or else tell him I gave it you; for he’s threatening to distrain for it, and it’ll all be out soon, whether I tell him or not. He said, just now, before he went out, he should send word to Cox to distrain, if Fowler didn’t come and pay up his arrears this week. The Squire’s short o’ cash, and in no humour to stand any nonsense; and you know what he threatened, if ever he found you making away with his money again. So, see and get the money, and pretty quickly, will you?”
“Oh!” said Dunsey, sneeringly, coming nearer to his brother and looking in his face. “Suppose, now, you get the money yourself, and save me the trouble, eh? Since you was so kind as to hand it over to me, you’ll not refuse me the kindness to pay it back for me: it was your brotherly love made you do it, you know.”
Godfrey bit his lips and clenched his fist. “Don’t come near me with that look, else I’ll knock you down.”
“Oh no, you won’t,” said Dunsey, turning away on his heel, however. “Because I’m such a good-natured brother, you know. I might get you turned out of house and home, and cut off with a shilling any day. I might tell the Squire how his handsome son was married to that nice young woman, Molly Farren, and was very unhappy because he couldn’t live with his drunken wife, and I should slip into your place as comfortable as could be. But you see, I don’t do it—I’m so easy and good-natured. You’ll take any trouble for me. You’ll get the hundred pounds for me—I know you will.”
“How can I get the money?” said Godfrey, quivering. “I haven’t a shilling to bless myself with. And it’s a lie that you’d slip into my place: you’d get yourself turned out too, that’s all. For if you begin telling tales, I’ll follow. Bob’s my father’s favourite—you know that very well. He’d only think himself well rid of you.”
“Never mind,” said Dunsey, nodding his head sideways as he looked out of the window. “It ’ud be very pleasant to me to go in your company—you’re such a handsome brother, and we’ve always been so fond of quarrelling with one another, I shouldn’t know what to do without you. But you’d like better for us both to stay at home together; I know you would. So you’ll manage to get that little sum o’ money, and I’ll bid you good-bye, though I’m sorry to part.”
Dunstan was moving off, but Godfrey rushed after him and seized him by the arm, saying, with an oath—
“I tell you, I have no money: I can get no money.”
“Borrow of old Kimble.”
“I tell you, he won’t lend me any more, and I shan’t ask him.”
“Well, then, sell Wildfire.”
“Yes, that’s easy talking. I must have the money directly.”
“Well, you’ve only got to ride him to the hunt to-morrow. There’ll be Bryce and Keating there, for sure. You’ll get more bids than one.”
“I daresay, and get back home at eight o’clock, splashed up to the chin. I’m going to Mrs. Osgood’s birthday dance.”
“Oho!” said Dunsey, turning his head on one side, and trying to speak in a small mincing treble. “And there’s sweet Miss Nancy coming; and we shall dance with her, and promise never to be naughty again, and be taken into favour, and—”
“Hold your tongue about Miss Nancy, you fool,” said Godfrey, turning red, “else I’ll throttle you.”
“What for?” said Dunsey, still in an artificial tone, but taking a whip from the table and beating the butt-end of it on his palm. “You’ve a very good chance. I’d advise you to creep up her sleeve again: it ’ud be saving time, if Molly should happen to take a drop too much laudanum some day, and make a widower of you. Miss Nancy wouldn’t mind being a second, if she didn’t know it. And you’ve got a good-natured brother, who’ll keep your secret well, because you’ll be so very obliging to him.”
“I’ll tell you what it is,” said Godfrey, quivering, and pale again, “my patience is pretty near at an end. If you’d a little more sharpness in you, you might know that you may urge a man a bit too far, and make one leap as easy as another. I don’t know but what it is so now: I may as well tell the Squire everything myself—I should get you off my back, if I got nothing else. And, after all, he’ll know some time. She’s been threatening to come herself and tell him. So, don’t flatter yourself that your secrecy’s worth any price you choose to ask. You drain me of money till I have got nothing to pacify her with, and she’ll do as she threatens some day. It’s all one. I’ll tell my father everything myself, and you may go to the devil.”
Dunsey perceived that he had overshot his mark, and that there was a point at which even the hesitating Godfrey might be driven into decision. But he said, with an air of unconcern—
“As you please; but I’ll have a draught of ale first.” And ringing the bell, he threw himself across two chairs, and began to rap the window-seat with the handle of his whip.
Godfrey stood, still with his back to the fire, uneasily moving his fingers among the contents of his side-pockets, and looking at the floor. That big muscular frame of his held plenty of animal courage, but helped him to no decision when the dangers to be braved were such as could neither be knocked down nor throttled. His natural irresolution and moral cowardice were exaggerated by a position in which dreaded consequences seemed to press equally on all sides, and his irritation had no sooner provoked him to defy Dunstan and anticipate all possible betrayals, than the miseries he must bring on himself by such a step seemed more unendurable to him than the present evil. The results of confession were not contingent, they were certain; whereas betrayal was not certain. From the near vision of that certainty he fell back on suspense and vacillation with a sense of repose. The disinherited son of a small squire, equally disinclined to dig and to beg, was almost as helpless as an uprooted tree, which, by the favour of earth and sky, has grown to a handsome bulk on the spot where it first shot upward. Perhaps it would have been possible to think of digging with some cheerfulness if Nancy Lammeter were to be won on those terms; but, since he must irrevocably lose her as well as the inheritance, and must break every tie but the one that degraded him and left him without motive for trying to recover his better self, he could imagine no future for himself on the other side of confession but that of “’listing for a soldier”—the most desperate step, short of suicide, in the eyes of respectable families. No! he would rather trust to casualties than to his own resolve—rather go on sitting at the feast, and sipping the wine he loved, though with the sword hanging over him and terror in his heart, than rush away into the cold darkness where there was no pleasure left. The utmost concession to Dunstan about the horse began to seem easy, compared with the fulfilment of his own threat. But his pride would not let him recommence the conversation otherwise than by continuing the quarrel. Dunstan was waiting for this, and took his ale in shorter draughts than usual.
“It’s just like you,” Godfrey burst out, in a bitter tone, “to talk about my selling Wildfire in that cool way—the last thing I’ve got to call my own, and the best bit of horse-flesh I ever had in my life. And if you’d got a spark of pride in you, you’d be ashamed to see the stables emptied, and everybody sneering about it. But it’s my belief you’d sell yourself, if it was only for the pleasure of making somebody feel he’d got a bad bargain.”
“Aye, aye,” said Dunstan, very placably, “you do me justice, I see. You know I’m a jewel for ’ticing people into bargains. For which reason I advise you to let me sell Wildfire. I’d ride him to the hunt to-morrow for you, with pleasure. I shouldn’t look so handsome as you in the saddle, but it’s the horse they’ll bid for, and not the rider.”
“Yes,
