Chapter I. AN ONLY SON

Good Squire Tufton of Gablehurst lay dying. He had been ailing for many months, knowing his end to be near; and yet, as is so often the case in lingering declines, death was long in coming, so that those about him had grown used to the sight of the strong figure wasted to a shadow, and the face shadowed by the wings of the hovering messenger.

Some members of the household, indeed, had begun to cherish the hope that the master might yet recover, and be seen amongst them once more; but that hope was not shared by the patient himself, nor by the two devoted women who nursed him with tender love.

His wife and daughter were always with him, relieving each other in turn, and occasionally both yielding place to one of the many faithful servants, who were all eager to do what they could for the master they loved; but in his waking hours the squire seldom missed the best-loved faces about him. Rachel and her mother seemed to live their lives about his sick bed, soothing his weariness and pain, and striving with patient resignation to school themselves to submission to the will of God, who was about to take their loved one from them.

And yet they had kept him with them longer than once seemed possible. The bright days of summer were doubtless favourable to the patient. When he could lie with open windows, breathing the pure soft air from woodland and field, he seemed able to make a stand against the grim enemy of human nature. But the summer was now upon the wane; the golden sunshine was obscured by the first driving rains of the approaching equinox; and it seemed to those who watched at the sufferer's bedside that his life was ebbing away as slowly and as steadily as the hours of sunshine in the shortening day.

Today there was a look upon his face which caused Rachel many times to turn anxious and beseeching eyes upon her mother, and yet what she read in the expression of that worn and gentle countenance only confirmed her own impressions.

The Squire lay very still and quiet, dozing as it seemed, whilst the fire crackled cheerfully up the wide chimney, and the rain dashed ceaselessly against the windows. He had not spoken for many hours. The re had come into Rachel's heart a terrible fear lest he should never speak again. The shadow on his face looked so gray; the features had taken so strange and pinched a look.

Rachel had seen death before in many humble homes, although it had, so far, not touched any of her own nearest and dearest. She had watched that creeping shadow before now, for her heart always went out to the sick and the suffering, and her feet led her to the homes of those who stood in need of tender sympathy and womanly aid. But when the shadow gathered upon the face of her own loved father, the pressure upon her heart seemed almost more than she could bear. The tears stole down her cheeks, and her eyes sought those of her mother with a glance of almost pitiful appeal.

The leech had stolen into the room, had stood beside the patient, had shaken his head, and stolen away. He knew that his skill, such as it was, could avail nothing now; it was but the question of a few hours.

All day that stupor had continued. Rachel had feared they would never hear his voice, or see the loving glance of his eyes again. She had passed the time between a study of that wasted face, and an eager and restless looking forth from the casement, as though in search of something or somebody who came not.

Often she saw servants and messengers hastening this way and that, exchanging words with each other, and starting off afresh; but the one stalwart figure, for which she gazed with aching eyes, appeared not, and often a sigh would break from her lips, whilst from time to time a tear forced its way to her eyes.

Dusk was falling now. She could no longer see across the expanse of park land which surrounded Gablehurst. She drew the curtains at last with gentle hands, and piled up the logs upon the hearth. The re was a glint of something in her eyes not altogether accounted for by the tears in them. It was a sparkle which bespoke wounded sensibility--something approaching to anger.

"O brother, brother,"she whispered, with dry lips,"how can you treat him so? Have you a heart? How terrible a judgment you seem to be seeking to draw down upon yourself! What will the end be like, if this is the beginning?"

The flames leapt up with a sudden ruddy glow. The room had been dark before; now it was suddenly flooded with a brilliant palpitating light. As Rachel turned back to the bed, she saw that her father's eyes had opened. The mists of weakness no longer seemed to cloud his sight. He was looking round him with comprehension and observation.

"Where is Tom?"

It was the question they had been expecting all day. It was in anticipation of this that messengers had been scouring the neighbourhood in search of that young ne'er-do-well, Tom Tufton, the good Squire's unworthy son.

And yet, unworthy as he was--idle, reckless, dissipated, a source of pain and anxiety to father, mother, and sister--young Tom was beloved by the people in and about his home, albeit they all shook their heads over his follies and wildness, and wondered with bated breath what would befall Gablehurst when the young master should be lord of all.

"Where is Tom?"asked the Squire, in a firmer voice than they had thought to hear again.

"Dear father, we have sent for him,"answered Rachel soothingly;"he will be here anon."

"I would speak with Tom,"said the Squire."The re are things I needs must say to him ere I close my eyes for ever. Perchance I have already delayed too long. Yet I have waited and waited, hoping for signs of seriousness in one so soon to lose a parent. But seriousness and Tom have no dealings together, it would seem. God forgive us if it be any lack on our part that has made our son the wild young blade that he seems like to be!"

A little sob broke from the mother's lips. It was the bitterest thought of all to the parents; and yet they could not see wherein they had erred. They had striven to bring up the boy well. He had had the same training as his father before him. The re had been no lack of firmness, and no lack of love, but the result, as at present seen, was terrible to the father and mother.

The squire heard the stifled sound of grief, and put out his hand to clasp that of his wife.

"Remember he is the child of many prayers,"he said."We must believe that those prayers will be answered. We must have faith in God."

"I will try--I will try,"answered the poor mother;"but oh, my husband, how shall I hope to cope with that wild spirit when you are gone?"

It was a hard question to answer, for the Squire himself had found his son more than a match for him many a time. It was true that he had done all that man can do to protect wife and daughter from the reckless extravagance of an ungoverned nature; but he knew well that Tom was not one to see himself tamely set aside. The re were difficulties ahead for these two women, and the future of his son lay like a load upon his spirit.

"I would speak with Tom,"he said, after a brief pause, during which Rachel administered a draught of the cordial which did most to support the failing strength of the dying man. Just at this moment the lamp of life seemed to be glowing with fresh strength. It was but the last flicker before extinction, and the wife knew it, but Rachel experienced a glow of hope that perhaps it might mean a temporary improvement.

"I will go and see if he has come,"she said."Perchance they have found and brought him by now."

She glided from the room, just giving one backward glance in so doing, when the expression on her mother's face brought a quick spasm of pain to her heart. The re was a strange conflict of feeling going on within her, as she trod the corridor with swift steps, and passed rapidly down into the hall beneath.

This hall was a great square place, with a glowing fire illuminating it, the dancing shadows falling grotesquely upon the pictured Tuftons that lined the walls, and upon the weapons which hung, together with trophies of game, between them. In the centre of the hall was an oak table, heavily carved about the legs, and at this table stood a tall, broad-shouldered young man, clad in the stout leathern breeches and full coat of the period, tossing off a steaming tankard of some spirituous liquor, although the flush on his face, and the slightly unsteady way in which he held the vessel, seemed to indicate that he stood in no further need of strong drink.

Rachel came swiftly down the staircase, her footfall making scarcely any sound upon the shallow polished steps.

"Tom!"she exclaimed, in a voice full of repressed feeling,"how can you delay drinking here, when your father upstairs is dying, and is asking for you?"

"Dying, quotha!"returned the young man, with a foolish laugh;"methinks I have heard that tale somewhat too often to be scared by it now, sweet sister!"and he patted her shoulder with a gesture from which she instinctively recoiled.

"Tom, have you no heart? He will not last the night through. Got you not our messages, sent hours ago? How can you show yourself so careless--so cruel? But tarry no longer now you are here. He has asked for you twice. Take care lest you dally too long!"

Something in Rachel's face and in her manner of speaking seemed to make an impression upon the young roisterer. Tom was not drunk, although he had been spending the day with comrades who seasoned every sentence with an oath, and flavoured every pastime with strong drink. A man with a weaker head might have been overcome by the libations in which he had indulged, but Tom was a seasoned vessel by that time, and he could stand a good deal.

He was in a noisy and reckless mood, but he had the command of his faculties. He saw that his sister was speaking with conviction, and he prepared to do her bidding.

At the same time, Tom was not seriously alarmed about his father. The Squire's long illness had bred in him a sort of disbelief in any fatal termination. He had made up his mind that women and doctors were all fools together, and frightened themselves for nothing. He had resolved against letting himself be scared by their long faces and doleful prognostications, and had gone on in his wonted courses with reckless bravado. He was not altogether an undutiful son. He had some affection for both father and mother. But his affection was not strong enough to keep him from following out his own wishes. He had long been a sort of leader amongst the young men of the place and neighbourhood, and he enjoyed the reputation he held of being a daring young blade, not far inferior in prowess and recklessness to those young bloods about town, reports of whose doings sometimes reached the wilds of Essex, stirring up Tom Tufton's ambition to follow in their wake.

He always declared that he meant no harm, and did no harm, to any. The natives of the place were certainly proud of him, even if they sometimes fell to rating and crying shame upon him. He knew his popularity; he knew that he had a fine figure and a handsome face; he knew that he had the sort of address which carried him through his scrapes and adventures with flying colours. He found the world a pleasant place, and saw no reason why he should not enjoy himself in his own way whilst he was young. Some day he would marry and sober down, and live as his fathers had done before him; but, meantime, he meant to have his fling.

The re were other Tuftons who had done the like before him, as his father knew to his cost. Several times had the estate been sadly impoverished by the demands made upon it by some of the wild younger brothers, who had bequeathed (as it seemed) their characteristics to this young scion, Tom. The Squire himself had been living with great economy, that he might pay off a mortgage which had been contracted by his own father, in order to save the honour of the family, which had been imperilled by the extravagance of his brother.

Tom never troubled himself about these things. He cared little how his father scraped and saved, if he had but money in his pockets sufficient for the needs of the day. Extravagance in money was less Tom's foible than recklessness in his exploits, and a daring disregard of authority. No doubt he would have made away with money had he possessed it; but as everybody knew that he did not possess a long purse, and that the Squire would not be likely to pay his son's debts of honour, he was saved from the temptation of plunging deeply into debt. People did not care to trust him too far.

So, as he climbed the shallow stairs three at once, he told himself that his father had no need to speak severely to him. He had only been as other young men, and had not got into serious debt or trouble. Tom had almost persuaded himself, in fact, that he had been on the whole a very estimable sort of youth, and he entered the sick room with something of a swaggering air, as much as to say that he had no cause for shame.

But at the sight which greeted his eyes, as they met those of the sick man, a sobering change came over him. He had seen death sometimes, and the sight of it had always painfully affected him. He hated to be brought up short, as it were, and forced to see the serious, the solemn, the awe inspiring in life. He wanted to live in the present; he did not want to be forced to face the inevitable future.

"Tom,"said his father's voice, in weak but distinct accents,"you have come, and it is well. I have things to say to you which may not longer be delayed. Take that chair beside me. I would see your face once again."

Tom would far rather have lingered in the shadows of the background; but his mother had risen and motioned him to take her place. He sat down rather awkwardly; and mother and daughter, without leaving the room, retired to the background, and sat together upon a distant settle, holding each other by the hand.

"Tom,"said the dying man,"I have sent for you because there are things which I would rather you should hear from my lips than learn from others after my death."

"Oh, you will not die yet, father; you will be better soon,"said Tom uneasily, letting his glance wander restlessly round the room to avoid the searching gaze of those luminous eyes.

"Life and death are in God's hands, boy; and I think my summons has come. Tom, have you been counting upon being master here when I am gone?"

"I don't know that I ever thought much about it,"answered Tom, rather taken aback;"but I suppose I come after you."