Queechy Volume I Part 46

Fleda sat in the corner with the heartache, to see her uncle's gloomy tramp up and down the rich apartment, and her aunt Lucy's gaze at him.

"Humph! ? well! ? So!" said the Doctor, at last, "You've all gone overboard with a smash, I understand?"

The walker gave him no regard.

"True, is it?" said the doctor.

Mr. Rossitur made no answer, unless a smothered grunt might be taken for one.

"How came it about?"

"Folly and devilry."

"Humph! ? bad capital to work upon. I hope the princ.i.p.al is gone with the interest. What's the amount of your loss?"

"Ruin."

"Humph! French ruin, or American ruin? because there's a difference. What do you mean?"

"I am not so happy as to understand you, Sir; but we shall not pay seventy cents, on the dollar."

The old gentleman got up, and stood before the fire, with his back to Mr. Rossitur, saying, "That was rather bad."

"What are you going to do?"

Mr. Rossitur hesitated a few moments for an answer, and then said ?

"Pay the seventy cents, and begin the world anew with nothing."

"Of course," said the doctor. "I understand that; but where and how? What end of the world will you take up first?."

Mr. Rossitur writhed in impatience or disgust, and after again hesitating, answered drily, that he had not determined.

"Have you thought of anything in particular?"

"Zounds! no, Sir, nothing except my misfortune. That's enough for one day."

"And too much," said the old doctor, "unless you can mix some other thought with it. That's what I came for. Will you go into business?"

Fleda was startled by the vehemence with which her uncle said, "No, never!" and he presently added, "I'll do nothing here."

"Well, well," said the doctor to himself; "will you go into the country?"

"Yes! ? anywhere! the further the better."

Mrs. Rossitur startled, but her husband's face did not encourage her to open her lips.

"Ay; but on a farm, I mean?"

"On anything, that will give me a standing."

"I thought that, too," said Dr. Gregory, now whirling about.

"I have a fine piece of land that wants a tenant. You may take it at an easy rate, and pay me when the crops come in. I shouldn't expect so young a farmer, you know, to keep any closer terms."

"How far is it?"

"Far enough ? up in Wyandot County."

"How large?"

"A matter of two or three hundred acres of so. It is very fine, they say. It came into a fellow's hands that owed me what I thought was a bad debt: so, for fear he would never pay me, I thought best to take it and pay him; whether the place will ever fill my pockets again remains to be seen ? doubtful, I think."

"I'll take it, Dr. Gregory, and see if I cannot bring that about."

"Pooh, pooh! fill your own. I am not careful about it; the less money one has the more it jingles, unless it gets too low, indeed."

"I will take it, Dr. Gregory, and feel myself under obligation to you."

"No, I told you, not till the crops come in. No obligation is binding till the term is up. Well, I'll see you further about it."

"But Rolf!" said Mrs. Rossitur, "stop a minute; uncle, don't go yet; Rolf don't know anything in the world about the management of a farm; neither do I."

"The 'faire Una' can enlighten you," said the doctor, waving his hand towards his little favourite in the corner. ? "But I forgot! Well, if you don't know, the crops wont come in; that's all the difference."

But Mrs. Rossitur looked anxiously at her husband. "Do you know exactly what you are undertaking, Rolf!" she said.

"If I do not, I presume I shall discover in time."

"But it may be too late," said Mrs. Rossitur, in the tone of sad remonstrance that had gone all the length it dared.

"It can not be too late!" said her husband, impatiently. "If I do not know what I am taking up, I know very well what I am laying down; and it does not signify a straw what comes after ? if it was a snail-sh.e.l.l, that would cover my head!"

"Hum ?" said the old doctor, ? "the snail is very well in his way, but I have no idea that he was ever cut out for a farmer."

"Do you think you will find it a business you would like, Mr.

Rossitur?" said his wife, timidly.

"I tell you," said he, facing about, "it is not a question of liking. I will like anything that will bury me out of the world."

Poor Mrs. Rossitur! She had not yet come to wis.h.i.+ng herself buried alive, and she had small faith in the permanence of her husband's taste for it. She looked desponding.

"You don't suppose," said Mr. Rossitur, stopping again in the middle of the floor, after another turn and a half ? "you do not suppose that I am going to take the labouring of the farm upon myself? I shall employ some one, of course, who understands the matter, to take all that off my hands."

The doctor thought of the old proverb, and the alternative the plough presents to those who would thrive by it; Fleda thought of Mr. Didenhover; Mrs. Rossitur would fain have suggested that such an important person must be well paid; but neither of them spoke.

"Of course," said Mr. Rossitur, haughtily, as he went on with his walk, "I do not expect, any more than you, to live in the back woods the life we have been leading here. That is at an end."

"Is it a very wild country?" asked Mrs. Rossitur of the doctor.