CHAPTER III.

LEFT TO ROBERT.

The eighth day after the accident to Mr. Dalrymple was a day of rejoicing, for he was so far recovered as to be up for some hours. A sofa was drawn before the fire, and he lay on it. The symptoms had all along been favourable, and he now merrily told them that if any one had written to order him a cork leg, he thought it might be countermanded. Mr. Cleveland, a frequent visitor, privately decided that the thanksgiving for his recovery might be offered up in church on the following Sunday--such being the custom in the good and simple place. They all rejoiced with him, paying visits to his chamber by turns. Alice and Miss Lynn had been in together during the afternoon: when they were leaving, he beckoned the latter back, but Alice did not notice, and went limping away. Any great trouble affected Alice Dalrymple's spirits sadly, and her lameness would then be more conspicuous.

"Do you want me to do anything for you?" asked Mary, returning, and bending over the sofa.

"Yes," said Mr. Dalrymple, taking possession of both her hands, and looking up with an arch smile: "I want you to tell me what the secret is between you and that graceless Robert."

Mary Lynn's eyes dropped, and her face grew scarlet. She was unable to speak.

"_Won't_ you tell me?" repeated Mr. Dalrymple.

"Has he been--saying anything to you, sir?" she faltered.

"Not he. Not a word. Some one else told me they saw that he and Miss Lynn had a secret between them, which might possibly bear results some day."

She burst into tears, got one of her hands free, and held it before her face.

"Nay, my dear," he kindly said, "I did not wish to make you uncomfortable; quite the contrary. I want just to say one thing, child: that if you and he are wishing to talk secrets to one another, I and my wife will not say nay to it: and from a word your mother dropped to me the last time I was in town, I don't think she would either. Dry up your tears, Mary; it is a laughing matter, not a crying one. Robert is frightfully random at times, but he is good as gold at heart. I invite you and him to drink tea with me this evening. There."

Mary escaped, half smiles, half tears. And she and Robert had tea with Mr. Dalrymple that evening. He took it early since his illness; six o'clock. Mary made the tea, and Robert waited on his father, who was then in bed. When tea was cleared away, Mary went with it; Robert remained.

"This might have been an unlucky shot, Charley," Mr. Dalrymple suddenly observed.

"Oh, father! do not talk about it. I am so thankful!"

"But I am going to talk about it. To tell you why it would have been unlucky, had it turned out differently. This accident has made me remember the uncertainty of life, if I never remembered it before. Put the candles off the table; I don't like them right in my eyes; and bring a chair here to the bedside. Get the lotion before you sit down."

Robert did what was required, and took his seat.

"When I married, Robert, I was only the second brother, and no settlement was made on your mother: I had nothing to settle. The post I had in London in what you young people are now pleased to call the red-tape office, brought me in six hundred a-year, and we married on that, to rub on as we best could. And I dare say we should have rubbed on very well," added Mr. Dalrymple, in a sort of parenthesis, "for our desires were simple, and we were not likely to go beyond our income. However, when you were about two years old, Moat Grange fell to me, through the death of my elder brother."

"What was the cause of his death?" interrupted Robert. "He must have been a young man."

"Eight-and-twenty only. It was young. I gave up my post in town, and we came to Moat Grange----"

"But what did Uncle Claude die of?" asked Robert again. "I don't remember to have heard."

"Never mind what. It was an unhappy death, and we have not cared to speak of it. Moat Grange is worth about two thousand a-year: and we have been doing wrong, in one respect, ever since we came to it, for we have put nothing by."

"Why should you have put by, father?"

"There! That is an exemplification of your random way of speaking and thinking. Moat Grange is entailed upon you, every shilling of it."

"Well, it will be enough for me, with what I have," said Robert.

"I hope it will. But it would have been anything but well had I died; for in that case your mother and sisters would have been beggars."

"Oh, father!"

"Yes; all would have lapsed to you. Let me go on. Claude Dalrymple left many debts behind him, some of them cruel ones--personal ones--we will not enter into that. I--moved by a chivalrous feeling perhaps, but which I and your mother have never repented of--took those personal debts upon me, and paid them off by degrees."

"I should have done the same," cried impulsive Robert.

"And the estate had of course to be kept up, for I would not have had it said that Moat Grange suffered by its change of owners, and your mother thought with me; so that altogether we had a struggle for it, and were positively less at our ease for ready-money here than we had been in our little household in London. When the debts were cleared off, and we had breathing time, I began to think of saving: but I am sorry to say it was only thought of; not done. The cost of educating you children increased as you grew older; Alice's illness came on and was a great and continued expense; and, what with one thing and another, we never did, or have, put by. Your expenses at college were enormous."

"Were they?" returned Robert, indifferently.

"Were they!" echoed Mr. Dalrymple, almost in sharp tones. "Do you forget that you also ran into debt there, like your uncle Claude?"

"Not much, was it, sir?" cried Robert, deprecatingly, who remembered very little about the matter, beyond the fact that the bills had gone in to Moat Grange.

"Pretty well," returned Mr. Dalrymple, with a cough. "The sum total averaged between six and seven hundred a-year, for every year that you were there."

"Surely not!" uttered Robert, startled to contrition.

"It seems to have made but little impression on you; you knew it at the time. But I am not recalling this to cast reproach on you now, Robert: I only wanted to explain how it is that we have been unable to put by. Not a day after I am well, will I delay beginning it. We will curtail our expenses, even in things hitherto considered necessary, no matter what the neighbourhood may think; and I shall probably insure my life. Your mother and I were talking of this all day yesterday."

"I can do with less than I spend, father; I will make the half of it do," said Robert, in one of his fits of impulse.

"We shall see that," said Mr. Dalrymple, with another cough. "But you do not know the trouble this has been to me since the accident, Robert. I have lain here, and dwelt incessantly upon the helpless condition of your mother and sisters--left helpless on your hands--should I be called away."

"My dear father, it need not trouble you. Do you suppose I should ever wish to disturb my mother and sisters in the possession of their home? What do you take me for?"

"Ah, Robert, these generous resolves are easily made; but circumstances more often than not mar them. You will be wanting a home of your own--and a wife."

Robert's face took a very conscious look. "Time enough for that, sir."

"If you and Mary Lynn can both think so."

"You--don't--object to her, do you, sir?" came the deprecating question.

"No, indeed I don't object to her: except on one score," replied Mr. Dalrymple. "That she is too good for you."

Robert laughed. "I told her that myself, and asked her to give me up. It was the night of the accident, when I was so truly miserable."

"Well, Robert, you could not have chosen a better girl than Mary Lynn. She will have money----"

"I'm sure I've not thought whether she will or not," interrupted Robert, quite indignantly.

"Of course not; I should be surprised if you had," said Mr. Dalrymple, in the satirical tone his son disliked. "Commonplace ways and means, pounds, shillings and pence, are beneath the exalted consideration of young Mr. Dalrymple. I should not wonder but you would set up to live upon air tomorrow, if you had nothing else to live upon."

"Well, father, you know what I meant--that I am not mercenary."

"I should be sorry if you were. But when we contemplate the prospect of a separate household, it is sometimes necessary to consider how its bread-and-cheese will be provided."

"I have the two hundred a-year that my own property brings in--that Aunt Coolly left me. There's that to begin with."

"And I will allow you three or four hundred more; Mary will bring something and be well-off later. Yes, Robert, I think you may set up your tent, if you will. I like young men to marry young. I did myself--at three-and-twenty: your present age. Your uncle Claude did not, and ran into folly. And, Robert, I should advise you to begin and read for the Bar. Better have a profession."

"I did begin, you know, father."

"And came down here when you were ill with that fever, and never went up again. Moat Grange will be yours eventually----"

"Not for these twenty years, I hope, father," impulsively interrupted Robert. "You are spared to us, and I can never be sufficiently thankful for it. Why, in twenty years you would not be an old man; not seventy."

"I am thankful, too, Robert; thankful that my life is not cut off in its midst--as it might have been. The future of your mother and sisters has been a thorn in my side since I was brought face to face with death. In health we are apt to be fearfully careless."

"Hear me, father," cried Robert, rising, and speaking with emotion. "Had the worst happened, they should have been my first care; I declare it to you. First and foremost, even before Mary Lynn."

"My boy, I know your heart. Are you going down? That's right. I think I have talked enough. Bring a light here first. My leg is very uneasy."

"Does it pain you?" inquired Robert, who had noticed that his father was getting restless. "How tight the bandage is! The leg appears to be swollen."

"The effect of the bandage being tight," remarked Mr. Dalrymple. "Loosen it, and put plenty of lotion on."

"It feels very hot," were Robert's last words.

The evening went on. Just before bed-time, the young people were all sitting round the fire in the oak-parlour, Mrs. Dalrymple being with her husband. So assured did they now feel of no ill results ensuing, that they had grown to speak lightly of it. Not of the accident: none would have been capable of that: but of the circumstances attending it. Selina had just been recommending Robert never in future to touch any weapon stronger than a popgun.

"I don't mean to," said Robert.

"What a long conference you had with papa tonight after Mary came down," went on Selina. "What was it about, Robert? Were you getting a lesson how to carry loaded guns?"

"Not that," put in Oscar Dalrymple: "Robert has learnt that lesson by heart. He was getting some hints how to manage Moat Grange."

Robert looked up quickly, almost believing Oscar must have been behind the chamber wall.

"Your father has come so very near to losing it," added Oscar. "A chance like that brings reflection with it."

"Only to think of it!" breathed Alice--"that we have been so near losing the Grange! If dear papa had died, it would have come to Robert."

"Ay, all Robert's; neither yours nor your mother's," mused Oscar. "I dare say the thought has worried Mr. Dalrymple."

"I know it has," said Robert, in his hasty way. "But there was no occasion for it."

"No, thank Heaven!" breathed Selina.

"However things had turned out, my father might have been easy on that score. And we were talking of you," added Robert, in a whisper to Mary Lynn, while making believe to regard attentively the sofa cushion at her ear. "And of setting up our tent, Mary; and of ways and means--and I am to go on reading for the Bar. It all looks couleur-de-rose."

"Robert," returned Alice, "should you have sent us adrift, had you come into the old homestead?"

"To be sure I should, in double-quick time," answered he, tilting Alice's chair back to kiss her, and keeping it in that position. "'Sharp the word and quick the action' it would have been with me then. I should have paid a premium with you both, and shipped you off by an emigrant ship to some old Turkish Sultan who buys wives, so that you might never trouble me or the Grange again."

"And mamma, Robert?"

"Oh, mamma--I _might_ perhaps, have allowed her to stop here," conceded Robert, with a mock serious face. "On condition that she acted as my housekeeper."

They all laughed; they were secure in the love of Robert. In the midst of which, the young man felt some one touch his shoulder. It was Mrs. Dalrymple.

"Dearest mamma," said he, letting Alice and her chair go forward to their natural position, and stepping backwards, laughing still. "Did you hear what we were saying?"

"Yes, Robert, I heard it," she sighed. "Have you a mind for a drive tonight?"

"A drive!" exclaimed Robert. "To find the emigrant ship?"

"I have told James to get the gig ready. He can go, if you do not, but I thought you might be the quicker driver. It is to bring Mr. Forth. Some change for the worse has taken place in your father."

All their mirth was forgotten instantly. They sat speechless.

"He complained, just now, of the bandage being too tight, and said Robert had pretended to loosen it, but must have only fancied that he did so," continued Mrs. Dalrymple, speaking to them generally. "It is much inflamed and swollen, and he cannot bear the pain. I fear," she added, sitting down and bursting into tears, "that we have reckoned on his recovery too soon--that it is far off yet."

Robert flew on the wings of the wind, and soon brought back Mr. Forth. Mrs. Dalrymple and Oscar went with the surgeon to the sick-chamber. Uncovering the leg, he held the wax-light close to examine it. One look, and he glanced up with a too-expressive face.

Oscar, always observant, noticed it; no one else. Mrs. Dalrymple asked the cause of the change, the sudden heat and pain.

"It is a change--that--does--sometimes come on," drawled Mr. Forth; who of course, as a medical man, would have protested against danger had he known his patient was going to drop out of his hands the next moment but one.

"That redness about it," said Mr. Dalrymple, "that's new."

"A touch of erysipelas," remarked the surgeon.

His manner soothed them, and the vague feeling of alarm subsided. None of them looked to the worst side--and a day or two passed on. Dr. Tyler came again now as well as Mr. Forth.

One morning when the doctors were driving out of the stable-yard--that way was more convenient to the high-road than the front-entrance--they met Mr. Cleveland. Mr. Forth pulled up, and the Rector leaned on the gig while he talked to them, one hand on the wing, the other on the dashboard.

"How is he this morning?"

"We were speaking of you, sir," replied Mr. Forth: "saying that you, as Mr. Dalrymple's chief friend, would be the best to break the news to the Grange. There is no hope."

"No hope of his life?"

"None. A day or two must terminate it."

Mr. Cleveland was inexpressibly shocked. He could not at first speak. "This is very sudden, gentlemen."

"Not particularly so. At least, not to us. We have done all in our power, but it has mastered us. Will you break it to him?"

"Yes," he answered, quitting them. "It is a hard task; but some one must do it." And he went straight to Mr. Dalrymple.

In the evening, Robert, who had been away all day on some matter of business, returned. As he went to his father's room to report what he had done, his mother came out of it. She had her handkerchief to her face: Robert supposed she was afraid of draughts. He approached the bed.

Mr. Dalrymple, looking flushed and restless, took Robert's hand and held it in his. "Have they told you the news, my boy?"

"No," answered Robert, never suspecting the true meaning of the words. "Is there any?"

Robert Dalrymple the elder gazed at him; a yearning gaze. And an uneasy sensation stole over his son.

"I am going to leave you, Robert."

He understood, and sank down by the side of the bed. It was as if a thunderbolt had struck him: and one that would leave its trace throughout life.

"Father! It cannot be!"

"In a day or two, Robert. That is all of time they can promise me now."

He cried out with a low, wailing cry, and let his head drop on the counterpane beside his father.

"You must not take it too much to heart, my son. Remember: that is one of my dying injunctions."

"I wish I could die for you, father!" he passionately uttered. "I shall never forgive myself."

"I forgive you heartily and freely, Robert. My boy, see you not that this must be God's good will? I could die in peace, but for the thought of your mother and sisters. I can but leave them to you: will you take care of and cherish them?"

He lifted his head, speaking eagerly. "I will, I will. They shall be my only care. Father, this shall ever be their home. I swear----"

"Be silent, Robert!" interrupted Mr. Dalrymple, his voice raised in emotion. "How dare you? _Never take a rash oath_."

"I mean to fulfil it, father; just as though I had taken it. This shall ever be my mother's home. But, oh, to lose you thus! My father, say once more that you do forgive me. Oh, father, forgive and bless me before you die!"

Death came, all too surely; and the neighbourhood, struck with consternation, grieved sincerely for Mr. Dalrymple.

"If Mr. Robert had but let me draw that charge from his gun, the Squire would have been here now," bewailed Hardy, the gamekeeper.