King of the Castle

“Yes. There, I don’t think I need say anything. Yes, I do. I don’t like the idea of Claude marrying any one, but nature is nature. I shall be carried off some day by a fit, I suppose, and when I am, I believe – slave driver as I am, and oppressor of the poor, as they call me, for making Danmouth a prosperous place, and paying thousands a year in wages – I should rest more comfortably if I knew my child was married to the man she loved.”

“Mr Gartram.”

“I haven’t done, Glyddyr.”

There was a pause, during which the old man seemed to look his visitor through and through. Then he held out his hand with a quick, sharp movement.

“Yes,” he said; “I like you, my lad: I always did. You think too much of sport; but you’ll weary of that, and your whole thoughts will be of the best and truest girl that ever lived.”

“Then you consent, Mr Gartram?” cried Glyddyr with animation.

“No: I consent to nothing. You’ve got to win her first. I give you my leave, though, to win if you can; and if you do marry her – well, I daresay I can afford to buy her outfit – trousseau – what you may call it.”

“Mr Gartram – ”

“That will do. Be cool. You haven’t won her yet, my lad.”

“I may speak to her at once?”

“If you like; but my advice is – don’t. Lead up to it gently – make sure of her before you speak. There, I’m a busy man, and I’ve got to go up the east river to look at a vein of stone which crops up there. Take another cigar, and walk with me – if you like.”

“I will, sir. Try one of mine.”

“Yes,” said Gartram laconically; and as they went out into the hall, he purposely picked out his worst hat from the stand, and put it on.

“Old chap wants to make me shy at him, and show that I don’t like walking through the town with that hat. Got hold of the wrong pig by the ear,” said Glyddyr to himself.

They walked along the granite terrace, with its crenellated parapet and row of imitation guns, laboriously chipped out of the granite; and then out through the gateway and over the moat, and descended to the village, reaching the path leading to the east glen, and were soon walking beside the rushing salmon river, with Gartram pointing out great veins of good granite as it cropped out of the side of the deep ravine.

“Hang his confounded stone!” said Glyddyr to himself, after he had made several attempts to change the drift of the conversation.

“Fine bit of stuff that, sir,” said his companion, pointing across the river with his heavy stick. “I believe I could cut a monolith twenty feet long out of that rock, but the brutes won’t let me have it. My solicitor has fought for it hard, but they stick to it, and money won’t tempt them. I believe that was the beginning of my sleeplessness – insomnia, as Asher calls it.”

“Asher?”

“Yes; our doctor. You must know him. Pleasant, smooth-spoken fellow in black.”

“Oh, yes; of course.”

“Worried me a deal, that did.”

“And you suffer from insomnia?”

“Horribly. Keep something to exorcise the demon, though,” he said laughingly, taking a small bottle from his pocket. “Chloral.”

“Dangerous stuff, sir. Take it cautiously.”

“I take it as my medical man advises.”

“That is right. Of course I remember Doctor Asher, and that other young friend of yours – the naturalist and salmon fisherman, and – ”

“Oh, Lisle. Yes; sort of ward of mine. I am his trustee.”

“Quite an old friend, then, sir?”

“Yes; and – eh?” said the old man laughingly. “Why, Glyddyr, I can read you like a book. Is there, or has there ever been, anything between Claude and Christopher Lisle? I should think not, indeed. Rubbish, man, rubbish! and – ”

They had just turned one of the rugged corners of the glen, and there before them in the distance was Chris Lisle helping Claude to catch a fish – his words, of course, inaudible, but his actions sufficiently demonstrative to make Parry Glyddyr press his teeth hardly together, and the owner of the granite castle grip his stick and swear.

Volume One – Chapter Three.

Lesson the First

Things that seem far-fetched are sometimes simple matters of fact. Just as Claude was glancing back, and feeling as if she would give anything to be back home, a dove among the trees in the fern-clad glen began to coo, and Mary laughed.

“There,” she said, “only listen. You can’t go back now. It would be absurd.”

“But you are so imprudent,” whispered Claude, whose cheeks were growing hotter. “How could you?”

“I wanted to see you happy, my darling coz,” was whispered back. “I saw him coming here with his fishing-rod, and – ”

“But, Mary, what will Chris Lisle think?”

“Think he’s in luck, and bless poor little humpy, fairy godmother me, and – no, no, too late to retreat. We have been seen.”

For as they had passed out into an open part of the glen where the river widened into a pool, there, only a short distance from them, and with his bright, sun-browned face directed toward the river, was a sturdy, well-built young fellow, dressed in a dark tweed Norfolk jacket and knickerbockers, busily throwing a fly across the pool till, as if intuitively becoming aware that he was watched, he looked sharply round.

The next moment there was again the peculiar buzzing sound made by a rapidly-wound-up multiplying winch, the rod was thrown over the young man’s shoulder, and he turned to meet them.

“Ah, little Mary!” he cried merrily; and then, with a voice full of tender reverence, he turned, straw hat in hand, to Claude.

“I did not expect to see you here.”

“And I am as much surprised,” she said hastily. “Mary and I were having a walk.”

“And now we are here, Mr Lisle, you may as well show us all your salmon,” said Mary seriously.

“My salmon! I haven’t had a rise.”

“And we have interrupted you, perhaps, just as the fish are biting. Come, Mary. Good-morning, Mr Lisle.”

“Oh!”

Only a little interjection, but so full of reproach that Claude coloured here deeply, and more deeply still as, upon looking round for her companion, she found her comfortably seated upon a mossy stone, and with her head turned away to hide the mischievous delight which flashed from her eyes.

“I’m beginning to be afraid that I have offended you, Miss Gartram – Claude.”

“Oh, no; what nonsense. Come, Mary.”