'Need I remind you,' began Eustace, 'of my father's high, indomitable spirit?
'No, no,' said the squire hastily; 'he was the finest'—
'Now, squire,' said Dr. Cruden, laying his hand gently on his knee, 'let us agree, before Mr. De la Mark begins, that there shall be no interruptions, or we shall not finish to-night.'
'Go on,' said the squire.
'He could never brook the stern temper of my grandfather, and constant contention created serious disaffection between them.'
'That was all through Bloodworth,' said the squire; 'he was at the bottom of it all; he is a very'—
'Now, do hush,' said the doctor in a deprecating tone.
'Go on, Eu,' said the squire impatiently.
'He married—that you know—and I was born before he was twenty-one.'
'Yep, you must be pretty near thirty by this time.'
'I am thirty-five.'
'Why, that makes me fifty-three. How time flies! Well, lad!'
'You are aware that the discovery of his marriage was the cause of the final rupture.'
'Ah! Eu was wrong there; I was but a boy then, and did not understand things, and took his part through thick and thin; but it was a very foolish thing to fly in the old man's face that way.'
'Squire, squire,' said the doctor, 'what right have you to talk?'
'Well, that's true; but I thought he would get over mine, and Mary's property made it of little consequence, as far as money went.'
Eustace took the miniature from his uncle, and, opening the case on the other side, showed the portrait of a lady. 'That was my mother,' he said quietly.
'Ay, to the life; yes, she was a lovely creature, and as good as she was beautiful. Eu was perfectly right to marry her; but then he should have waited a little.'
'Bloodworth hurried him into it,' said Eustace, 'by telling him, in confidence, of another match which Sir Eustace had determined to effect between him and some lady distantly connected with his family.'
'Now, Eu,' said the squire, rising in his chair, 'if you expect me to keep my temper, don't mention that—pshaw! nonsense!' pushing away the doctor's hand—'that fellow's name more than you can help.'
'No. My father left his birthplace with a parent's curse ringing in his ears.'
'Shocking, shocking!' said the squire.
'You know nay mother,' continued Eustace, 'scarcely outlived my birth.'
'Poor Eu! Poor girl!' sighed the squire.
'At that time my father, as he afterwards told me, broken down with grief, wrote to Sir Eustace, entreating a reconciliation and a revocation of his curse.'
'I'll answer for it, my father never had that letter. I know he was hard, but he could not have stood that.'
'An answer came to it, written by Bloodworth, who complained bitterly of being made the medium of so painful a message. It was to the effect that Sir Eustace would pardon and receive him upon condition of his marrying again immediately, according to his choice; and it was couched in such arbitrary terms, so devoid of all natural feeling, so insulting to my mother's memory, and casting such unworthy reflections on my father's motive for making the advance, that he spurned the thought of replying to it. In that letter, too, Bloodworth confirmed what he had often insinuated in his former letters—that his brothers had helped to embitter the mind of Sir Eustace against him.'
'Oh, my dear sir,' said the doctor, laying his hand on Mr. Brimble, 'what is the use of chafing so? Pray, pray be pacified!'
The squire leant back in his chair in silence.
'I must tell you, my dear uncle, that my father did not believe it of you,—you were then about seventeen or eighteen,—and he could not credit that selfish interest could so have altered your heart, full of affection as he had left it, in the very bloom of youth. But, you excepted, he determined to forget all England and devote himself to me. My mother's slender fortune, and an estate to which he became entitled when of age'—
'Yes, Itterdale,' interrupted the squire.
'Left him by old Jasper Honeyman, some fiftieth cousin of my mother's—this enabled him to live at ease, though not in affluence. He converted the estate into money, and, without any settled home, wandered from country to country as inclination led him.'
'Eu, I could never understand why he did not write to me,' cried the squire, 'especially as we were in the same box; he married for love a woman of high family; I, for something of the sort, a woman of no particular "family,"'—involuntarily glancing round at the door,—'and glorious fortune, so we both came under the ban; he knew it, and I am puzzled to this day to know why he remained silent.'
'I am afraid of telling you the cause,' said Eustace.
'Go on,' said the squire, clenching his fist, and flushing with indignation.
'Yes; he was wholly deceived by that man, who wrote, adjuring him to be patient, entreating him to communicate all his proceedings to him, mourning over the conduct of his unnatural relatives, and promising'—
'Now don't, pray don't!' said the squire; 'if you love me, don't!'
'At last came the announcement of the death of Sir Eustace, and of his will, by which you and my father were disinherited, and Parker's Dew, with all other property, was left to Sir Valary.'
'Eu,' said the squire, starting up, 'I never believed in that will. I saw my father not long before his death; he entirely forgave me, and told me it lay sore on his heart that he could not see Eu before he closed his eyes. I gathered from what he said—but he was too ill to talk much—that he had tried to get at him for years, but without success. That will was a forgery!' continued the squire, striking the table with a vehemence that made the glasses dance.
'My father did not think so. We were in Rome when we received the news, and he determined on returning to England, that he might see you and find the truth of what he had heard. I was then eighteen, and rejoiced in the prospect of seeing my own country—the only one in Europe that I had not visited; but after a three days' illness my father fell a victim to malaria, and I was so ill as to be reported dead.'
'Of course,' said the squire; 'everybody said you were.'
'I think I should have justified the report, if it had not been for an excellent Protestant clergyman, who felt deeply for me, having just buried his wife in the same disease; he became a father to me, though I had no other claim upon his sympathy than needing it.'
'Where is he now?' asked the squire eagerly.
Eustace was silent.
'Ha!' said the squire; 'go on.'
'Like me, he was, as far as human ties go, alone in the world, and determined to spend the remainder of his life as a missionary in the East. I resolved to accompany him; ............