第12章

"You've a very good chance.I'd advise you to creep up her sleeve again: it 'ud be saving time, if Molly should happen to take a drop too much laudanum some day, and make a widower of you.Miss Nancy wouldn't mind being a second, if she didn't know it.And you've got a good-natured brother, who'll keep your secret well, because you'll be so very obliging to him.""I'll tell you what it is," said Godfrey, quivering, and pale again, "my patience is pretty near at an end.If you'd a little more sharpness in you, you might know that you may urge a man a bit too far, and make one leap as easy as another.I don't know but what it is so now: I may as well tell the Squire everything myself--I should get you off my back, if I got nothing else.And, after all, he'll know some time.She's been threatening to come herself and tell him.So, don't flatter yourself that your secrecy's worth any price you choose to ask.You drain me of money till I have got nothing to pacify _her_ with, and she'll do as she threatens some day.It's all one.I'll tell my father everything myself, and you may go to the devil."Dunsey perceived that he had overshot his mark, and that there was a point at which even the hesitating Godfrey might be driven into decision.But he said, with an air of unconcern--"As you please; but I'll have a draught of ale first." And ringing the bell, he threw himself across two chairs, and began to rap the window-seat with the handle of his whip.

Godfrey stood, still with his back to the fire, uneasily moving his fingers among the contents of his side-pockets, and looking at the floor.That big muscular frame of his held plenty of animal courage, but helped him to no decision when the dangers to be braved were such as could neither be knocked down nor throttled.His natural irresolution and moral cowardice were exaggerated by a position in which dreaded consequences seemed to press equally on all sides, and his irritation had no sooner provoked him to defy Dunstan and anticipate all possible betrayals, than the miseries he must bring on himself by such a step seemed more unendurable to him than the present evil.The results of confession were not contingent, they were certain; whereas betrayal was not certain.

From the near vision of that certainty he fell back on suspense and vacillation with a sense of repose.The disinherited son of a small squire, equally disinclined to dig and to beg, was almost as helpless as an uprooted tree, which, by the favour of earth and sky, has grown to a handsome bulk on the spot where it first shot upward.

Perhaps it would have been possible to think of digging with some cheerfulness if Nancy Lammeter were to be won on those terms; but, since he must irrevocably lose _her_ as well as the inheritance, and must break every tie but the one that degraded him and left him without motive for trying to recover his better self, he could imagine no future for himself on the other side of confession but that of "'listing for a soldier"--the most desperate step, short of suicide, in the eyes of respectable families.No! he would rather trust to casualties than to his own resolve--rather go on sitting at the feast, and sipping the wine he loved, though with the sword hanging over him and terror in his heart, than rush away into the cold darkness where there was no pleasure left.The utmost concession to Dunstan about the horse began to seem easy, compared with the fulfilment of his own threat.But his pride would not let him recommence the conversation otherwise than by continuing the quarrel.Dunstan was waiting for this, and took his ale in shorter draughts than usual.

"It's just like you," Godfrey burst out, in a bitter tone, "to talk about my selling Wildfire in that cool way--the last thing I've got to call my own, and the best bit of horse-flesh I ever had in my life.And if you'd got a spark of pride in you, you'd be ashamed to see the stables emptied, and everybody sneering about it.

But it's my belief you'd sell yourself, if it was only for the pleasure of making somebody feel he'd got a bad bargain.""Aye, aye," said Dunstan, very placably, "you do me justice, Isee.You know I'm a jewel for 'ticing people into bargains.For which reason I advise you to let _me_ sell Wildfire.I'd ride him to the hunt to-morrow for you, with pleasure.I shouldn't look so handsome as you in the saddle, but it's the horse they'll bid for, and not the rider.""Yes, I daresay--trust my horse to you!"

"As you please," said Dunstan, rapping the window-seat again with an air of great unconcern."It's _you_ have got to pay Fowler's money; it's none of my business.You received the money from him when you went to Bramcote, and _you_ told the Squire it wasn't paid.

I'd nothing to do with that; you chose to be so obliging as to give it me, that was all.If you don't want to pay the money, let it alone; it's all one to me.But I was willing to accommodate you by undertaking to sell the horse, seeing it's not convenient to you to go so far to-morrow."Godfrey was silent for some moments.He would have liked to spring on Dunstan, wrench the whip from his hand, and flog him to within an inch of his life; and no bodily fear could have deterred him; but he was mastered by another sort of fear, which was fed by feelings stronger even than his resentment.When he spoke again, it was in a half-conciliatory tone.

"Well, you mean no nonsense about the horse, eh? You'll sell him all fair, and hand over the money? If you don't, you know, everything 'ull go to smash, for I've got nothing else to trust to.

And you'll have less pleasure in pulling the house over my head, when your own skull's to be broken too.""Aye, aye," said Dunstan, rising; "all right.I thought you'd come round.I'm the fellow to bring old Bryce up to the scratch.

I'll get you a hundred and twenty for him, if I get you a penny.""But it'll perhaps rain cats and dogs to-morrow, as it did yesterday, and then you can't go," said Godfrey, hardly knowing whether he wished for that obstacle or not.