caldigate was good-natured with the man, trying to make him understand that everything was being done for the best. And at last he bade him good-bye affectionately, shaking hands with him, and going into the farmhouse to perform the same ceremony with his wife and daughters. But to the last Ralph Holt was uncomfortable and dismal, foretelling miseries. It was clear that, to his thinking, the stability of this world was undermined and destroyed by the very contemplation of such a proceeding as this.
Caldigate pursued his walk, and in the course of it bade farewell to more than one old friend. None of them were so expressive as Holt, but he could perceive that he was regarded by all of them as a person who, by his conduct, was bringing misfortune, not only on himself, but on the whole parishes of Utterden and Netherden.
At dinner the Squire conversed upon various subjects if not easily to himself, at least with affected ease. Had he applied himself to subjects altogether indifferent—to the state of politics, or the Game Laws, or the absurdities of a State Church, the unfitness of such matters for the occasion would have been too apparent. Both he and his son would have broken down in the attempt. But he could talk about Babington—abusing the old family—and even about himself, and about New South Wales, and gold, and the coming voyage, without touching points which had been, and would be, specially painful. Not a word had ever been spoken between them as to Davis. There had, of course, been letters, very angry letters; but the usurer's name had never been mentioned. Nor was there any need that it should be mentioned now. It was John's affair—not in any way his. So he asked and listened to much about Richard Shand, and the mode of gold-finding practised among the diggings in New South Wales.
When the old butler had gone he was even more free, speaking of things that were past, not only without anger, but, as far as possible, without chagrin—treating his son as a person altogether free from any control of his. 'I dare say it is all for the best,' he said.
'It is well at any rate to try to think so, sir,' replied John, conscience-stricken as to his own faults.
'I doubt whether there would have been anything for you to do here—or at least anything that you would have done. You would have had too much ambition to manage this little estate under me, and not enough of industry, I fear, to carry you to the front in any of the professions. I used to think of the bar.'
'And so did I.'
'But when I found that the Babingtons had got hold of you, and that you liked horses and guns, better than words and arguments—'
'I never did, sir.'
'It seemed so.'
'Of
