There was a great silence. Bonnithorne was still before the window, his face down, his hands clasped behind him, his foot pawing the ground.
Hugh Ritson walked to his side. He contemplated him a moment, and then touched him on the shoulder. When he spoke, his face was dilated with pa.s.sion, and his voice was low and deep.
"There is a Book," he said, "that a Churchman may know, which tells of an unjust steward. The master thought to dismiss him from his stewardship. Then the steward said within himself, "What shall I do?""
There was a pause.
"What did he do?" continued Hugh Ritson, and every word fell on the silence like the stroke of a bell. "He called his master"s debtors together, and said to the first, "How much do you owe?" "One hundred measures." Then he said, "Write a bill for fifty.""
There was another pause.
"What did that steward mean? He meant that when the master should dismiss him from his stewardship, the debtor should take him into his house."
Hugh Ritson"s manner was the white heat of calm. He turned half round to where Drayton stood, and raised his voice.
"That debtor was henceforth bound hand and foot. Let him but parley with the steward, and the steward cried, "Thief," "Forger," "Perjurer.""
Bonnithorne shuffled uneasily. He opened his mouth as if to speak, but the words would not come. At last he gulped down something that had seemed to choke him, smiled between his teeth a weak, bankrupt smile, and said:
"How are we to read your parable? Are you the debtor bound hand and foot, and is your brother the astute steward?"
Hugh Ritson"s foot fell heavily.
"Is it so?" he said, catching at the word. "Then be it so;" and his voice rose to a shrill cry. "That steward shall come to the ground, and his master with him!"
At that he stepped back to where Drayton stood with eyes as full of bewilderment as frenzy.
"Paul Lowther--" he said.
"Call me Paul Ritson," interrupted Drayton.
"Paul Lowther--"
"Ritson!" Drayton shouted, and then, dropping his voice, he said, rapidly: "You gave it me, and by G.o.d I"ll keep it!"
Hugh Ritson leaned across the table and tapped a paper that lay on it.
"That is your name," he said, "and I"ll prove it."
Drayton burst into another laugh.
"You daren"t try," he chuckled.
Hugh turned upon him with eyes of fire.
"So you measure my spirit by your own. Man, man!" he said, "do you know what you are doing?"
There was another brutal laugh from Drayton, but it died suddenly on his lips.
Then Hugh Ritson stepped to the door. He took a last look round. It was as if he knew that he had reached the beginning of the end--as if he realized that he was never again to stand in the familiar room. The future, that seemed so near an hour ago, was gone from him forever; the cup that he had lifted to his lips lay in fragments at his feet. He saw it all in that swift instant. On his face there were the lines of agony, but over them there played the smile of resolve. He put one hand to his forehead, and then said in a voice so low as to be no more than a whisper:
"Wait and see."
When the guests, who stood huddled together like sheep in a storm, had recovered their stunned senses, Hugh Ritson was gone from the room.
Drayton had sunk into a chair near where Bonnithorne stood, and was whining like a whipped hound.
"Go after him! What will he do? You know I was always against it!"
But presently he stood up and laughed, and bantered and crowed, and observed that it was a pity if a gentleman could not be master in his own house, and that what couldn"t be cured must be endured.
"Precisely," interposed one of the guests, "and you have my entire sympathy, Mr. Ritson. A more cruel deception was never more manfully exposed."
"I fully agree with you, neighbor," said another, "and such moral tyranny is fearful to contemplate. Paul Lowther, indeed! Now, that is a joke."
"Well, it is rather, ain"t it?" said Drayton. And then he laughed, and they all laughed and shook hands, and were excellent good friends.
CHAPTER VI.
Greta stayed with Mercy until noon that day, begging, entreating, and finally commanding her to lie quiet in bed, while she herself dressed and fed the child, and cooked and cleaned, in spite of the Laird Fisher"s protestations. When all was done, and the old charcoal-burner had gone out on the hills, Greta picked up the little fellow in her arms and went to Mercy"s room. Mercy was alert to every sound, and in an instant was sitting up in bed. Her face beamed, her parted lips smiled, her delicate fingers plucked nervously at the counterpane.
"How brightsome it is to-day, Greta," she said. "I"m sure the sun must be shining."
The window was open, and a soft breeze floated through the sun"s rays into the room. Mercy inclined her head aside, and added, "Ah, you young rogue you; you are there, are you? Give him to me, the rascal!" The rogue was set down in his mother"s arms, and she proceeded to punish his rascality with a shower of kisses. "How bonny his cheeks must be; they will be just like two ripe apples," and forthwith there fell another shower of kisses. Then she babbled over the little one, and lisped, and stammered, and nodded her head in his face, and blew little puffs of breath into his hair, and tickled him until he laughed and crowed and rolled and threw up his legs; and then she kissed his limbs and extremities in a way that mothers have, and finally imprisoned one of his feet by putting it ankle deep into her mouth. "Would you ever think a foot could be so tiny, Greta?" she said. And the little one plunged about and clambered laboriously up its mother"s breast, and more than once plucked at the white bandage about her head. "No, no; Ralphie must not touch," said Mercy with sudden gravity. "Only think, Ralphie pet, one week--only one--ay, less--only six days now, and then--oh, then--" A long hug, and the little fellow"s boisterous protest against the convulsive pressure abridged the mother"s prophecy.
All at once Mercy"s manner changed. She turned toward Greta, and said: "I will not touch the bandage, no, never; but if Ralphie tugged at it, and it fell--would that be breaking my promise?"
Greta saw what was in her heart.
"I"m afraid it would, dear," she said; but there was a tremor in her voice.
Mercy sighed audibly.
"Just think, it would be only Ralphie. The kind doctors could not be angry with my little child. I would say, "It was the boy," and they would smile and say, "Ah, that is different.""
"Give me the little one," said Greta with emotion.
Mercy drew the child closer, and there was a pause.
"I was very wrong, Greta," she said in a low tone. "Oh! you would not think what a fearful thing came into my mind a minute ago. Take my Ralphie. Just imagine, my own innocent baby tempted me."
As Greta reached across the bed to lift the child out of his mother"s lap, the little fellow was struggling to communicate, by help of a limited vocabulary, some wondrous intelligence of recent events that somewhat overshadowed his little existence. "Puss--dat," many times repeated, was further explained by one chubby forefinger with its diminutive finger-nail pointed to the fat back of the other hand.
"He means that the little cat has scratched him," said Greta, "but bless the mite, he is pointing to the wrong hand."
"Puss--dat," continued the child, and peered up into his mother"s sightless face. Mercy was all tears in an instant. She had borne yesterday"s operation without a groan, but now the scratch on her child"s hand went to her heart like a stab.