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I have found favour in the poor dear thing's eyes, I suppose: and the good old fellow knows it, and won't betray her, and so shams tyrant. Just like him!" But that Mary Armsworth should care for him! Vain fellow that he was to fancy it! And yet, when he began to put things together, little silences, little looks, little nothings, which all together might make something.
Mark Armsworth poured a libation to the goddess of Puzzledom, in the shape of a glass of port, which first choked him, and then descended over his clean shirt front. But after he had coughed himself black in the face, he began:
Let me feel whether thou be my very son Esau or not!" murmured the old man, finding half-playful expression in the words of Scripture, for feelings beyond his failing powers. Tom knelt down: and the old man passed his hands in silence over and over the forehead, and face, and beard; while all stood silent. Mark Armsworth burst out blubbering like a great boy: "I said so! I always said so!
"Well, I offered the Town-council to drain the whole town at my own expense, if they'd let me have the sewage. And that only made things worse; for as soon as the beggars found out the sewage was worth anything, they were down on me, as if I wanted to do them I, Mark Armsworth! and would sooner let half the town rot with an epidemic, than have reason to fancy I'd made any money out of them.
Mark Armsworth and Mary kept her for a night, and she left Tom's money with the old banker, retaining the belt and then set out Eastward Ho! too, to nurse the wounded in the war; and, if possible, to find Tom and clear her name of all suspicion. How Grace Harvey worked at Scutari and at Balaclava, there is no need to tell. Why mark her out from the rest, when all did more than nobly?
"No, child; but Mary Armsworth, God bless her! comes down here almost every evening to read your letters to me; and she has been reading to me a book of Mrs. Lee's Adventures in Australia, which reads like a novel; delicious book to me at least. Why, there is her step outside, I do believe, and her father's with her!"
He knew, somehow, that he should not thrive. His children would die of the measles, his horses break their knees, his plate be stolen, his house catch fire, and Mark Armsworth die insolvent. What a fool he was, to fancy such nonsense! Here he had been slaving all his life to keep his father: and now he could keep him; why, he would be justified, right, a good son, in doing the thing.
He felt as if he should cast away his last anchor, and drift helplessly down into utter shame and ruin. It may have been very fanciful: but so he felt; and felt it so strongly too, that in less time than I have taken to write this he had turned to Mark Armsworth: "Sir, you are what I have always found you. Do you wish me to be what you have always found me?"
Tom looked a stout yes, and Elsley said languidly, "You have given me so much new and good advice in a few minutes, sir, that I must really do myself the pleasure of coming and hearing more." "Well done, our side!" cried old Mark. "Dinner at half-past five. No London late hours here, sir. Miss Armsworth will be out of her mind when she hears you're coming." And off he went.
Armsworth, does the telegraph work at this time of night?" "I'll make it, if it is wanted. But what's the matter?" "You will indeed?" "'Gad, I'll go myself and kick up the station-master. What's the matter?" "That if poor Mrs. Vavasour wishes to see her husband alive, she must be here in four-and-twenty hours. I'll tell you all presently " "Mary, my coat and comforter!" cries Mark, jumping up.
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