CHAPTER XIII.
ROLAND'S VEXATION.
'In my father's house on sufferance only, it would seem!' was the half-aloud remark muttered through his teeth by Roland, when betimes next morning he was up while the dew was glittering on shrub and tree, to have a ramble, cigar in mouth, and feeling with bitterness in his heart that through the fault of another, rather than himself, he had been severely and unjustly dealt with.
When Roland joined his regiment an elder brother now dead, Harry Lindsay of the Scots Guards, had been, like himself, somewhat extravagant—Harry particularly so amid the facilities afforded by London for spending freely and living fast—thus between certain bills which the later had compelled the old gentleman to accept, looking upon him, as he too often said, 'merely as the family banker,' but more especially by his betting, racing, and other proclivities peculiar to 'the Brigade,' he had so enraged the old Laird of Earlshaugh that, acted upon by the influence of his unwise 'second election,' the latter had executed a will—the obnoxious document so often referred to—completely in her favour, leaving her everything, with certain arrangements—a provision—for his surviving son Roland and his daughter Maude.
A codicil, tending to reverse or revoke this, had evidently been in preparation, but was never fulfilled or signed.
Thus far alone Roland had been made aware, but was still inclined to doubt the tenor of a document he had never seen, which he could not as yet see, and the copy of which, sent to him in Egypt, had been lost in the transmission as stated.
Moreover, he was a soldier—nothing but a soldier in many ways, and, as he was wont to say to himself, 'an utter muff,' so far as business matters were concerned.
Of his own dubious position at Earlshaugh and the presumption of Mr. Hawkey Sharpe, the steward or manager of the property, he was soon to have unpleasantly convincing proofs that sorely tested his patience and tried his proud and impetuous temper.
A prey to somewhat chequered thoughts, he had wandered in the dewy morning over much of the beautiful and picturesque property. Every lane, hedgerow, field, and farm had been familiar to him from his boyhood, since old Johnnie Buckle, the head groom, had taught him to take his fences, even as the old gamekeeper, Gavin Fowler, had shown him where the best grown coveys were sure to be found. He had seen alterations and innovations which displeased him extremely, and had visited some of the tenants, attended in his ramble by an old herd who had been in the service of the Lindsays for half a century; and he now returned by the great avenue, where still the ancient oaks, that erewhile had heard the bugle of King James, the Scottish Haroun, on many a hunting day, still gave forth their leaves from year to year, and entered the cosy old-fashioned breakfast-room, where Dresden china and glittering plate, with an array of cold meats, fish, and fruit, suggested a hearty Scottish morning repast, and over the carved stone fireplace of which hung a portrait of his father in the scarlet costume of the Caledonian Hunt. Maude was not there; but to his indignation the room had another occupant.
'Mr. Trotter, when you have quite ended the perusal of that paper you will, perhaps, so far favour me?'
The person he addressed with a grim but mock suavity was Tam Trotter, who, clad in the Lindsay livery, blue and yellow, making certain of not being disturbed, had—with all the coolness, if not the easy elegance, of a 'Jeames' of Belgravia or Mayfair—seated himself in the breakfast-room, and, with his slippered feet on a velvet fender stool, and his broad back reclined in an easy-chair, was deep in the columns of the Fife Herald.
He started up overwhelmed with confusion, and began in a breathless voice to stammer an apology.
'There—there—that will do; but don't let this happen again, Trotter,' said Roland; 'it shows that the discipline of the house wants adjustment. By Jove, if I had you in barracks I'd send you to knapsack-drill for a week!'
The wretched Tam made a hasty retreat, and Maude, detecting the situation, came in laughing merrily to get her brother's morning kiss, and looking, he thought, so bright, so sweet, and so pretty. 'Who,' says Anthony Trollope, 'has not seen some such girl when she has come down early, without the full completeness of her morning toilet, and yet nicer, fresher, prettier to the eye of him who is so favoured than she has ever been in more formal attire?'
'Covers laid for two only—thank goodness, you and I are to have our breakfast tête-à-tête!' she exclaimed, as she seated herself at the table, and the terribly 'cowed' or abashed Trotter took post behind her.
'And then I must be off to the stables to see what cattle are there, and renew my acquaintance with old Johnnie Buckle, who taught me how to take my flying leaps—never to funk at a bullfinch, a sunk fence, a mill race, or anything. Many of Johnnie's tricks stood me in good stead, Maude, when I was with poor Hicks and Baker in Egypt,' said Roland.
Strolling forth in the bright morning sunshine, amid which the house of Earlshaugh, with its massive walls of polished ashlar, its machicolated battlement and tall, old windows, glittered in light, with masses sunk in shadow, he was met by the head gardener, old Willie Wardlaw, whom he remembered as a faithful servitor in years past (and whose rarest peaches he had stolen many a time and oft), with a hand outstretched in welcome, and his hat in the other, as he bowed his silvery head in token of respect.
'Oh, sir, but I've been langing to see ye ere it is owre late and the mischief done!' he exclaimed.
'What mischief?'
'The meadowing o' the park and lawn, where never a plough has been since the King was in Falkland.'
'Who has suggested this piece of utilitarian barbarity?' asked Roland with lowering brow.
'Wha wad it be but Mr. Hawkey Sharpe? Pawkie-Sharpe wad be a better name for him,' was the contemptuous response, made with evident bitterness of heart.
'I'll see to that, Willie,' said Roland as he strode on, but soon to be confronted by another official—a kind of forester—who had charge of all the timber on the property.
'I hope, Captain,' said the latter, 'you're in time to save the King's Wood, sir.'
'What do you mean?'
'Ye surely ken it is doomed—a' to the King's Thorn?'
'Doomed—how?'
'To be cut down and sold—a black, burning shame! Some o' the aiks are auld as the three Trees o' Dysart!'
'By whose order?' asked Roland, greatly ruffled.
'Oh, Mr. Hawkey Sharpe's, of course.'
'But why?'
'It is no for me to say, sir,' replied the old man uneasily; 'but folk hint that when a body backs the wrong horse at races some one maun pay the piper. Maister Sharpe cuts gey near the wind, and comes aftener wi' the rake than the shool; but he'll get a bite o' his ain bridle, I hope, yet!'
'Racing, is it? I shall see this matter attended to also. His presumption is unparalleled!' said Roland, as with something between a groan and an imprecation on his lips he passed on, to look after a mount for Annot Drummond, and to digest this new piece of information—that the so-called steward was about to cut down one of the oldest of the ancestral woods on the property to meet a gambling debt!
At the stables, warm indeed was the welcome he met from the veteran groom Johnnie, who did not seem older by a day since Roland had seen him last—hale, hardy, and lithe, though past his sixtieth year, with long body, short bandy legs, small, closely-shaven head, and sharp, keen, twinkling eyes—his white tie scrupulously folded, and attired as usual in a heavily flapped corduroy waistcoat, with large pockets, in one of which was stuck a curry-comb, and in his hands was a steel bridle-bit, which he was polishing with leather till it shone like silver.
Roland Lindsay had been so long away from among his own people and native country, that he felt the keenest pleasure at the warmth of his reception by any of the old servants whom the new régime permitted to linger about Earlshaugh.
'Eh, Captain, how like the Laird, your worthy father, you are!' exclaimed old Johnnie Buckle, with kindly eyes, adding, 'but I hope you'll never live to be sic a gomeral—excuse me, sir.'
Roland knew to what the old fellow referred, and was silent.
Like the old English squire of Belton, his father had been, though a popular man with all his friends, and brother fox-hunters especially, and a boon companion too—one that had a dignity that was his from nature rather than effort, but was 'a man who, in fact, did little or nothing in the world—whose life had been very useless, but who had been gifted with such a presence that he looked as though he were one of God's noblest creatures. Though always dignified, he was ever affable, and the poor liked him better than they might have done had he passed his time in searching out their wants and supplying them.' Though little of eleemosynary aid is ever required or looked for by the manly, self-reliant, and independent peasantry of Scotland.
'You have some good nags here,' said Roland, as he walked through the stables. 'I shall want two or three for the saddle in a day or two.'
The old groom shook his head and chewed a straw viciously.
'I should like a spin on this one—a pretty roan hunter.'
'Yes; he's about sixteen hands high, a bonnie wee head, full chest and barrel, broad i' the loins, and firm of foot.'
'The very nag for me, Johnnie.'
'But you can't have him, Maister Roland,' said the groom, forgetting the lapse of years.
'Why?'
'That is Mr. Hawkey Sharpe's favourite saddle horse.'
'Oh—indeed—this mare, then?'
'That is his hack.'
'The devil! This roadster, then?'
'His pad; no leg must cross it but his own. That is a nag more difficult to find in perfection than even a hunter or roan,' said Buckle, passing a hand admiringly over the silky flank of the animal. 'That bay cob is close on saxteen hands high, bonnie in shape, as ye see, and high-stepping in action, gentle as a wean, and a wean might lead it.'
'That, too, is Mr. Sharpe's, I presume!'
'Yes, sir.'
'By Jove, he is well mounted!' said Roland, in irrepressible wrath, thinking of a certain individual 'on horse-back.'
'That pair of thirteen hands each are Miss Lindsay's.'
'Ah,' thought Roland, a little mollified, 'one of them will mount Annot. Mr. Sharpe dabbles a little in horse-flesh, I have heard?'
'And loses sometimes, Maister Roland.'
'How do you know?'
'By his face, for then he girns like a sheep's heid in the smith's tangs. He kens as little o' dogs, or he wadna gang aboot wi' a dust-hole pointer at his heels.'
'What kind of pointer is that, Buckle?'
'A cur o' nae mair breed than himsel',' replied the old groom, who evidently had no love for the steward. 'Hech, me!' he added under his breath, as Roland left the stable-yard with evident disgust and annoyance in his face and air, 'is he yet to learn that a bad servitor never made a gude maister, and that a sinking maister mak's a rising man? Dule seems to hang o'er Earlshaugh!'
But more mortification awaited Roland. He knew that there was an infinity of matters connected with the tenants—rents, repairs, timber, oxen, fences, and winter forage, renewal of leases, and so forth—on which there was no appearance of him, the heir, the only son, being consulted; and of this he soon had unpleasant proof.
'Remember what I urged, dearest Roland,' said his sister, as she joined him at the porte cochère and lifted her loving and smiling blue eyes to his, while clasping both hands over his arm and hanging upon him. 'Do keep your temper in any interview you may have with this man Sharpe, who actually affects to think it a condescension to accept his post in our household, as he has been heard to say that a gentleman must live somehow, as well as other people do.'
'I must see him,' said Roland through his clenched teeth, as he entered the library, where he found Mr. Hawkey Sharpe, who was usually installed there at the same hour daily, on business matters intent, occupying the late Laird's easy-chair, seated at his table, which was littered with account-books, letters, and papers, while at his back hung on the wall a full-length, by Scougal, of that Colonel Lindsay who figured in the Legend of the Weird Yett, looking grim, haughty, and proud, as the subjects of most old portraits do, when every gentleman looked like a great lord.
Sharpe saw the black expression that hovered in Roland's sombre face, and, rising, accorded him a bow, and, in deference to the presence of Maude (and perhaps of his sister, who entered the room at the same moment), laid aside his cigar.
'Among some letters to me this morning,' said Roland, 'is one from old Duncan Ged, for a renewal of his lease of the Mains of Dron.'
'But I have no idea of doing so,' replied Mr. Sharpe, dipping his pen in the ink-bottle.
'You?' queried Roland.
'I—I mean, that is——'
'Who or what the devil do you mean, Mr. Sharpe?' said Roland, undeterred by the pressure of Maude's little hand on his arm.
'I mean that Mrs. Lindsay, acting on my advice, has no intention of doing so.'
'Why?' asked Roland, dissembling his rage, to find the mask thrown off thus.
'Because the land is worth twice as much again as it was in the days when your grandfather gave a tack of the Mains to his grandfather.'
'Surely he deserves to benefit thereby?'
'We don't think so.'
'We again!' thought Roland, trembling with suppressed passion; but now Trotter, the servant, announced that the gamekeeper wished to see Mr. Sharpe, and Gavin Fowler was ushered in—an old man whose eyes, when Roland shook hands with him, glistened with pride and pleasure, as he exclaimed:
'Welcome back to your father's rooftree and yer ain fireside, sir; a' here hae lang wanted ye sairly.'
A sneer hovered on the lips of Hawkey Sharpe, as he said briefly to the keeper, who had a gun under his arm, a shot-belt over his shoulders, and a couple of dogs at his heels:
'Well, what brings you here to-day?'
'I've caught that loon Jamie Spens snaring rabbits and hares in the King's Wood.'
'At last,' said Hawkey Sharpe through his teeth.
'At last, sir,' responded the keeper, chiefly to Roland.
'Did he show fight?' asked Sharpe.
'Of course he did; Jamie comes o' a camstairy and fechtin' race.'
'I know that,' said Roland; 'this is not his first offence, by what you said?'
'Allow me, sir,' said the steward pointedly, with a wave of his hand.
'He is no bad kind o' chield,' urged the keeper.
'He will serve for an example, anyway!'
'His family are puir—starving, in fact, sir.'
'What the deuce do I care? I'd as soon shoot a poacher as a weasel.'
'Let the poor fellow off for this time,' said Roland.
'Of course—do, please,' urged Maude; 'if you, Mr. Sharpe, were poor, hungry, and, more than all, had a hungry wife and children——'
'They are nothing to me.'
'But such pretty little children!' urged Maude.
'God bless your kind heart, miss!' exclaimed the old keeper.
'Let him go—this once—I say,' said Roland, still boiling at the tone and manner adopted by the steward.
'For my sake,' added Maude sweetly.
'For yours?' asked Mr. Sharpe, looking at her with a peculiar expression to which Roland had not yet the key, for he said firmly and emphatically:
'At my order, rather!'
'Roland, please don't interfere,' said his cold and pale-faced stepmother; 'Mr. Sharpe knows precisely how to deal with these people.'
'Oh—indeed!'
'I shall not take my way in this instance,' said Mr. Sharpe condescendingly; 'and so, to please you, Miss Lindsay, the culprit shall go free,' he added, with a bow to Maude, who blushed, more with annoyance, apparently, than satisfaction, while Roland, in obedience to an imploring glance from her, stifled his indignation, and abruptly quitted the library.
'I thank ye for trying to help me, sir,' said old Duncan Ged, who stood in the hall, bonnet in hand, and apparently quite crushed by the non-renewal of his lease; 'but Hawkey Sharpe is the hardest agent between the Forth an' Tay; he turns the puir out o' house and hame at a minute's notice, and counts every hare and rabbit in the woods. E'en's ye like, Mr. Sharpe!' said the old man, shaking his clenched hand in the direction of the library door; 'ilka man buckles his belt his ain gate, as I maun buckle mine. Everything has an end, and a pudding has twa.'
And thus strangely consoling himself, he took his departure. Roland sent the old man by post a cheque for fifty pounds; he could do no more at that time.
'But for dear Maude's sake,' thought Roland, 'I should certainly never set foot in Earlshaugh till these matters of mine are cleared up—and perhaps never again! But I'll make no fracas till after the covert shooting is over and our guests are gone; then, by Jove; won't I bring Mr. Hawkey Sharpe and this grim stepmother to book, if I can!'