An English Squire. Coleridge Christabel Rose

matters; Alvar volunteered few remarks, but as the dessert appeared, he turned to Cherry, who sat beside him, and said, —

      “Is it not now the custom to smoke?”

      “Not at dinner,” said Cherry hurriedly, as his father replied, —

      “Certainly not,” and all the bright blue eyes round the table stared at Alvar, who for the first time coloured, and said, —

      “Pardon, I have transgressed.”

      “We’ll go and have a pipe presently,” said Cherry; and oh! how ardently he longed for that terrible evening to be over.

      “It was a horrid Christmas Eve,” muttered Nettie to Bob; and perhaps her father thought so too, for he rang the bell early for prayers.

      “What is this?” said Alvar, looking puzzled, as a prayer-book was placed before him.

      “We’re going to have prayers,” said Nettie, rather pertly. “Don’t you?”

      “Ah, it is a custom,” said Alvar, and he took the book, and stood and knelt as they did, evidently matching for his cue.

      When this ceremony was over, Bob and Nettie rushed off, evidently to escape saying good-night, and Cheriton invited the stranger to come and smoke with him, conducting him to a little smoking-room downstairs, which was only used for visitors, as the boys generally smoked in a room at the top of the house, into which Cherry knew Bob and Jack would greatly resent any intrusion. Mr Lester walked off with a general good-night. Alvar watched Cherry kiss his grandmother, but contented himself with a bow. Jack discreetly retired, and when Cheriton had ascertained that Alvar never smoked a pipe, but only a cigar or a cigarette, and had made him sit down by the fire, Alvar said, —

      “My father is then a member of the clerical party?”

      “I don’t think I quite understand you,” said Cherry.

      “Your prayers – he is religious?”

      “Oh, most people have prayers – I don’t think we’re more particular than others. My father and Mr Ellesmere, our rector, are friends, naturally,” said Cherry, feeling it very difficult to explain himself.

      “My grandfather,” said Alvar, “is indifferent.”

      “But – you’re a Protestant, aren’t you?”

      “Oh, yes. I have been so instructed. But I do not interest myself in the subject.”

      Cheriton had heard many odd things at Oxford said about religion, but never anything to equal the naïveté of this avowal. He was quite unprepared with a reply, and Alvar went on, —

      “I shall of course conform. I am not an infidel; but I leave those things to your – clergy, do you not call them?”

      “Well, some people would say you were right,” said Cherry, thankful that Jack was not present to assert the inalienable right of private judgment.

      “And politics?” said Alvar; “I know about your Tories and your Whigs. On which side do you range yourself?”

      “Well, my father’s a Tory and High Churchman, which I suppose is what you mean by belonging to the clerical party; and I – if all places were like this – I’d like things very well as they are. Jack, however, would tell you we were going fast to destruction.”

      “There are then dissensions among you?”

      “Oh, he’ll come round to something, I dare say. But our English politics must seem mere child’s play to you.”

      “I have taken no part,” said Alvar. “My grandfather would conform to anything for peace, and I, you know, my brother, am in Spain an Englishman – though a Spaniard here.”

      “I hope you’ll be an Englishman soon.”

      “It is the same with marriage,” said Alvar; “I have never betrothed myself, nor has my grandfather sought to marry me. He said I must see English ladies also. One does not always follow the heart in these matters,” he concluded rather sentimentally.

      “No one would ever dream of your following anything else,” said Cherry, beginning gruffly, but half choked with amusement as he spoke.

      “No? And you, you have not decided? Ah, you blush, my brother; I am indiscreet.”

      “I didn’t blush – at least that’s nothing. Turkey-cock was my nickname at school always,” said Cherry hastily.

      “I do not understand,” said Alvar; and after Cherry had explained the nature and character of turkey-cocks, he said, “But I think that was not civil.”

      “Civil! It wasn’t meant to be. English boys don’t stand much upon civility. But,” he added, as he knocked the ashes out of his pipe, “if we are rough, I hope you won’t mind; the boys don’t mean any harm by it. You’ll soon get used to our ways, and – and we’ll do our best to make you feel at home with us.”

      A sudden sense of pity for the lonely brother, a stranger in his father’s house, softened Cheriton’s face and voice as he spoke, though he felt himself to be promising a good deal.

      Alvar looked at him with the curious, impassive, unembarrassed air that distinguished him. “You are not ‘rough!’” he said! “you are my brother. I am told that here you do not embrace each other. I am an Englishman, I give you my hand.”

      Cheriton took the slender, oval-shaped hand, which yet closed on his more angular one, with a firm, vigorous grasp.

      “All right,” he said; “you’d better ask me if you don’t know what to do. And now I think you must be tired. I’ll show you your room. I hope you won’t mind the cold much; I am sorry it’s so frosty.”

      “Oh, the cold is absolutely detestable, but I am not tired,” said Alvar briskly.

      It was more than Cheriton could say, as he shut this perplexing brother into the best bedroom, which he could not associate with anything but a state visit. He felt oppressed with a sense of past and future responsibility, of distaste which he knew was mild compared to what every other member of his family would experience, of contempt, and kindliness and pity, and, running through all, the exceeding ludicrousness, from an Oakby point of view, of some of Alvar’s remarks.

      This latter ingredient in his perplexity was strengthened, when he got upstairs, by Jack, who, detecting his dispirited look, proceeded to encourage him by remarking solemnly, —

      “Well, I consider it a great family misfortune. Dispositions and habits that are entirely incongruous can’t be expected to agree.”

      “Do shut up, Jack; you’re not writing an essay. Now I see where Alvar’s turn for speechifying comes from; you get it somehow from the same stock! All I know is, it’s too bad to be down on a fellow when he’s cast on our hands like this. Now I am going to bed, I’m tired to death; and if we’re late on Christmas morning, we shall never hear the last of it.”

      While the young brothers thus discussed this strange disturber of their accustomed life, their father’s thoughts were still more perplexing. He had so long put aside the unwelcome thought of his eldest son that he felt inclined to regard his presence with incredulity. Surely this dark, stately stranger could have no concern with his beloved homestead with its surrounding moors and fells. This boy had never ridden by his side, nor taken his first shots from his gun, nor differed from him about the management of his estate.

      Oakby, with all its duties and pleasures, had no connexion with him; and with Oakby Mr Lester had for many years felt himself to be wholly identified. But those dark eyes, those slow, soft accents, that air so strange to his sons, awoke memories of another self. He saw Cheriton’s puzzled attempt at understanding the strange brother. But this strange son was not strange to him. He knew the very turns of expression that Alvar’s imperfect English suggested. For the first time for years the Spanish idioms and Spanish words came back to his memory. He could have so talked as to set his son in accordance with his surroundings, he understood, to his own surprise, exactly where this very new shoe would pinch.

      But