CHAPTER XIII.

THE YOUNG SQUIRE ASSUMES A NEW CHARACTER.

THREE or four days passed, but no tidings came of Bill the Kicker.

A week went by, and still he was away. They had the river dragged, and all the ponds; every ditch and pitfall in the neighbourhood was searched; and printed bills, describing him, were posted up outside all the police stations of the district; but all to no effect.

The April rains had come on now, and the world had suddenly burst into verdure. It was a lovely vista that the Squire looked down over the gate of the wood, when he went to see after the repairs at the cottage. But he had to take his morning walks alone now. The tutor had returned, and Easter holidays were up.

Dick's presentiments, too, were realized. His father had found a school for him; and nine o'clock saw him strapping up his books and hurrying off to learn as much mischief and as little solid information as he could—after the fashion of boys made on his pattern.

Meanwhile, Farmer Bluff's gout and the repairs had gone on apace. The old fellow's prediction had come true more speedily than he desired. Not many days had elapsed when the left hand was seized, and he became entirely dependent upon Elspeth—being unable even to feed himself.

As long as the holidays had lasted, Hal had contrived to drop in pretty often; and he would hardly have believed how much he was missed, now that lessons and April showers combined to keep him away. One half-holiday proving fine, however, Hal slipped out between school and lunch, and set off for the farm. He rang, as usual, but no one came; so, finding the door on the latch, he pushed it open and announced himself.

A savoury smell greeted him. Farmer Bluff's dinner tray was on the table. Hal apologized for his intrusion.

"I didn't know you dined quite so soon," said he.

"No more I do, it seems," returned Farmer Bluff gruffly. "That's how she serves me pretty nearly every day; just brings it in and takes the covers off. Then leaves it here for me to smell until it's all gone cold,—to go and eat her own, I s'pose. And here am I, can't move hand or foot!"

"That's bad," said Hal; "it spoils the gravy so. You get the fat all on the top."

It was a mutton chop, and there were greens with it, according to the doctor's express orders.

"Greens aren't nice cold, either," added Hal. "They get so dabby, don't they? I suppose it rather comes of your having gout in both hands, though. Grown-ups are intended to be able to help themselves, you see."

The farmer groaned. He always did, when Hal made these little moral reflections. If any one had scolded, it would have only angered him and made him obstinate; but Hal's remarks came out so naturally, and he looked so sympathetic all the while, that a more ill-tempered man than Farmer Bluff could scarcely have felt annoyed.

"I'll tell you what," said Hal suddenly. "As I happen to be here just now, why shouldn't I help you? I can manage quite as well as Mrs. Elspeth, if you like."

When Elspeth returned, she was astonished to find the young Squire seated on a corner of the table, with his crutches one side, and the bailiff's plate the other, preparing dainty mouthfuls with the knife and fork, and skilfully conveying them to her master's mouth.

"Well, I never!" exclaimed she, pausing in the open doorway in amaze.

"It seemed a pity all this gravy should get cold, because you were so busy that you couldn't come," explained Hal. "I think, if I were you, I'd try and make sure of that before I brought the dinner in. I shouldn't like mine cold. And you must excuse my sitting on the table too. If I stand, you see, I want my hands to hold my crutches with; and if I sit down on a chair, I come so low I couldn't reach. I hope I make it salt enough," he added, as he lodged another forkful in the great bird's mouth.

Hal's relations with the bailiff became of a far more confidential nature after this. We often hear it said that a right to give advice is earned by lending help. So Hal found; only he put it in a different way. He felt that he had found his way to Farmer Bluff's affection by performing such a homely office for him; and he treated him accordingly. He often managed to run in upon half-holidays; and he didn't only lecture him about the gout. He soon succeeded in making him talk; so that before long, he knew more of Farmer Bluff's history than most other people did. He found out how the old man liked to talk of sport and dogs; but he also learned how Mrs. Bluff had died quite young of fever, and how one by one, the children whom she left had gone to follow her, so that in six short weeks, he had been left alone.

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"That was very sad for you," said he. "I shouldn't wonder if that partly made you have the gout."

"Trouble does act on the system, so the doctors say," said Farmer Bluff, glad of an excuse for what he knew Hal blamed as his own fault.

But that was not exactly Hal's meaning. "It might have been what made you take to beer," observed he.

"Now if you'd looked at it like this," continued Hal after due reflection: "My wife and children are gone on to heaven, where I mean to join them by and by, when I've done work. Just see what a difference it would have made. Some people," added he sagely, "only look at every day as it comes; and if it rains or snows, they think it's never going to stop. Other people look right ahead to the summer holidays—or to the harvest, if they're farmers, of course; and that makes all the difference. They know it will be all right in the long run, don't you see?"

But Hal's tacit reproof had not made Elspeth one whit more attentive to the invalid; indeed, if anything, she had been even more neglectful than before. Her master's time at the farm was getting short, and she had quite made up her mind to seek another place.

Farmer Bluff raged and swore when she informed him of her determination. But Elspeth only taunted him with his powerlessness to execute one word of all his threats or oaths; and finally, having done her best to rouse his worst passions, she left him to meditate upon his awkward situation.

Just then Hal, happening to get caught in a shower, swung himself up the yard and into the porch.

Elspeth grinned as she let him in.

"He's in an awful temper, that I warn you, Master Hal," she said. "I'd a'most as soon go talk to Blazer as him."

But Hal was not afraid; and before the lapse of many minutes, Farmer Bluff—without a single oath—had told him how things stood.

"Well, now, let's see," said Hal. "What must you do? You must have somebody, that's clear. If you hadn't got this gout just now, it would be different, and you could laugh her in the face,—though I don't know that it would be exactly Christian to laugh the face of a person who 'despitefully used you;' but I mean you could do without her if she was determined not to stay. Or rather," added Hal, his thoughts suddenly taking a leap back to the source of all the difficulty, "you wouldn't be in such a bother at all; because she would never have given notice if you hadn't had to move out of the farm. It's all the gout, you see."

Farmer Bluff moved impatiently upon his chair. It was rather hard to be constantly twitted with that fact—even by Hal; because if it was "all the gout," it was therefore "all his own fault." But he was paid back for his pains with such a twinge in either leg, that he involuntarily moved his arms in their slings; whereupon each finger of each hand seemed to say—"No good, old fellow; you can't escape your punishment; for 'whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.'"

Meanwhile Hal was busy trying to think what could be done.

"Haven't you got somebody?" suggested he at last. "Relations are the best, I think, because they have an interest in you. You must have got a sister, haven't you?"

Farmer Bluff said "No" at first; but afterwards, he changed his mind. "Leastways not one who would come," said he. The matter stood thus. He had a sister once, who married somebody he did not like—a pious man, who would not drink for the sake of good fellowship, and did not swear. So he quarrelled with his sister; and when she wrote and told him that she had a baby boy named after him, he did not answer her; he had never seen or written to her since.

"She couldn't come in any case, you see," said Hal; "because she has her own home and her husband to look after."

The bailiff shook his head.

"He's dead," said he. "He died about the same time as my wife, and so did the boy. She wrote to me to know if I could give her any help. There was a little girl, I think."

"Then she's just the very one," said Hal.

"Unless she's married some one else," added Farmer Bluff. "But she wouldn't come. 'Tain't likely, after how I've treated her."

"You don't deserve it, certainly," admitted Hal; which was not exactly what the farmer meant. "But sisters are amazingly forgiving—so they say. (I always wish I'd got one, do you know?) If I were you, I'd write to her."

This advice was rather out of place, seeing the helpless condition of the old fellow's hands. The upshot of it was, however, that Hal sat down to write from Farmer Bluff's dictation; and between them they made up a letter, setting forth the state of things, and offering Mrs. Rust a home, if she were willing to forgive the past, and come to live with him. Then Hal got up to say good-bye.

"I'll be sure and have it posted," said he. "If I put it in the hall with all the other letters, Perkins will take it when he goes from work."

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