'I do not know. I had been thinking of trying whether I can get as far as Marksedge.'
Marksedge would be fatal to the ankle, solitude to the spirits, thought the Earl; and he at once declared his intention of walking with his son as far as he should let him go.
Louis was half vexed, half flattered, and they proceeded in silence, till conscious of being ruffled, and afraid of being ungracious, he made a remark on the farm that they were approaching, and learnt in return that the lease was nearly out, the tenant did not want a renewal, and that Richardson intended to advertise.
He breathed a wish that it were in their own hands, and this led to a statement of the condition of affairs, the same to which a year before he had been wilfully deaf, and to which he now attended chiefly for the sake of gratifying his father, though he better understood what depended on it. At least, it was making the Earl insensible to the space they were traversing, and the black outlines of Marksedge were rising on him before he was aware. Then he would have turned, but Louis pleaded that having come so far, he should be glad to speak to Madison's grandfather, and one or two other old people, and he prevailed.
Lord Ormersfield was not prepared for the real aspect of the hamlet.
'Richardson always declared that the cottages were kept in repair,' he said.
'Richardson never sees them. He trusts to Reeves.'
'The people might do something themselves to keep the place decent.'
'They might; but they lose heart out of sight of respectability. I will just knock at this door-I will not detain you a moment.'
The dark smoky room, damp, ill-paved floor, and cracked walls produced their effect; and the name and voice of the inmate did more. Lord Ormersfield recognised a man who had once worked in the garden, and came forward and spoke, astonished and shocked to find him prematurely old. The story was soon told; there had been a seasoning fever as a welcome to the half-reclaimed moorland; ague and typhus were frequent visitors, and disabling rheumatism a more permanent companion to labourers exhausted by long wet walks in addition to the daily toil. At an age less than that of the Earl himself, he beheld a bowed and broken cripple.
Fitzjocelyn perceived his victory, and forebore to press it too hastily, lest he should hurt his father's feelings; and walked on silently, thinking how glad Mary would be to hear of this expedition, and what a pity it was that the unlucky passage of last August should have interfered with their comfortable friendship. At last the Earl broke silence by saying, 'It is very unfortunate;' and Louis echoed, 'Very.'
'My poor Uncle Dynevor! He was, without exception, the most wrong- headed person I ever came in contact with, yet so excessively plausible and eager that he carried my poor father entirely along with him. Louis! nothing is so ruinous as to surrender the judgment.'
Fully assenting, Louis wondered whether Marksedge would serve no purpose save the elucidation of this truism, and presently another ensued.
'Mischief is sooner done than repaired. As I have been allowing you, there has never been ready money at command.'
'I thought there were no more mortgages to be paid off. The rents of the Fitzjocelyn estate and the houses in the lower town must come to something.'
He was then told how these, with his mother's fortune, had been set apart to form a fund for his establishment, and for the first time he was shown the object of arrangements against which he had often in heart rebelled. His first impulse was to exclaim that it was a great pity, and that he could not bear that his father should have denied himself on his account.
'Do you think these things are sacrifices to me?' said the Earl. 'My habits were formed long ago.'
'Mine have been formed on yours,' said Louis. 'I should be encumbered by such an income as you propose unless you would let me lay it out in making work for the men and improving the estate, and that I had rather you undertook, for I should be certain to do something preposterous, and then be sorry.'
'Mrs. Ponsonby judged rightly. It was her very advice.'
'Then!' cried Louis, as if the deed were done.
'You would not find the income too large in the event of your marriage.'
'A most unlikely event!'
His father glanced towards him. If there had been a symptom of unhappiness, relenting was near, but it so chanced that Marksedge was reigning supreme, and he was chiefly concerned to set aside the supposition as an obstacle to his views. The same notion as James Frost's occurred to the Earl, that it could not be a tenacious character which could so easily set aside an attachment apparently so fervent, but the resignation was too much in accordance with his desires to render him otherwise than gratified, and he listened with complacency to Louis's plans. Nothing was fixed, but there was an understanding that all should have due consideration.
This settled, Louis's mind recurred to the hint which his father had thrown out, and he wondered whether it meant that the present compliance might be further stretched, but he thought it more likely to be merely a reference to ordinary contingencies. Things were far too comfortable between him and his father to be disturbed by discussion, and he might ultimately succeed better by submitting, and leaving facts and candour to remove prejudice.
To forget perplexity in the amusement of a mystification, he brought down his essay, concealing it ingeniously within a review flanked by blue-books, and, when Lord Ormersfield was taking out a pair of spectacles with the reluctance of a man not yet accustomed to them, he asked him if he would like to hear an article on the Police question.
At first the Earl showed signs of nodding, and said there was nothing to the purpose in all the historical curiosities at the outset, so that Louis, alarmed lest he should absolutely drop asleep, skipped all his favourite passages, and came at once to the results of the recent inquiries. The Earl was roused. Who could have learnt those facts? That was telling-well put, but how did he get hold of it. The very thing he had said himself-What Quarterly was it? Surely the Christmas number was not out. Hitherto Louis had kept his countenance and voice, but in an hiatus, where he was trying to extemporize, his father came to look over his shoulder to see what ailed the book, and, glancing upwards with a merry debonnaire face, he made a gesture as if convicted.
'Do you mean that this is your own composition?'
'I beg your pardon for the pious fraud!'
'It is very good! Excellently done!' said Lord Ormersfield. 'There are redundancies-much to betray an unpractised hand-but-stay, let me hear the rest-' Very differently did he listen now, broad awake, attacking the logic of every third sentence, or else double shotting it with some ponderous word, and shaking his head at Utopian views of crime to be dried up at the fountain head. Next, he must hear the beginning, and ruthlessly picked it to pieces, demolishing all the Vehme Gericht and Santissima Hermandad as irrelevant, and, when he had made Louis ashamed and vexed with the whole production, astonishing him by declaring that it would tell, and advising him to copy it out fair with these _little_ alterations.
These _little_ alterations would, as he was well aware, evaporate all the spirit, and though glad to have pleased his father, his perseverance quailed before the task; but he said no more than thank you. The next day, before he had settled to anything, Lord Ormersfield came to his room, saying, 'You will be engaged with your more important studies for the next few hours. Can you spare the paper you read to me last night?'