Rymer shook his head. He did not doubt the Squire"s friendly feeling, but thought it was out of his hands. He told me all he knew about it.
"Benjamin came to me yesterday morning in a great flurry, saying something was wrong, and he must absent himself. Was it about the bank-note, I asked--and it was the first time a syllable in regard to it had pa.s.sed between us," broke off Rymer. "Jelf had given him a friendly hint of what had dropped from the man Cotton--you were in the shop that first day when he came in, Mr. Johnny--and Benjamin was alarmed. Before I had time to collect my thoughts, or say further, he was gone."
"Where is he?"
"I don"t know. I went round at once to Jelf, and the man told me all.
Jelf knows the truth; that is quite clear. He says he has spoken only to Lee; is sorry now for having done that, and he will hush it up as far as he can."
"Then it will be quite right, Mr. Rymer. Why should you be taking it in this way?"
"I am ill," was all he answered. "I caught a chill going round to the Plough and Harrow. So far as mental illness goes, we may battle with it to the end, strength from above being given to us; but when it takes bodily form--why, there"s nothing for it but giving in."
Even while we spoke, he was seized with what seemed to be an ague. Mrs.
Rymer appeared with some scalding broth, and I said I would run for Darbyshire.
A few days went on, and then news came up to Crabb Cot that Mr. Rymer lay dying. Robert Ashton, riding back from the hunt in his scarlet coat and white cords on his fine grey horse (the whole a ma.s.s of splashes with the thaw) pulled up at the door to say How d"ye do? and mentioned it amidst other items. It was just a shock to the Squire, and nothing less.
"Goodness preserve us!--and all through that miserable five-pound note, Johnny!" he cried in a wild flurry. "Where"s my hat and top-coat?"
Away to Timberdale by the short cut through the Ravine, never heeding the ghost--although its traditional time of appearing, the dusk of evening, was drawing on--went the Squire. He thought Rymer must be ill through fear of him; and he accused me of having done my errand of peace badly.
It was quite true--Thomas Rymer lay dying. Darbyshire was coming out of the house as the Squire reached it, and said so. Instead of being sorry, he flew in a pa.s.sion and attacked the doctor.
"Now look you here, Darbyshire--this won"t do. We can"t have people dying off like this for nothing. If you don"t cure him, you had better give up doctoring."
"How d"you mean for nothing?" asked Darbyshire, who knew the Squire well.
"It can"t be for much: don"t be insolent. Because a man gets a bit of anxiety on his mind, is he to be let die?"
"I"ve heard nothing about anxiety," said Darbyshire. "He caught a chill through going out that day of the snow-storm, and it settled on a vital part. That"s what ails him, Squire."
"And you can"t cure the chill! Don"t tell me."
"Before this time to-morrow, Thomas Rymer will be where there"s neither killing nor curing," was the answer. "I told them yesterday to send for the son: but they don"t know where he is."
The Squire made a rush through the shop and up to the bedroom, hardly saying, "With your leave," or, "By your leave." Thomas Rymer lay in bed at the far end; his white face whiter than the pillow; his eyes sunken; his hands plucking at the counterpane. Margaret left the room when the Squire went in. He gave one look; and knew that he saw death there.
"Rymer, I"d almost have given my own life to save you from this," cried he, in the shock. "Oh, my goodness! what"s to be done?"
"I seem to have been waiting for it all along; to have seen the exposure coming," said Thomas Rymer, his faint fingers resting in the Squire"s strong ones. "And now that it"s here, I can"t battle with it."
"Now, Rymer, my poor fellow, couldn"t you--_couldn"t_ you make a bit of an effort to live? To please me: I knew your father, mind. It can"t be right that you should die."
"It must be right; perhaps it is well. I can truly say with old Jacob that few and evil have the days of my life been. Nothing but disappointment has been my lot here; struggle upon struggle, pain upon pain, sorrow upon sorrow. I think my merciful Father will remember it in the last great account."
He died at five o"clock in the morning. Lee told us of it when he brought up the letters at breakfast-time. The Squire let fall his knife and fork.
"It"s a shame and a sin, though, Johnny, that sons should inflict this cruel sorrow upon their parents," he said later. "Rymer has been brought down to the grave by his son before his hair was grey. I wonder how _their_ accounts will stand at the great reckoning?"
III.
HESTER REED"S PILLS.
We were at our other and chief home, d.y.k.e Manor: and Tod and I were there for the short Easter holidays, which were shorter in those days than they are in these.
It was Easter Tuesday. The Squire had gone riding over to old Jacobson"s with Tod. I, having nothing else to do, got the mater to come with me for a practice on the church organ; and we were taking the round home again through the village, Church d.y.k.ely.
Easter was very late that year. It was getting towards the end of April: and to judge by the weather, it might have been the end of May, the days were so warm and glorious.
In pa.s.sing the gate of George Reed"s cottage, Mrs. Todhetley stopped.
"How are the babies, Hester?"
Hester Reed, sunning her white cap and clean cotton gown in the garden, the three elder children around, watering the beds with a doll"s watering-pot, and a baby hiding its face on her shoulder, dropped a curtsy as she answered--
"They be but poorly, ma"am, thank you. Look up, Susy," turning the baby"s face upwards to show it: and a pale mite of a face it was, with sleepy eyes. "For a day or two past they"ve not seemed the thing; and they be both cross."
"I should think their teeth are troubling them, Hester."
"Maybe, ma"am. I shouldn"t wonder. Hetty, she seems worse than Susy.
She"s a-lying there in the basket indoors. Would you please spare a minute to step in and look at her, ma"am?"
Mrs. Todhetley opened the gate. "I may as well go in and see, Johnny,"
she said to me in an undertone: "I fear both the children are rather sickly."
The other baby, "Hetty," lay in the kitchen in a clothes-basket. It had just the same sort of puny white face as its sister. These two were twins, and about a year old. When they were born, Church d.y.k.ely went on finely at Hester Reed, asking her if she would not have had enough with one new child but she must go and set up two.
"It does seem very poorly," remarked Mrs. Todhetley, stooping over the young mortal (which was not cross just now, but very still and quiet), and letting it clasp its little fist round one of her fingers. "No doubt it is the teeth. If the children do not get better soon, I think, were I you, Hester, I should speak to Mr. Duffham."
The advice seemed to strike Hester Reed all of a heap. "Speak to Dr.
Duffham!" she exclaimed. "Why, ma"am, they must both be a good deal worse than they be, afore we does that. I"ll give "em a dose o" mild physic apiece. I dare say that"ll bring "em round."
"I should think it would not hurt them," a.s.sented Mrs. Todhetley. "They both seem feverish; this one especially. I hear you have had Cathy over," she went on, pa.s.sing to another subject.
"Sure enough us have," said Mrs. Reed. "She come over yesterday was a week and stayed till Friday night."
"And what is she doing now?"
"Well, ma"am, Cathy"s keeping herself; and that"s something. She has got a place at Tewkesbury to serve in some shop; is quite in clover there, by all accounts. Two good gownds she brought over to her back; and she"s pretty nigh as lighthearted as she was afore she went off to enter on her first troubles."
"Hannah told me she was not looking well."