第236章

His mother in her letter to him had not explained how it had come to pass that the sale of the furniture would be unnecessary. His father had given him to understand distinctly that his income would be withdrawn from him unless he would express his intention of giving up Miss Crawley; and it had been admitted among them all that Cosby Lodge must be abandoned if this were done. He certainly would not give up Grace Crawley. Sooner than that, he would give up every stick in his possession, and go an live in New Zealand if it were necessary. Not only had Grace's conduct to him made him thus firm, but the natural bent of his own disposition had tended that way also. His father had attempted to dictate to him, and sooner than submit to that he would sell the coat off his back. Had his father confined his opposition to advice, and had Miss Crawley been less firm in her view of her duty, the major might have been less firm also. But things had so gone that he was determined to be fixed as granite. If others would not be moved from their resolves, neither would he. Such being the state of his mind, he could not understand why he was thus summoned to Plumstead. He had already written over to Pau about his house, and it was well that he should, at any rate, see his mother before he started. He was willing, therefore, to go to Plumstead, but he took no steps as to the withdrawal of those auctioneer's bills to which the archdeacon so strongly objected. When he drove into the rectory yard, his father was standing there before him.

'Henry,' he said, 'I am very glad to see you. I am very much obliged to you for coming.' Then Henry got out of his cart and shook hands with his father, and the archdeacon began to talk about the weather. 'Your mother has gone into Barchester to see your grandfather,' said the archdeacon.

'If you are not tired, we might as well take a walk. I want to go up as far as Flurry's cottage.' The major of course declared that he was not at all tired, and that he should be delighted of all things to go up and see old Flurry, and thus they started. Young Grantly had not even been into the house before he left the yard with his father. Of course, he was thinking of the coming sale at Cosby Lodge, and of his future life at Pau, and of his injured position in the world. There would be no longer any occasion for him to be solicitous as to the Plumstead foxes.

Of course these things were in his mind; but he could not begin to speak of them till his father did so. 'I'm afraid your grandfather is not very strong,' said the archdeacon, shaking his head. 'I fear he won't be with us very long.'

'Is it so bad as that?'

'Well, you know, he is an old man, Henry; and he was always somewhat old for his age. He will be eighty, if he lives two years longer, I think.

But he'll never reach eighty;--never. You must go and see him before you go back home; you must indeed.' The major, of course, promised that he would see his grandfather, and the archdeacon told his son how nearly the old man had fallen in the passage between the cathedral and the deanery. In this way they had nearly made their way up to the gamekeeper's cottage without a word of reference to any subject that touched upon the matter of which each of them was of course thinking.

Whether the major intended to remain at home or to live at Pau, the subject of Mr Harding's health was a natural topic for conversation between him and his father; but when his father stopped suddenly, and began to tell him how a fox had been trapped on Darvell's farm--'and of course it was a Plumstead fox --there can be no doubt that Flurry is right about that';--when the archdeacon spoke of this iniquity with much warmth, and told his son how he had at once written off to Mr Thorne of Ullathorne, and how Mr Thorne had declared that he didn't believe a word of it, and how Flurry had produced the pad of the fox, with the marks of the trap on the skin--then the son began to feel that the ground was becoming very warm, and that he could not go on much longer without rushing into details about Grace Crawley. 'I've no more doubt that it was one of our foxes than that I stand here,' said the archdeacon.

'It doesn't matter where the fox was bred. It shouldn't have been trapped,' said the major.

'Of course not,' said the archdeacon, indignantly. I wonder whether he would have been so keen had a Romanist priest come into his parish and turned one of his Protestants into a Papist?

Then Flurry came up, and produced the identical pad out of his pocket.

'I don't suppose it was intended,' said the major, looking at the interesting relic with scrutinising eyes. 'I suppose it was caught in a rabbit-trap, eh, Flurry?'

'I don't see what right a man has with traps at all, when gentlemen is particular about their foxes,' said Flurry. 'Of course they'd call it rabbits.'

'I never liked that man on Darvell's farm,' said the archdeacon.

'Nor I either,' said Flurry. 'No farmer ought to be on that land who don't have a horse of his own. And if I war Squire Thorne, I wouldn't have no farmer there who didn't keep no horse. When a farmer has a horse of his own, and follies the hounds, there ain't no rabbit-traps;--never.

How does that come about, Mr Henry? Rabbits! I know very well what rabbits is!'