CHAPTER XVI.

TOM BARLEY HAS A SCENE WITH THE MISER.

Meanwhile Miser Farebrother and Tom Barley were "having it out" upstairs in the miser's room. Jeremiah Pamflett had put a very strong case before Miser Farebrother. He said that every time he came down to Parksides, Tom Barley laid wait for him and threatened to take his life.

"It's no fault of mine," said Jeremiah, "that I'm not as strong as that hulking vagabond, who makes any amount of money by robbing you. If you like to be robbed, I've nothing to say to it. Nobody loses anything but yourself. But I can't be coming regularly down here in fear of my life. You couldn't expect me to."

In short, Jeremiah indirectly gave Miser Farebrother to understand that if he retained Tom Barley in his employ he would have to come more often to London to look through the books and papers; and that he, Jeremiah Pamflett, would have to come less often to Parksides. Jeremiah was cunning enough to know that he was on safe ground in making this declaration. He had felt his way before he had arrived at it, and the miser was furious. It was impossible for him to go more often to London; there was no one he could trust but Jeremiah, and, in the light of a possible rupture, he placed an exaggerated value upon his clerk's services.

"He drew a knife upon me," said Jeremiah, "as I was coming here, because he saw me escorting Miss Farebrother home. She was in the village making purchases, and I thought it my duty to protect her."

"Quite right, quite right," said Miser Farebrother. "She ought to be much obliged to you."

"She was," said Jeremiah.

"Making purchases, eh?" exclaimed Miser Farebrother. "What was she purchasing--eh? You don't know? What's that you say? Oh, Tom Barley! I'll soon settle with him. They all rob me--everybody, everybody! You are the only one I can trust--the only one, the only one!"

"There's nothing I wouldn't do for you," said Jeremiah, fervently. "I'd work my fingers off----"

"There, there!" said Miser Farebrother, fretfully. "Don't make protestations. I hate them. It is your interest to do your duty. I pay you well for it."

"You do; and I am grateful," said Jeremiah, feeling in his heart as if he would like to strangle his master. "But you don't care for that sort of thing, and I'll not say anything more."

"No; don't, don't!" groaned the miser. "Go; and send Tom Barley up to me."

Jeremiah nodded, and went out of the room. Miser Farebrother's eyes followed him; and when the door was closed, he groaned:

"He's as bad as the rest, I believe; but I've not been able to find him out. Is he cunninger and cleverer than I am? Curse my bones! Why can't I buy a new set? There isn't an honest man in the whole world. If Phoebe had been a boy instead of a girl, I might have had a little peace of mind; but as it is, I'm robbed right and left--right and left! Who's that at the door? Come in, can't you? Oh, it's you, Tom Barley?"

"Yes, it's me," said Tom. "What do you want of me?"

"Speak respectfully," screamed the miser.

"I am, though I've got no particular call to," said Tom. Truth to tell he was not in an amiable temper, what with his hunger, and his rags, and his meeting with Jeremiah. "You sent for me. What do you want? And mind this--I don't stir hand or foot till I get something to eat."

Miser Farebrother became suddenly quite cool. It was generally the case when an antagonist he had in his power was before him.

"Something to eat, eh? You scoundrel! you have the stomach of an ostrich."

"I wish I had," said Tom; "then I could fill it with stones and rusty nails. As it is, I can't get those things down. I give you warning----"

"What!" cried Miser Farebrother; "you give me warning?"

"Yes; not to call hard names, or mayhap I'll throw them back at you."

"Do you dare to speak to me in that manner," said the miser, "after all I've done for you?"

Tom Barley looked ruefully at his rags of clothes, and said, with unconscious humour, "Yes, you have done for me; there's no mistake about that. I remember you promised to make my fortune. I look as if it was made!"

"And whose fault is it," said Miser Farebrother, "that you're a pauper--whose fault but your own? That is, if what you say is true. But it isn't. You've got money rolled up in bundles somewhere--my money, that you've robbed me of."

Tom Barley burst out laughing. "Who has told you that cock-and-bull?" he asked. "I'd like to give him half to prove it. I'm thinking of buying Buckingham Palace, I am. I've got money enough to pay for it rolled up in bundles."

"Hold your tongue," said the miser, "and listen to me."

"Go ahead," said Tom Barley.

"When I first took you into my service," the miser commenced--

"At twopence a week," interposed Tom. "The Bank of England's breaking down with my savings."

"It was my intention to make a man of you," continued the miser; and again Tom Barley interrupted him.

"The Lord Almighty did that while you was thinking of it."

"But," proceeded the miser, "I soon found out that I had taken a hopeless case in hand; I soon discovered that a clodhopper you were and a clodhopper you would remain, till you took your place in the workhouse as a regular. Then I lost interest in you, and let you go your way."

"In a minute or two," said Tom Barley, "I've got a couple of words to say to you that I don't go out of this room without saying."

"I allowed you to remain on my estate, and gave you your meals, and paid you so much a week."

"Why not say so little, instead of so much?" asked Tom, who, driven by necessity and despair, was coming out in a new light.

"The work you did I could have had done for a song----"

"The Lord forbid," said Tom, "that I should have heard you sing it! It would have given me the gripes. I've got 'em now."

"But I kept you on out of charity, and I told you that you were at liberty to earn money elsewhere whenever you could pick up an odd job."

"My experience is," he said, "that there's about five million evens to one odd."

"The result of my kindness and liberality is that you are as you are, an idle, skulking, thieving vagabond."

"Have you done?" asked Tom.

"Not yet. I have had a serious complaint made against you, and I intend to take notice of it in a practical way. You have threatened the life of my clerk, Mr. Jeremiah Pamflett, a most estimable young man, in whom I place implicit confidence. You lie in ambush for him, and he goes in terror of you."

"That's the best thing I've heard yet," said Tom Barley, rubbing his hands gleefully.

"Such a state of things is no longer to be endured, and I shall put an end to it. Tom Barley, I discharge you from my service."

"Is that all?"

"That is all. I wash my hands of you. As to your conduct toward my clerk, I warn you to be very careful. A watch will be set upon you, and if you repeat your threats you will have to put up with the consequences."

"I'll do that; it's a matter between this Jeremiah of yours and me. As to threatening his life, that I've never done. A long while ago I got him thrashed--I didn't do it myself; I was too big--for insulting your daughter, and if ever he insults her again, and I get to know it, he'll be thrashed again. As to being turned from your service, I'll put up with it. Whatever I do I can't be worse off than I am. But you said something else. You said I've got money rolled up in bundles somewhere, and that I've robbed you of it. Now out with it like a man; you did say it!"

"Yes, I did," snarled Miser Farebrother.

"What I've got to say to that is, that you're a liar! I ain't given to hard words, but when I'm drove to it I use 'em; and my answer to your charge is, you're a liar! Straight from the shoulder, master: you're a liar!"

Upon that Tom marched out of the room, with erect head and angry eye; but when he got half-way down the staircase his look softened and his head drooped, for Phoebe stood before him. While he was in the presence of Miser Farebrother, asserting his manhood, he had not thought of her. She had heard the angry voices of her father and Tom, and she had waited to learn the cause. She beckoned Tom to follow her, and they were presently in the little room which she could call her own.

"Oh, Tom," she said, "what is it?"

"Well, miss," he replied, "I hardly like to say, but you'd get to know it if I didn't tell you. Your father and me's had a difference, all along of that clerk of his, Jeremiah, Mrs. Pamflett's white-livered son. He's been telling your father stories about me which ain't true. Don't believe 'em when you hear 'em--don't!"

"I won't, Tom."

"Thank you, miss. I'm going to leave Parksides, miss."

"Oh, Tom!"

"Your father's discharged me. If he hadn't, I don't know what I should have done, because--look at me, miss--I ain't fit to be seen."

"Oh, Tom, I am so sorry! How I shall miss you!"

"I feel that bad over it, because of you, that I can't express. But it ain't my fault."

"I am sure it is not, Tom. Have you thought what you shall do?"

"Well, miss, I'm going to London, to be a policeman, if they'll take me on. It ain't my idea: it's somebody else's. And perhaps if I get to be a policeman, I'll be put on somewhere near Camden Town. I don't ask for anything better, miss; for then I shall be near where you will be sometimes, and I can look after you. Don't speak to me, miss, don't look at me, for I feel like breaking down. Good-bye, Miss Phoebe, good-bye, and God bless you!"

And, choking with tears, the honest fellow rushed away.