King of the Castle. Fenn George Manville

mind them.”

      “I came again at the end of another three months in fine weather.”

      “And you have been here several times since. Go on.”

      “Yes, sir,” said Glyddyr, smiling; “but are all fathers like you?”

      “No,” said Gartram, with a hoarse laugh; “I am the only one of my kind. There, we have had enough preamble, Parry Glyddyr. Out with it.”

      “I will, sir. You say you are not blind. You know, then, that I was deeply impressed by Miss Gartram the first time we met. I treated it as a temporary fancy, but the feeling has grown upon me, till I can only think of doing one thing – coming to you as a gentleman, telling you frankly I love Miss Gartram, and asking your permission to visit here regularly as her accepted suitor.”

      “What does Claude say to this?”

      “Miss Gartram?” said Glyddyr, raising his eyebrows, and removing the grey ash from the end of his cigar; “nothing, sir. How could I be other than the ordinary acquaintance without your sanction?”

      “Quite right,” said Gartram, looking at him searchingly, “how, indeed?” and he remained gazing at the unshrinking countenance before him, full of candour and surprise at his ignorance of etiquette till he covered his own eyes. “Then Claude knows nothing of this?”

      “I hope and believe, sir, that she knows a great deal, but not from my lips. Women, I believe, are very quick in knowing when they are admired.”

      “Humph! And you like my daughter, Mr Glyddyr?” said Gartram, exhaling a huge cloud of smoke.

      “I love Miss Gartram very dearly, sir,” said the visitor frankly; “so well that I dare not even think of the consequence of a refusal.”

      “Broken heart, suicide and that sort of thing, eh?”

      “I hope I should never make a fool of myself, Mr Gartram,” said Glyddyr coldly.

      “So do I. Now look here, sir. I gave up society to become a business man – slave driver some people politely call me; but as a tradesman I have been so tricked and swindled by everybody, even my banker, that I have grown suspicious.”

      “I don’t wonder, sir. Without going into trade, a man has to keep his eyes open to the rascality of the world.”

      “Yes,” said Gartram, scanning the speaker keenly still. “Then now, sir, let me ask you a question.”

      “By all means; as many as you like.”

      “Then pray, sir, if my daughter had been a penniless girl, would you have felt this deep admiration for her?”

      “Mr Gartram!” said Glyddyr haughtily, as he flushed deeply and rose from his chair. “Bah!” he added, after a pause, and he let himself sink back, and smoked heavily for a few moments. “Stupid to be so put out. Quite a natural question. Really, sir,” he said, smiling, and looking ingenuously in the old man’s face, “fate has been so kind to me over money matters that fortune-hunting has not been one of my pursuits. In round numbers, my father left me three hundred thousand pounds. Golden armour, sir, against the arrows of poverty, and such as turns aside so fierce a stab as that of yours. Has Miss Gartram any money?”

      “Humph! I have,” said the old man roughly.

      “If she has, so much the better,” continued Glyddyr, smoking calmly, and evidently thoroughly enjoying his cigar. “A lady with a private purse of her own no doubt occupies a more happy and independent position than one who appeals to her husband for all she wants. I am sorry that our conversation has taken this turn, Mr Gartram,” he added stiffly.

      “I’m not, Glyddyr. It has shown you up in another light. Well, what do you want me to say?”

      “To say, sir?” cried the young man eagerly.

      “Yes. There, I don’t think I need say anything. Yes, I do. I don’t like the idea of Claude marrying any one, but nature is nature. I shall be carried off some day by a fit, I suppose, and when I am, I believe – slave driver as I am, and oppressor of the poor, as they call me, for making Danmouth a prosperous place, and paying thousands a year in wages – I should rest more comfortably if I knew my child was married to the man she loved.”

      “Mr Gartram.”

      “I haven’t done, Glyddyr.”

      There was a pause, during which the old man seemed to look his visitor through and through. Then he held out his hand with a quick, sharp movement.

      “Yes,” he said; “I like you, my lad: I always did. You think too much of sport; but you’ll weary of that, and your whole thoughts will be of the best and truest girl that ever lived.”

      “Then you consent, Mr Gartram?” cried Glyddyr with animation.

      “No: I consent to nothing. You’ve got to win her first. I give you my leave, though, to win if you can; and if you do marry her – well, I daresay I can afford to buy her outfit – trousseau – what you may call it.”

      “Mr Gartram – ”

      “That will do. Be cool. You haven’t won her yet, my lad.”

      “I may speak to her at once?”

      “If you like; but my advice is – don’t. Lead up to it gently – make sure of her before you speak. There, I’m a busy man, and I’ve got to go up the east river to look at a vein of stone which crops up there. Take another cigar, and walk with me – if you like.”

      “I will, sir. Try one of mine.”

      “Yes,” said Gartram laconically; and as they went out into the hall, he purposely picked out his worst hat from the stand, and put it on.

      “Old chap wants to make me shy at him, and show that I don’t like walking through the town with that hat. Got hold of the wrong pig by the ear,” said Glyddyr to himself.

      They walked along the granite terrace, with its crenellated parapet and row of imitation guns, laboriously chipped out of the granite; and then out through the gateway and over the moat, and descended to the village, reaching the path leading to the east glen, and were soon walking beside the rushing salmon river, with Gartram pointing out great veins of good granite as it cropped out of the side of the deep ravine.

      “Hang his confounded stone!” said Glyddyr to himself, after he had made several attempts to change the drift of the conversation.

      “Fine bit of stuff that, sir,” said his companion, pointing across the river with his heavy stick. “I believe I could cut a monolith twenty feet long out of that rock, but the brutes won’t let me have it. My solicitor has fought for it hard, but they stick to it, and money won’t tempt them. I believe that was the beginning of my sleeplessness – insomnia, as Asher calls it.”

      “Asher?”

      “Yes; our doctor. You must know him. Pleasant, smooth-spoken fellow in black.”

      “Oh, yes; of course.”

      “Worried me a deal, that did.”

      “And you suffer from insomnia?”

      “Horribly. Keep something to exorcise the demon, though,” he said laughingly, taking a small bottle from his pocket. “Chloral.”

      “Dangerous stuff, sir. Take it cautiously.”

      “I take it as my medical man advises.”

      “That is right. Of course I remember Doctor Asher, and that other young friend of yours – the naturalist and salmon fisherman, and – ”

      “Oh, Lisle. Yes; sort of ward of mine. I am his trustee.”

      “Quite an old friend, then, sir?”

      “Yes; and – eh?” said the old man laughingly. “Why, Glyddyr, I can read you like a book. Is there, or has there ever been, anything between Claude and Christopher Lisle? I should think not, indeed. Rubbish, man, rubbish! and – ”

      They had just turned one of the