The Greatest Novels of Charles Reade. Charles Reade Reade

had to wait in the outer office for full ten minutes.

      Then a door opened, and the client in question came out, looking mortified and anxious. It was Squire Peyton. At sight of Gaunt, who had risen to take his vacant place, Kate's father gave him a stiff nod, and an unfriendly glance, then hurried away.

      Griffith was hurt at his manner. He knew very well Mr. Peyton looked higher for his daughter than Griffith Gaunt: but for all that the old gentleman had never shown him any personal dislike or incivility until this moment.

      So Griffith could not but fear that Neville was somehow at the bottom of this, and that the combination was very strong against him. Now in thus interpreting Mr. Peyton's manner, he fell into a very common error and fruitful cause of misunderstanding. We go and fancy that Everybody is thinking of us. But he is not: he is like us; he is thinking of himself.

      "Well, well," thought Griffith, "if I am not to have her, what better place for me than the grave?"

      He entered Mr. Houseman's private room and opened his business at once.

      But a singular concurrence of circumstances induced Lawyer Houseman to confide to a third party the substance of what passed between this young gentleman and himself. So, to avoid repetition, the best way will be to let Houseman tell this part of my tale instead of me: and I only hope his communication, when it comes, may be half as interesting to my reader as it was to his hearer.

      Suffice it for me to say that lawyer and client were closeted a good hour; and were still conversing together, when a card was handed in to Mr. Houseman that seemed to cause him both surprise and pleasure. "In five minutes," said he to the clerk. Griffith took the hint, and bade him good-bye directly.

      As he went out, the gentleman who had sent in his card rose from a seat in the outer office to go in.

      It was Mr. George Neville.

      Griffith Gaunt and he saluted and scanned each other curiously, They little thought to meet again so soon. The clerks saw nothing more than two polite gentlemen passing each other.

      The more Griffith thought of the approaching duel the less he liked it. He was an impulsive man for one thing; and, with such, a cold fit naturally succeeds a hot one. And, besides, as his heat abated, Reason and Reflection made themselves heard, and told him that in a contest with a formidable rival he was throwing away an advantage: after all, Kate had shown him great favor; she had ridden Neville's horse after him, and made him resign his purpose of leaving her; surely then she preferred him on the whole to Neville; yet he must go and risk his chance of possessing her—upon a personal encounter, in which Neville was at least as likely to kill him, as he to kill Neville. He saw too late that he was playing his rival's game. He felt cold and despondent, and more and more convinced that he should never marry Kate, but that she would very likely bury him.

      With all this he was too game to recoil, and indeed he hated his rival too deeply. So, like many a man before him, he was going doggedly to the field against his judgment, with little to win and all to lose.

      His deeper and more solemn anxieties were diversified by a lighter one. A few days ago he had invited half the county to bury Mr. Charlton, on Saturday the nineteenth of February. But now he had gone and fixed Friday the eighteenth for a duel. A fine thing if he should be himself a corpse on Friday afternoon. Who was to receive the quests? who conduct the funeral?

      The man, with all his faults, had a grateful heart: and Mr. Charlton was his benefactor, and he felt he had no right to go and get himself killed until he had paid the last rites to his best friend.

      The difficulty admits of course of a comic view, and smells Hibernian: but these things seem anything but droll to those, whose lives and feelings are at stake: and indeed there was something chivalrous and touching in Griffith's vexation at the possibility of his benefactor being buried without due honors, owing to his own intemperate haste to be killed. He resolved to provide against that contingency: so, on the Thursday, he wrote an urgent letter to Mr. Houseman, telling him he must come early to the funeral, and be prepared to conduct it.

      This letter was carried to Mr. Houseman's office at three o'clock on Thursday afternoon.

      Mr. Houseman was not at home. He was gone to a country-house nine miles distant. But Griffith's servant was well mounted, and had peremptory orders: so he rode after Mr. Houseman, and found him at Mr. Peyton's house; whither, if you please, we too will follow him.

      In the first place you must know that the real reason why Mr. Peyton looked so savage, coming out of Mr. Houseman's office, was this: Neville had said no more about the hundred pounds: and indeed had not visited the house since; so Peyton, who had now begun to reckon on this sum, went to Houseman to borrow it. But Houseman politely declined to lend it him, and gave excellent reasons. All this was natural enough; common enough: but the real reason why Houseman declined, was a truly singular one. The fact is, Catherine Peyton had made him promise to refuse.

      Between that young lady and the Housemans, husband and wife, there was a sincere friendship founded on mutual esteem; and Catherine could do almost what she liked with either of them. Now, whatever might be her faults, she was a proud girl, and an intelligent one: it mortified her pride to see her father borrowing here, and borrowing there, and unable to repay: and she had also observed that he always celebrated a new loan by a new extravagance, and so was never a penny the richer for borrowed money. He had inadvertently let fall that he should apply to Houseman. She raised no open objection, but just mounted Piebald, and rode off to Houseman, and made him solemnly promise not to lend her father a shilling.

      Houseman kept his word; but his refusal cost him more pain than he had counted on when he made the promise. Squire Peyton had paid him thousands first and last; and, when he left Houseman's room, with disappointment, mortification, and humiliation, deeply marked on his features, usually so handsome and jolly, the lawyer felt sorry and ashamed—and did not show it.

      But it rankled in him; and the very next day he took advantage of a little business he had to do in Mr. Peyton's neighborhood, and drove to Peyton Hall and asked for Mistress Kate.

      His was a curious errand. Indeed I think it would not be easy to find a parallel to it.

      For here was an attorney calling upon a beautiful girl; to do what?

      To soften her.

      On a daughter; to do what?

      To persuade her to permit him to lend her father £100 on insufficient security.

      Well, he reminded her of his ancient obligations to her family, and assured her he could well afford to risk a hundred or even a thousand pounds. He then told her that her father had shown great pain at his refusal, and that he himself was human, and could not divest himself of gratitude, and pity, and good nature—all for £100. "In a word," said he, "I have brought the money; and you must give in for this once, and let me lend it him without more ado."

      Miss Peyton was gratified, and affected; and a tear trembled a moment in her eye; but went indoors again, and left her firm as a rock, sprinkled with dew. She told him she could quite understand his feeling, and thanked him for it: but she had long and seriously weighed the matter, and could not release him from his promise. "No more of this base borrowing," said she, and clenched her white teeth indomitably.

      He attacked her with a good many weapons; but she parried them all so gently yet so nobly, and so successfully, that he admired her more than ever.

      Still, lawyers fight hard; and die very hard. Houseman got warm in his cause, and cross-examined this defendant; and asked her whether she would refuse to lend her father £100 out of a full purse.

      This question was answered only by a flash of her glorious eyes, and a magnificent look of disdain at the doubt implied.

      "Well, then," said Houseman, "be your father's surety for repayment with interest at six per centum; and then there will be nothing in the business to wound your dignity. I have many hundreds out at six per centum."

      "Excuse me: that would be dishonest," said Kate; "I have no money to repay you with."

      "But you have expectations."