The Mighty Atom | Page 6

engaged him if you had known?" queried Sir Charles.
"Certainly not." Here Mr. Valliscourt looked at his watch. "Will you excuse me? It is nine o'clock, and I told Montrose to attend me at that hour in my study to receive the remaining portion of his salary. He leaves by the early coach to-morrow morning."
Mrs. Valliscourt rose, and moved with an elegant languor towards the door.
"You had better come into the drawing-room, Sir Charles, and have a chat with me," she said, favouring the baronet with one of her dazzling smiles as she glanced back at him over her shoulder,--"I suppose you are in no very special hurry to return to Watermouth?"
"No,--not just immediately!" he replied with an answering smile, as he followed her out across the square oak-panelled hall and into the apartment she had named, which had the merit of being more comfortably furnished than any other part of the house, and moreover boasted four deep bay-windows, each one commanding different and equally beautiful views of the surrounding country. Mr. Valliscourt meantime went in an opposite direction, and entered a small parlour, formerly a store-room, but now transformed into a kind of study, where he found William Montrose, B.A., awaiting him.
'Oor Willie' looked pale, and his lips were hard set. His employer nodded to him carelessly in passing, and then sitting down at his office-desk, unlocked a drawer, took from thence his cheque-book, and wrote out a sum that was more than 'oor Willie's' due. As he handed it over, the young man glanced at it, and coloured hotly.
"No thank you, Mr. Valliscourt,"--he said,--"The exact sum, please, and not a farthing over."
"What!" exclaimed Valliscourt in a satirical tone--"A Scotchman refuse an extra fee! Is this the age of miracles?"
Montrose grew paler, but kept himself quiet.
"Think what you like of Scotchmen, Mr. Valliscourt," he returned composedly--"They can get on without your good opinion I daresay, and certainly they need none of my defending. I merely refuse to accept anything I have not honestly earned,--there is no miracle in that, I fancy. It is not as if I took my dismissal badly,--on the contrary, I should have dismissed myself if you had not forestalled me. I will have no share in child-murder."
If a bomb had exploded in the little room, Mr. Valliscourt could not have looked more thoroughly astounded. He sprang from his chair and confronted the audacious speaker in such indignation as almost choked his utterance.
"Ch--ch--child-murder!" he spluttered, trembling all over in the excess of his sudden rage--"D--d--did I hear you rightly, sir? Ch--child-murder!"
"I repeat it, Mr. Valliscourt,"--said Montrose, his blue eyes now flashing dangerously and his lips quivering--"Child-murder! Take the phrase and think it over! You have only one child,--a boy of a most lovable and intelligent disposition,--quick-brained,--too quick-brained by half!--and you are killing him with your hard and fast rules, and your pernicious 'system' of intellectual training. You deprive him of such pastimes and exercises as are necessary to his health and growth,--you surround him with petty tyrannies which make his young life a martyrdom,--you give him no companions of his own age, and you are, as I say, murdering him,--slowly perhaps, but none the less surely. Any physician with the merest superficial knowledge of his business, would tell you what I tell you,--that is, any physician who preferred truth to fees."
White with passion, Mr. Valliscourt snatched up the cheque he had just written and tore it into fragments,--then opening another drawer in his desk, he took out a handful of notes and gold, and counting them rapidly, flung them upon the table.
"Hold your insolent tongue, sir!" he said in hoarse accents of ill-suppressed fury,--"There is your money,--exact to a farthing; take it and go! And before you presume to apply for another situation as tutor to the son of a gentleman, you had better learn to know your place and put a check on your Scotch conceit and impertinence! Not another word!--go!"
With a sudden proud lifting of his head, Montrose eyed his late employer from heel to brow and from brow to heel again, in the disdainful "measuring" manner known to fighting men,--his eyes sparkled with anger,--and his hands involuntarily clenched. Then, all at once, evidently moved by some thought which restrained, if it did not entirely overcome his wrath, he swept up his wage lightly in one hand, turned and left the room without either a 'thank you' or 'good-evening.' When he had gone, John Valliscourt burst into an angry laugh.
"Insolent young cub!" he muttered--"How such fellows get University honours and recommendations is more than I can imagine! Favouritism and jobbery I suppose,--like everything else. An inefficient, boastful, lazy Scotchman if ever there was one,--and the worst companion in the world for Lionel. The boy has done nothing but idle away his time ever since he