Mrs. Halliburton's Troubles Part 47

"Then you and Hawkesley were a couple of fools for your pains,"

intemperately interrupted Mr. Dare. "There's no game so dangerous, so delusive, as that of drawing bills. Have I not told you so, over and over again? Simple debt may be put off from month to month, and from year to year; but bills are nasty things. When I was a young man I lived for years upon promises to pay, but I took care not to put my name to a bill."

"Hawkesley----"

"Hawkesley may do what you must not," interrupted Mr. Dare, drowning his son's voice. "He has his father's long rent-roll to turn to. Recollect, Anthony, this must not occur again. It is impossible that I can be called upon periodically for these sums. Herbert is almost a man, and Cyril and George are growing up. A pretty thing, if you were all to come upon me in this manner. I have to exert my wits as it is, I can tell you. I'll give you a cheque to-morrow; and I should serve you right if I were to put you upon half allowance until I am repaid."

Mr. Dare finished his wine, rang for the table to be cleared, and left the room. Anthony remained standing against the side of the window, half in, half out, buried in a brown study, when Herbert came up, leaping over the gra.s.s. Herbert was nearly as tall as Anthony. He had been for some time articled to his father, but had only joined the office the previous Midsummer. He looked into the room and saw it was empty.

"Where's the governor?"

"Gone somewhere. Into the drawing-room, perhaps," replied Anthony.

"What a nuisance!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Herbert. "One can't talk to him before the girls. I want twenty-five s.h.i.+llings from him. Markham has the primest fis.h.i.+ng-rod to sell, and I must have it."

"Twenty-five s.h.i.+llings for a fis.h.i.+ng-rod!" cried Anthony.

"And cheap at the price," answered Herbert. "You don't often see so complete a thing as this. Markham would not part with it--it's a relic of his better days, he says--only his old mother wants some comfort or other which he can't otherwise afford. The case----"

"You have half-a-dozen fis.h.i.+ng-rods already."

"Half a dozen rubbis.h.!.+ That's what they are, compared with this one.

It's no business of yours, Anthony."

"Not at all. But you'll oblige me, Herbert, by not bothering the governor for money to-night. I have been asking him for some, and it has put him out."

"Did you get it?"

Anthony nodded.

"Then you'll let me have the one-pound-five, Anthony?"

"I can't," returned Anthony. "I shall have a cheque to-morrow, and I must pay it away whole. _That_ won't clear me. But I didn't dare to tell of more."

"If I don't get that fis.h.i.+ng-rod to-night, Markham may sell it to some one else," grumbled Herbert.

"Go and get it," replied Anthony. "Promise him the money for to-morrow.

You are not obliged to give it, you know. The governor has just said that he lived for years upon promises to pay."

"Markham wants the money down."

"He'll think that as good as down if you tell him he shall have it to-morrow. Bring the fis.h.i.+ng-rod away; possession's nine points of the law, you know."

"He'll make such an awful row afterwards, if he finds he does not get the money."

"Let him. You can row again. It's the easiest thing on earth to fence off little paltry debts like that. People get tired of asking for them."

Away vaulted Herbert for the fis.h.i.+ng-rod. Anthony yawned, stretched himself, and walked out just as twilight was fading. He was going out to keep an appointment.

Herbert Dare went back to Markham's. The man--though, indeed, so far as birth went he might be called a gentleman--lived a little way beyond Mr.

Dare's. The cottage was situated in the midst of a large garden, in which Markham worked late and early. He had a very, very small patrimony upon which he lived and kept his mother. He was bending over one of the beds when Herbert returned. "He would take the fis.h.i.+ng-rod then, and bring the money over at nine in the morning, before going to the office.

Mr. Dare was gone out, or he would have brought it at once," was the substance of the words in which Herbert concluded the negotiation.

Could they have looked behind the hedge at that moment, Herbert Dare and Markham, they would have seen two young gentlemen suddenly duck down under its shelter, creep silently along, heedless of the ditch, which, however, was tolerably dry at that season, make a sudden bolt across the road, when they got opposite Mr. Dare's entrance, and whisk within its gates. They were Cyril and George. That they had been at some mischief and were trying to escape detection, was unmistakable. Under cover of the garden-wall, as they had previously done under cover of the hedge, crept they; sprang into the house by the dining-room window, tore up the stairs, and took refuge in the drawing-room, startlingly arousing Mrs.

Dare from her after-dinner slumbers.

In point of fact, they had reckoned upon finding the room unoccupied.

CHAPTER IV.

THROWING AT THE BATS.

Aroused thus abruptly out of sleep, cross and startled, Mrs. Dare attacked the two boys with angry words. "I will know what you have been doing," she exclaimed, rising and shaking out the flounces of her dress.

"You have been at some mischief! Why do you come violently in, in this manner, looking as frightened as hares?"

"Not frightened," replied Cyril. "We are only hot. We had a run for it."

"A run for what?" she repeated. "When I say I will know a thing, I mean to know it. I ask you what you have been doing?"

"It's nothing very dreadful, that you need put yourself out," replied George. "One of old Markham's windows has come to grief."

"Then that's through throwing stones again!" exclaimed Mrs. Dare. "Now I am certain of it, and you need not attempt to deny it. You shall pay for it out of your own pocket-money if he comes here, as he did the last time."

"Ah, but he won't come here," returned Cyril. "He didn't see us. Is tea not ready?"

"You can go to the school-room and see. You are to take it there this evening."

The boys tore away to the school-room. Unlike Julia, they did not care where they took it, provided they had it. Miss Benyon was pouring out the tea as they entered. They threw themselves on a sofa, and burst into a fit of laughter so immoderate and long that their two young sisters crowded round eagerly, asking to hear the joke.

"It was the primest fun!" cried Cyril, when he could speak. "We have just smashed one of Markham's windows. The old woman was at it in a nightcap, and I think the stone must have touched her head. Markham and Herbert were holding a confab together and they never saw us!"

"We were chucking at the leathering bats," put in George, jealous that his brother should have all the telling to himself, "and the stone----"

"It is leather-winged bat, George," interrupted the governess. "I corrected you the other night."

"What does it matter?" roughly answered George. "I wish you wouldn't put me out. A leathering-bat dipped down nearly right upon our heads, and we both heaved at him, and one of the stones went through the window, nearly taking, as Cyril says, old Mother Markham's head. Won't they be in a temper at having to pay for it! They are as poor as charity."

"They'll make you pay," said Rosa.

"Will they?" retorted Cyril. "No catch, no have! I'll give them leave to make us pay when they find us out. Do you suppose we are donkeys, you girls? We dipped down under the hedge, and not a soul saw us. What's for tea?"

"Bread and b.u.t.ter," replied the governess.

"Then those may eat it that like! I shall have jam."