1Godfrey rose and took his own breakfast earlier than usual, but lingered in the wainscoted parlour till his younger brothers had finished their meal and gone out, awaiting his father, who always took a walk with his managing-man before breakfast. Every one breakfasted at a different hour in the Red House, and the Squire was always the latest, giving a long chance to a rather feeble morning appetite before he tried it. The table had been spread with substantial eatables nearly two hours before he presented himselfa tall, stout man of sixty, with a face in which the knit brow and rather hard glance seemed contradicted by the slack and feeble mouth. His person showed marks of habitual neglect, his dress was slovenly; and yet there was something in the presence of the old Squire distinguishable from that of the ordinary farmers in the parish, who were perhaps every whit as refined as he, but, having slouched their way through life with a consciousness of being in the vicinity of theirbetters,” wanted that self-possession and authoritativeness of voice and carriage which belonged to a man who thought of superiors as remote existences with whom he had personally little more to do than with America or the stars. The Squire had been used to parish homage all his life, used to the presupposition that his family, his tankards, and everything that was his, were the oldest and best; and as he never associated with any gentry higher than himself, his opinion was not disturbed by comparison.

2He glanced at his son as he entered the room, and said, “What, sir! havent you had your breakfast yet?” but there was no pleasant morning greeting between them; not because of any unfriendliness, but because the sweet flower of courtesy is not a growth of such homes as the Red House.

3Yes, sir,” said Godfrey, “Ive had my breakfast, but I was waiting to speak to you.”

4Ah! well,” said the Squire, throwing himself indifferently into his chair, and speaking in a ponderous coughing fashion, which was felt in Raveloe to be a sort of privilege of his rank, while he cut a piece of beef, and held it up before the deer-hound that had come in with him. Ring the bell for my ale, will you? You youngstersbusiness is your own pleasure, mostly. Theres no hurry about it for anybody but yourselves.”

5The Squires life was quite as idle as his sons,’ but it was a fiction kept up by himself and his contemporaries in Raveloe that youth was exclusively the period of folly, and that their aged wisdom was constantly in a state of endurance mitigated by sarcasm. Godfrey waited, before he spoke again, until the ale had been brought and the door closedan interval during which Fleet, the deer-hound, had consumed enough bits of beef to make a poor mans holiday dinner.

6Theres been a cursed piece of ill-luck with Wildfire,” he began; “happened the day before yesterday.”

7What! broke his knees?” said the Squire, after taking a draught of ale. I thought you knew how to ride better than that, sir. I never threw a horse down in my life. If I had, I might hawhistled for another, for my father wasn’t quite so ready to unstring as some other fathers I know of. But they must turn over a new leafthey must. What with mortgages and arrears, Im as short ocash as a roadside pauper. And that fool Kimble says the newspapers talking about peace. Why, the country wouldn’t have a leg to stand on. Prices ’ud run down like a jack, and I should never get my arrears, not if I sold all the fellows up. And theres that damned Fowler, I wont put up with him any longer; Ive told Winthrop to go to Cox this very day. The lying scoundrel told me hed be sure to pay me a hundred last month. He takes advantage because hes on that outlying farm, and thinks I shall forget him.”

8The Squire had delivered this speech in a coughing and interrupted manner, but with no pause long enough for Godfrey to make it a pretext for taking up the word again. He felt that his father meant to ward off any request for money on the ground of the misfortune with Wildfire, and that the emphasis he had thus been led to lay on his shortness of cash and his arrears was likely to produce an attitude of mind the utmost unfavourable for his own disclosure. But he must go on, now he had begun.

9Its worse than breaking the horses kneeshes been staked and killed,” he said, as soon as his father was silent, and had begun to cut his meat. But I wasn’t thinking of asking you to buy me another horse; I was only thinking Id lost the means of paying you with the price of Wildfire, as Id meant to do. Dunsey took him to the hunt to sell him for me the other day, and after hed made a bargain for a hundred and twenty with Bryce, he went after the hounds, and took some fools leap or other that did for the horse at once. If it hadn’t been for that, I should have paid you a hundred pounds this morning.”

10The Squire had laid down his knife and fork, and was staring at his son in amazement, not being sufficiently quick of brain to form a probable guess as to what could have caused so strange an inversion of the paternal and filial relations as this proposition of his son to pay him a hundred pounds.

11The truth is, sirIm very sorryI was quite to blame,” said Godfrey. “Fowler did pay that hundred pounds. He paid it to me, when I was over there one day last month. And Dunsey bothered me for the money, and I let him have it, because I hoped I should be able to pay it you before this.”

12The Squire was purple with anger before his son had done speaking, and found utterance difficult. You let Dunsey have it, sir? And how long have you been so thick with Dunsey that you must collogue with him to embezzle my money? Are you turning out a scamp? I tell you I wont have it. Ill turn the whole pack of you out of the house together, and marry again. Id have you to remember, sir, my propertys got no entail on it;—since my grandfathers time the Casses can do as they like with their land. Remember that, sir. Let Dunsey have the money! Why should you let Dunsey have the money? Theres some lie at the bottom of it.”

13Theres no lie, sir,” said Godfrey. I wouldn’t have spent the money myself, but Dunsey bothered me, and I was a fool, and let him have it. But I meant to pay it, whether he did or not. Thats the whole story. I never meant to embezzle money, and Im not the man to do it. You never knew me do a dishonest trick, sir.”

14Wheres Dunsey, then? What do you stand talking there for? Go and fetch Dunsey, as I tell you, and let him give account of what he wanted the money for, and what hes done with it. He shall repent it. Ill turn him out. I said I would, and Ill do it. He shan’t brave me. Go and fetch him.”

15“Dunsey isn’t come back, sir.”

16What! did he break his own neck, then?” said the Squire, with some disgust at the idea that, in that case, he could not fulfil his threat.

17No, he wasn’t hurt, I believe, for the horse was found dead, and Dunsey must have walked off. I daresay we shall see him again by-and-by. I dont know where he is.”

18And what must you be letting him have my money for? Answer me that,” said the Squire, attacking Godfrey again, since Dunsey was not within reach.

19Well, sir, I dont know,” said Godfrey, hesitatingly. That was a feeble evasion, but Godfrey was not fond of lying, and, not being sufficiently aware that no sort of duplicity can long flourish without the help of vocal falsehoods, he was quite unprepared with invented motives.

20You dont know? I tell you what it is, sir. Youve been up to some trick, and youve been bribing him not to tell,” said the Squire, with a sudden acuteness which startled Godfrey, who felt his heart beat violently at the nearness of his fathers guess. The sudden alarm pushed him on to take the next stepa very slight impulse suffices for that on a downward road.

21Why, sir,” he said, trying to speak with careless ease, “it was a little affair between me and Dunsey; its no matter to anybody else. Its hardly worth while to pry into young mens fooleries: it wouldn’t have made any difference to you, sir, if Id not had the bad luck to lose Wildfire. I should have paid you the money.”

22“Fooleries! Pshaw! its time youd done with fooleries. And Id have you know, sir, you must hadone withem,” said the Squire, frowning and casting an angry glance at his son. Your goings-on are not what I shall find money for any longer. Theres my grandfather had his stables full ohorses, and kept a good house, too, and in worse times, by what I can make out; and so might I, if I hadn’t four good-for-nothing fellows to hang on me like horse-leeches. Ive been too good a father to you allthats what it is. But I shall pull up, sir.”

23Godfrey was silent. He was not likely to be very penetrating in his judgments, but he had always had a sense that his fathers indulgence had not been kindness, and had had a vague longing for some discipline that would have checked his own errant weakness and helped his better will. The Squire ate his bread and meat hastily, took a deep draught of ale, then turned his chair from the table, and began to speak again.

24Itll be all the worse for you, you knowyoud need try and help me keep things together.”

25Well, sir, Ive often offered to take the management of things, but you know youve taken it ill always, and seemed to think I wanted to push you out of your place.”

26I know nothing oyour offering or omy taking it ill,” said the Squire, whose memory consisted in certain strong impressions unmodified by detail; “but I know, one while you seemed to be thinking omarrying, and I didn’t offer to put any obstacles in your way, as some fathers would. Id as lieve you married Lammeter’s daughter as anybody. I suppose, if Id said you nay, youd hakept on with it; but, for want ocontradiction, youve changed your mind. Youre a shilly-shally fellow: you take after your poor mother. She never had a will of her own; a woman has no call for one, if shes got a proper man for her husband. But your wife had need have one, for you hardly know your own mind enough to make both your legs walk one way. The lass hasn’t said downright she wont have you, has she?”

27No,” said Godfrey, feeling very hot and uncomfortable; “but I dont think she will.”

28Think! why havent you the courage to ask her? Do you stick to it, you want to have herthats the thing?”

29Theres no other woman I want to marry,” said Godfrey, evasively.

30Well, then, let me make the offer for you, thats all, if you havent the pluck to do it yourself. Lammeter isn’t likely to be loath for his daughter to marry into my family, I should think. And as for the pretty lass, she wouldn’t have her cousinand theres nobody else, as I see, could hastood in your way.”

31Id rather let it be, please sir, at present,” said Godfrey, in alarm. I think shes a little offended with me just now, and I should like to speak for myself. A man must manage these things for himself.”

32Well, speak, then, and manage it, and see if you cant turn over a new leaf. Thats what a man must do when he thinks omarrying.”

33I dont see how I can think of it at present, sir. You wouldn’t like to settle me on one of the farms, I suppose, and I dont think shed come to live in this house with all my brothers. Its a different sort of life to what shes been used to.”

34Not come to live in this house? Dont tell me. You ask her, thats all,” said the Squire, with a short, scornful laugh.

35Id rather let the thing be, at present, sir,” said Godfrey. I hope you wont try to hurry it on by saying anything.”

36I shall do what I choose,” said the Squire, “and I shall let you know Im master; else you may turn out and find an estate to drop into somewhere else. Go out and tell Winthrop not to go to Coxs, but wait for me. And tellem to get my horse saddled. And stop: look out and get that hack o’ Dunsey’s sold, and hand me the money, will you? Hell keep no more hacks at my expense. And if you know where hes sneakingI daresay you doyou may tell him to spare himself the journey ocoming back home. Let him turn ostler, and keep himself. He shan’t hang on me any more.”

37I dont know where he is, sir; and if I did, it isn’t my place to tell him to keep away,” said Godfrey, moving towards the door.

38Confound it, sir, dont stay arguing, but go and order my horse,” said the Squire, taking up a pipe.

39Godfrey left the room, hardly knowing whether he were more relieved by the sense that the interview was ended without having made any change in his position, or more uneasy that he had entangled himself still further in prevarication and deceit. What had passed about his proposing to Nancy had raised a new alarm, lest by some after-dinner words of his fathers to Mr. Lammeter he should be thrown into the embarrassment of being obliged absolutely to decline her when she seemed to be within his reach. He fled to his usual refuge, that of hoping for some unforeseen turn of fortune, some favourable chance which would save him from unpleasant consequencesperhaps even justify his insincerity by manifesting its prudence. And in this point of trusting to some throw of fortunes dice, Godfrey can hardly be called specially old-fashioned. Favourable Chance, I fancy, is the god of all men who follow their own devices instead of obeying a law they believe in. Let even a polished man of these days get into a position he is ashamed to avow, and his mind will be bent on all the possible issues that may deliver him from the calculable results of that position. Let him live outside his income, or shirk the resolute honest work that brings wages, and he will presently find himself dreaming of a possible benefactor, a possible simpleton who may be cajoled into using his interest, a possible state of mind in some possible person not yet forthcoming. Let him neglect the responsibilities of his office, and he will inevitably anchor himself on the chance that the thing left undone may turn out not to be of the supposed importance. Let him betray his friends confidence, and he will adore that same cunning complexity called Chance, which gives him the hope that his friend will never know. Let him forsake a decent craft that he may pursue the gentilities of a profession to which nature never called him, and his religion will infallibly be the worship of blessed Chance, which he will believe in as the mighty creator of success. The evil principle deprecated in that religion is the orderly sequence by which the seed brings forth a crop after its kind.