The Broom-Squire, Sabine Baring-Gould [books to read this summer txt] 📗

it is now or never can the little estate in the Punch-Bowl be saved from fallin' into the hands of them darned lawyers. A stitch in time saves nine, and a little help now may be all that is wanted to keep the property clean and clear and unembarrassed wi' debt. If once we get our heads under water we'll all get drowned, me and Matabel and the kid--sure as crabs ain't garden apples."

"That may be very true, Bideabout," answered Iver, "but for all that I cannot let the money out of my control."

"Ain't you bound to spend it on the child?"

"I am bound to reserve it whole and intact for the child."

"But can you not see," persisted Jonas, "that you are doing that for the child, it would wish above all, when come to years of discretion."

"That is possible, but my hands are tied."

"In truth you will not."

"I cannot."

"I don't believe you. It is because you want to spite me that you will not help."

"Not at all, Bideabout. I wish well to the child and its mother, and, of course, to you. But I cannot break a trust."

"You will not?"

"If no other word will suit you--be it so--I will not."

Jonas Kink fumed blood red.

"You think to have me there. I shouldn't be surprised but it's you who are at the bottom of all--and will buy me up and buy me out, that you and Matabel may have the place to yourselves. It shall never be. I know what was meant when Sanna Verstage made you trustee. I am to be reckoned with. I can assure you of that. I shall find means to keep my property from you and my wife also."

He raised his stick and fell to beating the picture of Mehetabel with it; till it was rent to rags.

"Not even her picture shall you have--and I would it were her I were slashin' and breakin' to pieces as I've done to this picture. It may come to that in the end--but out of my power and into your hands she shall never go."


CHAPTER XXXV.


THE ONLY CHANGE

Jonas Kink, after much objurgation and persuasion, had induced old Clutch to leave his stable at Guildford, and return home by way of Godalming.

But the horse was unfamiliar with the road. He had been ridden along it in reverse direction in the morning, but, as every one knows, a way wears quite a different aspect under such circumstances. Old Clutch was mistrustful. Having been taken such an unprecedentedly long journey, he was without confidence that his master might not prolong the expedition to a still further distance. Accordingly he was exceedingly troublesome and unmanageable on the road from Guildford, and his behavior served to work the temper of Jonas to the extremity of irritability.

The horse, on approaching Godalming, began to limp. Bideabout descended, and examined each hoof. He could see no stone there, nothing to account for the lameness of old Clutch, which, however, became so pronounced as he entered the street of the little town that he was obliged to stable the beast, and rest it.

Then he went direct to the offices of a small attorney of the name of Barelegs, who had been engaged on his business.

As he entered the office, Mr. Barelegs looked up from a deed he was reading, turned his head, and contemplated his client.

There was something in his manner that angered Jonas, already excited and inclined to be annoyed at trifles, and he said irritably,--

"You look at me. Mister Barelegs, just as does old Clutch when I come into the stable, expectin' a feed of corn, he does."

"And no doubt he deserves it."

"He thinks he does, but he don't."

"And no doubt he gets his feed."

"There is doubt about it. He gets it when I choose to give it, not when he glowers at me--that way, he's wonderful artificial is old Clutch."

"I dare be sworn, Mr. Kink, if he has served you well, he expects to be paid for it."

"He's an owdacious old Radical," observed Jonas. "Just now he's shamming lame, becos I rode him into Guildford, and he likes the inn here. There's an old broken-winded, galled gray mare, I reckon he's set his fancy on in the same yard, and I'm pretty sure this lameness means nothin' more nor less than that he wants to be a-courtin'. To see them two hosses, when they meet, rubbin' heads, is enough to make a fellow sick. And Clutch, at his age too--when he ort to be thinkin' of his latter end!"

"We've all our little weaknesses, Mr. Kink, man and beast alike. You courted--not so long ago."

"I never courted in the ridic'lous fashion of other folks. I'd none of your yardin', and aiblen' to aiblen', and waistin'."

"What do you mean, Mr. Kink?"

"Don't you know the three stages o' courtin here? Fust o' all, the young pair walks each other about a yard apart--that's yardin'. Then they gits more familiar, and takes each other's arms. That's wot we calls in these parts aiblen' to aiblen', and last, when they curls their arms round each other, won'erful familiar, that's called waistin'. No, I never went through none o' them courses in my courtship. I weren't such a fool. But I was tellin' you about old Clutch."

"I want to hear about that party. What if he does not receive his feed. Doesn't he kick?"

Jonas laughed ironically.

"He tried that on once. But I got a halter, and fastened it to his tail by the roots, and made a loop t'other end, and when he put up his heels I slipped one into the loop, and he nigh pulled his tail off at the stump."

"Then, perhaps he bites."

"He did try that on," Jonas admitted, "but he won't try that on again."

"How did you cure him of biting?" asked the solicitor.

"I saw what he was up to, when I was a-grooming of him. He tried to get hold of my arm. I was prepared for him. I'd slipped my arm out o' my sleeve and stuffed the sleeve with knee-holm (butcher's broom), and when he bit he got the prickles into his mouth so as he couldn't shut it again, but stood yawnin' as if sleepy till I pulled 'em out. Clutch and I has our little games together--the teasy old brute--but I'm generally too much for him." After a little consideration Bideabout added, "It's only on the road I find him a little too cunnin' for me. Now he's pretendin to be lame, all 'long of his little love-affair with that gray hoss. Sometimes he lies down in the middle of the road. If I had my fowlin' piece I'd shoot off blank cartridge under his belly, and wouldn't old Clutch go up all fours into the air; but he knows well enough the gun is at home. Let old Clutch alone for wickedness."

"Well, Mr. Kink, you haven't come here to get my assistance against old Clutch, have you?"

"No," said Bideabout. "That's gospel. I ain't come here to tell about old Clutch; and it ain't against him as I want your assistance. It is against Iver Verstage, the painter chap at Guildford."

"What has he been doing?"

"Nuthin'! that's just it. He's made treasurer, trustee, or whatever you're pleased to call it, for my baby; and I want the money out."

"Out of his pocket and into yours?"

"Exactly. I don't see why I'm to have all the nussin' and feedin' and clothin' of the young twoad, and me in difficulties for money, and he all the while coaxing up a hundred and fifty pounds, and laying of it out, and pocketin' the interest, and I who have all the yowls by night, and the washin' and dressin' and feedin' and all that, not a ha'penny the better."

"How does this person you name come to be trustee for the child?"

"Becos his mother made him so; and that old idjot of a Simon Verstage, his father, goes and makes the sum bigger by addin' fifty pounds to her hundred, so now there's this tidy little sum lies doin no good to nobody."

"I cannot help you. You cannot touch the principal till the child is of age, and then it will go to the child, and not you."

"Why! that's twenty-one years hence. That's what I call reg'lar foreright (awkward); and worse than foreright, it's unreasonable. The child is that owdacious in the cradle, I shouldn't be surprised when he's of age he would deny me the money."

"The interest will be paid to you."

"What is that--perhaps sixpence in the year. Better than nuthin', but I want the lot of it. Look you here, Master Barelegs, I know very well that I owe you money. I know very well that unless I can raise two hundred pounds, and that pretty smart, I shall have to mortgage my little bit of land to you. I don't forget that. But I daresay you'd rather have the money down than my poor little bit of lean and ribby take out o' the common. You shall have the money if you'll help me to get it. If I can't get that money into my fingers--I'm a done man. But it's not only that as troubles me. It is that the Rocliffes, and the Snellings, and the Boxalls, and Jamaica Cheel will make my life miserable. They'll mock at me, and I shall be to them just as ridic'lous an object as was Thomas Rocliffe after he'd lost his Countess. That's twenty-three years agone, and he can't get over it. Up comes the Countess Charlotte on every occasion, whenever any one gets across with him. It will be the same with me. I told 'em all to their faces that I had got them into my power, and just as the net was about to snap--then the breaking of the bank upset all my reckonings, and spoiled the little game--and what is worse, has made me their sport. But I won't stand no nonsense from old Clutch, nor will I from them."

"I confess I do not quite understand about this money. Was it left by will?"

"Left by will right enough," answered Bideabout. "You see the old woman, Sanna Verstage, had a bit of property of her own when she married, and then, when it came to her dyin', she set to write a will, and wanted to leave a hundred pounds to the little twoad. But she called up and consulted Simon, and he sed, 'Put on another fifty, Sanna, and I'll make that up. I always had a likin' for Matabel.' So that is how it came about as I've heard, and a hundred pound came out of her estate, and Simon made up the other fifty. And for why--but to spite me, I dun know, but they appointed Iver to be trustee. Now, I'm in difficulties about the land. I reckon when I'm dead it will go to the little chap, and go wi' all the goodness drained out of it--acause I have had to mortgage it. Whereas, if I could touch that money now, there'd be nothing of the kind happen."

"I am very sorry for you," remarked the lawyer. "But that bequest is beyond your reach so long as the child lives."

"What's that you say?"

"I say that unless the poor little creature should