Hills of the Shatemuc Part 99

"You are an adviser upon theory, you see," said Winthrop going on with his writing; -- "I have the advantage of practice."

"I fancy any adviser would tell you the same in this case,"

said the elder brother somewhat stiffly.

"I can go now," Winifred said rising, and speaking with a trembling lip and a tremulous voice, -- "if you want to talk about anything."

She lit a candle and had got to the door, when her other brother said,

"Winnie! --"

Winnie stopped and turned with the door in her hand. Winthrop was busy clearing some books and papers from a chair by his side. He did not speak again; when he had done he looked up and towards her; and obeying the wish of his face, as she would have done had it been any other conceivable thing, Winnie shut the door, set her candle down, and came and took the chair beside him. But then, when she felt his arm put round her, she threw her head down upon him and burst into a fit of nervously pa.s.sionate tears. _That_ was not his wish, she knew, but she could not help it.

"Mr. Landholm," said Winthrop, "may I trouble you to put out that candle. We are not so extravagant here as to burn bedlights till we want them. -- Hush, Winnie, --" softly said his voice in her ear and his arm at the same time.

"Absurd!" said Rufus, getting up to do as he was bid.

"What?" said his brother.

"Why I really want to talk to you."

"I am really very willing to listen."

"But I do not want to talk to anybody beside you."

"Winnie hears everything that is said here, Will," said the younger brother gravely, at the same time restraining with his arm the motion he felt Winnie made to go.

"It don't signify!" said Rufus, getting up and beginning to walk up and down the room gloomily.

"What doesn't signify?"

"Anything! --"

The steps were quicker and heavier, with concealed feeling.

Winthrop looked at him and was silent; while Rufus seemed to be combating some unseen grievance, by the set of his lip and nostril.

"What do you think Haye has done?" -- he broke out, like a horse that is champing the bit.

"What?" said Winthrop.

"He has sued me."

"Sued you!" exclaimed Winthrop, while even Winnie forgot her tears and started up. Rufus walked.

"What do you mean, Will?"

"I mean he has sued me!" -- said Rufus stopping short and facing them with eyes that for the moment had established a natural pyrotechny of their own.

"How, and what for?"

"How? -- by the usual means! What for? -- I will tell you!"

Which he sat down to do; Winthrop and Winnie both his most earnest auditors.

"You know it was Haye's own proposition, urged by himself, that I should go into business with him. n.o.body asked him -- it was his own doing; it was his declared purpose and wish, unsolicited by me or my father or by anybody, to set me forward in his own line and put me in the way of making my fortune! -- as he said."

Winthrop knew it, and had never liked it. He did not tell Rufus so now; he gave him nothing but the attention of his calm face; into which Rufus looked while he talked, as if it were the safe, due, and appointed treasury in which to bestow all his grievances and pa.s.sionate sense of them.

"Well! -- you know he offered, a year ago or more, that by way of making a beginning, I should take off his hands some cotton which he had lying in storage, and s.h.i.+p it to Liverpool on my own account; and as I had no money, I was to pay him by drawing bills in his favour upon the consignees."

"I remember very well," said Winthrop.

"Well sir! -- the cotton reached Liverpool and was found good for nothing!"

"Literally?"

"Literally, sir! -- wasn't worth near the amount of my bills, which of course were returned -- and Haye has sued me for the rest!"

Rufus's face looked as if a spark from it might easily have burnt up the whole consignment of cotton, if it had happened to be in the neighbourhood.

"How was the cotton? -- damaged?"

"Damaged? -- of course! -- kept in vaults here till it was spoiled; and he knew it!"

"For what amount has he sued you?" said Winthrop when Rufus had fed his fire silently for a couple of minutes.

"For more than I can pay -- or will! --"

"How much does that stand for, in present circ.u.mstances?"

"How much? A matter of several hundreds!"

"How many?"

"So many, as I should leave myself penniless to pay, and then not pay. You know I lost money down there."

"I know," said his brother.

Winifred brought her eyes round to Winthrop; and Winthrop looked grave; and Rufus, as before, fiery; and there was a silence this time of more than two minutes.

"My dependence is on you, Governor," Rufus said at last.

"I wish I could help you, Will."

"How can I get out of this sc.r.a.pe?"

"You have no defence in law."

"But there must be a defence somewhere!" said Rufus drawing himself up, with the whole spirit of the common law apparently within him, energizing the movement.