The Squire's Daughter. Hocking Silas Kitto

David never took his eyes from his face. He seemed waiting for some assurance that his message was understood.

      "We understand, father," Ralph said at length. "No one can turn you out now."

      David smiled again. Then the tears filled his eyes and rolled down his cheeks.

      "You always wanted to end your days here," Ralph went on, "and it looks as if you were going to do it."

      David raised the hand that was not paralysed and pointed upward.

      "There are no leasehold systems there, at any rate," Ralph said, with a gulp. "The earth is the landlord's, but heaven is God's."

      David smiled again, and then closed his eyes. Three hours later a second stroke supervened, and stilled his heart for ever.

      Ralph walked slowly out of the room and into the open air. He felt thankful for many reasons that his father was at rest. And yet, in his heart the feeling grew that John Hamblyn had killed him, and there surged up within him an intense and burning passion to make John Hamblyn suffer something of what he himself was suffering. Why should he go scot free? Why should he live unrebuked, and his conscience be left undisturbed?

      For a moment or two Ralph stood in the garden and looked up at the clouds that were scudding swiftly across the sky. Then he flung open the gate and struck out across the fields. The wind battered and buffeted him and almost took his breath away, but it did not weaken his resolve for a moment. He would go and tell John Hamblyn what he had done – tell him to his face that he had killed his father; ay, and tell him that as surely as there was justice in the world he would not go unpunished.

      Over the brow of the hill he turned, and down into Dingley Bottom, and then up the long slant toward Treliskey Plantation. He scarcely heeded the wind that was blowing half a gale, and appeared to be increasing in violence every minute.

      The gate that Dorothy's horse had broken had been mended long since, and the notice board repainted:

      "Trespassers will be Prosecuted."

      He gritted his teeth unconsciously as the white letters stared him in the face. He had heard his father tell that from time immemorial here had been a public thoroughfare, till Sir John took the law into his own hands, and flung a gate across it and warned the public off with a threat of prosecution.

      But what cared he about the threat? John Hamblyn could prosecute him if he liked. He was going to tell him what he thought of him, and he was going the nearest way.

      He vaulted lightly over the gate, and hurried along without a pause. In the shadow of the trees he scarcely felt the violence of the wind, but he heard it roaring in the branches above him, like the sound of an incoming tide.

      He reached the manor, and pulled violently at the door bell.

      "Is your master at home?" he said to the boy in buttons who opened the door.

      "Yes – "

      "Then tell him I want to see him at once," he went on hurriedly, and he followed the boy into the hall.

      A moment later he was standing before Sir John in his library.

      The baronet looked at him with a scowl. He disliked him intensely, and had never forgiven him for being the cause – as he believed – of his daughter's accident. Moreover, he had no proper respect for his betters, and withal possessed a biting tongue.

      "Well, young man, what brought you here?" he said scornfully.

      "I came on foot," was the reply, and Ralph threw as much scorn into his voice as the squire had done.

      "Oh, no doubt – no doubt!" the squire said, bridling. "But I have no time to waste in listening to impertinences. What is your business?"

      "I came to tell you that my father is dead."

      "Dead!" Sir John gasped. "No, surely? I never heard he was ill!"

      "He was taken with a stroke early yesterday morning, and he died an hour ago."

      "Only an hour ago? Dear me!"

      "I came straight away from his deathbed to let you know that you had killed him."

      "That I had killed him!" Sir John exclaimed, with a gasp.

      "You might have seen it in his face, when you told him that you had let the farm over his head, and that he was to be turned out of the little home he had built with his own hands."

      "I gave him fair notice, more than he could legally claim," Sir John said, looking very white and distressed.

      "I am not talking about the law," Ralph said hurriedly. "If you had behaved like a Christian, my father would have been alive to-day. But the blow you struck him killed him. He never smiled again till this morning, when he knew he was dying. I am glad he is gone. But as surely as you punished us, God will punish you."

      "What, threatening, young man?" Sir John replied, stepping back and clenching his fists.

      "No, I am not threatening," Ralph said quietly. "But as surely as you stand there, and I stand here, some day we shall be quits," and he turned on his heel and walked out of the room.

      Outside the wind was roaring like an angry lion and snapping tree branches like matchwood. A little distance from the house he met a gardener, who told him there was no road through the plantation. But Ralph only smiled at him and walked on.

      He was feeling considerably calmer since his interview with Sir John. It had been a relief to him to fling off what was on his mind. He was conscious that his heart was less bitter and revengeful. He only thought once of Dorothy, and he quickly dismissed her from his mind. He wished that he could dismiss her so effectually that the thought of her would never come back. It was something of a humiliation that constantly, and in the most unexpected ways, her face came up before him, and her sweet, winning eyes looked pleadingly and sometimes reproachfully into his.

      But he was master of himself to-day. At any rate he was so far master of himself that no thought of the squire's "little maid" could soften his heart toward the squire. He hurried back home at the same swinging pace as he came. It was a house of mourning to which he journeyed, but his mother and Ruth would need him. He was the only one now upon whom they could lean, and he would have to play the man, and make the burden for them as light as possible.

      He scarcely heeded the wind. His thoughts were too full of other things. In the heart of the plantation the branches were still snapping as the trees bent before the fury of the gale. He rather liked the sound. Nature was in an angry mood, and it accorded well with his own temper. It would have been out of place if the wind had slept on the day his father died.

      He was hardly able to realise yet that his father was dead. It seemed too big and too overwhelming a fact to be comprehended all at once. It seemed impossible that that gentle presence had gone from him for ever. He wondered why he did not weep. Surely no son ever loved a father more than he did, and yet no tear had dimmed his eyes as yet, no sob had gathered in his throat.

      Over his head the branch of a tree flew past that had been ripped by the gale from its moorings.

      "Hallo," he said, with a smile. "This is getting serious," and he turned into the middle of the road and hurried on again.

      A moment or two later a sudden blow on the head struck him to the earth. For several seconds he lay perfectly still just where he fell. Then a sharp spasm of pain caused him to sit up and stare about him with a bewildered expression in his eyes. What had happened he did not know. He raised his right hand to his head almost mechanically – for the seat of the pain was there – then drew it slowly away and looked at it. It was dyed red and dripping wet.

      He struggled to his feet after a few moments, and tried to walk. It was largely an unconscious effort, for he did not know where he was, or where he wanted to go to; and when he fell again and struck the hard ground with his face, he was scarcely aware that he had fallen.

      In a few minutes he was on his feet again, but the world was dark by this time. Something had come up before his eyes and shut out everything. A noise was in his ears, but it was not the roaring of the wind in the trees; he reeled and stumbled heavily with his head against a bank of heather. Then the noise grew still, and the pain