Two Sides of the Face | Page 3

he never gave a thought:
"time enough for that," he had decided, "when Steens became his, as
some day it must;" for the estate ever since the first Stephen acquired it
in the Wars of the Roses and gave it his name ('Steens' being but
'Stephen's' contracted) had been a freehold patrimony descending
regularly from father to son or next heir. All in good time Roger
Stephen would marry and install his wife in the manor-house. But the
shop in Coinagehall Street was no place for a woman. She would be a
nuisance, sweeping the place out and upsetting him and Malachi; an
expense, too, and Roger--always a penurious man--incurred no expense
until obliged.
But on a day, about two years before this 8th of May, 1734, word had
come down from Steens that his father wished to speak with him.
"Not dying, is he?" Roger asked the messenger in Cornish. Half his
customers spoke the old language, and it came readier to his tongue.
The messenger chuckled. "Dying? He'll live to be a hundred! Eh, it's
not dying he's after," and the man winked. He was near upon bursting
with news--or gossip--of his own.
"That's enough," said Roger. "Go back and tell him that if he's well and
wants to talk, he knows where to find me." And he turned back to his
work.
Next day old Humphrey Stephen rode down into Helleston in a
towering rage, reined up before his son's shop, and dismounted.

"You're a pretty dutiful kind of son," he snarled. "But I've a word that
concerns you belike. I'm going to marry again."
"Ah?" said Roger, drawing in his breath and eyeing the old man up and
down in a way that disconcerted him. "Who's the poor soul?"
"She lives over to Porthleven," answered his father, "and her name is
Mary Nankivell. She's--well, in fact she's a fisherman's daughter; but
I've lived long enough to despise differences of that kind."
"I wasn't asking your age," said Roger meditatively. "What's the
woman's?"
"She'll be twenty next birthday." The old man was sixty-five. "Well,
what's your opinion?" he asked testily, for he knew he was doing a
wrong thing, and craved an excuse to work himself into a rage.
"On which?" asked Roger, "--you, or the woman?"
"On the marriage." Old Humphrey stood glowering under his eyebrows,
and tapped his boot impatiently with the butt of his riding-whip. "I
reckoned it might concern you, that's all."
"I can't see that it does." There was that in Roger's slow look which his
father found maddening.
"Oh, can't you?" he sneered.
"No, for the life of me," answered Roger. "'Tis wickedness of course,
but I've no call to interfere. Take and marry the miserable fool, if you're
so minded."
Humphrey Stephen had more to say, but gulped it down and mounted
his horse with a devilish grin.
Roger Stephen went back to his work-bench.

III.
"Pack of fools!" growled old Malachi as the thump-thump of the drum
drew nearer. He rose and shifted his stool to a corner, for the way to the
back premises lay through the shop. Roger looked forth into the sunny
street, blinked, and, picking up a pair of pincers, returned to his watch.
The band came slowly down the street and halted outside--still in full
blast; for between the Market House and the Bowling Green there must
be no pause in the Flora-dance or its music. And presently the Mayor
himself thrust his red face in at the shop-door.
"Good-mornin'!" he nodded, jigging away with his feet. "You'll lev' us
come through, I suppose?"
"Welcome," grunted Roger.
"And, darn'ee, take care o' my cabbages!" added Malachi. "You ruined
half a score of 'em last year with your May-games."
"Cab--" Here the inexorable tune forced His Worship to face about and
twirl his partner. "Cabbages?" he resumed. "You dare to use such a
word to me, you saucy rascal? Why, I've sent better men than you to
prison for less!"
"I don't doubt it," retorted Malachi. "But King George is above us, and
holds even a Mayor responsible for what he treads on. Dance along out,
that's a dear man, and if you want to be frolicsome, keep to the paths."
"Of all the unpublicspirited houses I've danced into this day, this here's
the unpublicspiritedest!" exclaimed the Mayor. He had reached by this
time the door at the back of the shop, and would have said more; but
again the tune took him by the legs compelling him to twirl his partner,
and, twirling her, he was swept out of sight.
Roger Stephen still pored over his watch. Several of the dancers--had
the will to do it been enough--were minded to stop and rebuke him for
his churlishness. A tradesman at work in Helleston on Flora-day in