The Village by the River | Page 9

abominations, has not hurt it much yet. I made a mistake
when I let the bishop nominate a successor to the living when old
Gregg died three years ago. Curzon's a go-ahead fellow, from all that I
hear; I don't want a go-ahead squire."
"I'm afraid you've made another mistake, and, if there's time, you had
better undo it," said Paul, gravely.
"Do I look like a man who can re-arrange all his matters?" asked the
Major, irritably. "After all, what I ask of you is no very hard thing to
grant; simply to accept the good the gods provide, and let well alone."
"But that for me is an impossible condition," said Paul. "I cannot let
things alone if I feel that I can better them. I'm in no way fitted for a
country squire; I've been brought up on different lines from you, and
arrived at very different conclusions. I am grateful to you for your
thought of me, but I want to live my own life unfettered by any
conditions."
"And this is how you show your readiness to carry out any wish of
mine?" said the major, bitterly.
"I'm sorry; but I promised in the dark, not knowing that my principles
would be involved."
"I'm glad to hear you have any. May I ask what you call yourself? A
Lessing who is not a Conservative is not worthy of the name."
"I scarcely know what I am; but my friends call me a Socialist."

"Then in Heaven's name, I've made a bigger blunder than the last!" said
the squire, with an odd thrill in his voice.
"It's not my fault; and there may still be time to undo it," said Paul,
rising, for the flush that crept to the major's temples warned him that
the interview had been too long and too exciting. "I would thank you, if
I could, for the thought of me, and I am sorry to have been the cause of
disappointment, but it would not have been honest to hide my
opinions."
"No; you've been honest enough, in all conscience. If there's yet
time----" He broke off, turning away his head, and taking no notice of
Paul's departure.
All that night Paul paced his room in deep thought. The scene he had
witnessed had stirred him more than a little; and it grieved him to his
heart that he had so seriously disturbed the last moments of a dying
man.
"But I could not have hoodwinked him," he thought; "no honest man
could. But to-morrow I'll prove to him that I am ready to help him in
any way that I can. If he will only talk quietly, and keep his temper, he
could surely suggest some more fitting heir than I; and the business
details could be fairly quickly settled if I could take down his wishes
and see his lawyer. He must yet have several days to live, I should
think, with his extraordinary vitality of brain."
At a very early hour the following morning, therefore, Paul presented
himself again at the house in the square, with the request that he might
have a short interview with the major.
"Very sorry, sir," said Smith, with an added gloom of manner, "but my
master's much worse; they don't think he'll live through the day. He was
very restless last night; and nothing would satisfy him but that I should
go off in the middle of the night and fetch Mr. Morgan--the lawyer as
wrote to you, sir; but when I got him here my master had lost his power
of speech. He knew Mr. Morgan quite well, but he could not make him
understand what he wanted."

"And now?" asked Paul, pitifully.
"The doctor is just coming down the stairs, and will speak to you, sir."
Paul went out into the hall to meet him. "How did you find the major?"
Paul inquired.
"Dead," replied the doctor, drawing on his gloves. "He died as I entered
the room."
CHAPTER III.
FIRST IMPRESSIONS.
"RUDHAM, Sunday Evening.
"DEAR SALLY,
"I did not, until now, believe myself a creature of impulse. That I am
one is proved by the fact that, as I dropped my last letter to you into the
post-box, I made up my mind to run down here and have a look round;
and here I am. My surroundings I will describe later. I told you I had
decided not to go to poor old Major Lessing's funeral for various
reasons. I have a horror of humbug; and to pose as sole and chief
mourner at the funeral of a man who had made me his heir by a fluke,
and if he had lived an hour longer would have altered his will, seemed
humbugging, to my mind. Also the funeral service,