Read Ebook: Follow My Leader: The Boys of Templeton by Reed Talbot Baines Stacey W S Walter S Illustrator

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Ebook has 1665 lines and 102337 words, and 34 pages

"I hit a dog," replied Ernest politely, "but--"

"I don't want your 'buts.' Can you fight?"

Ernest inquired whether this question was put with a view of gaining general information or for any particular purpose.

"Can you fight?" was the only rejoinder.

Slightly nettled, Ernest replied that under certain circumstances he could fight like a tom-cat.

"Then look out; I'm going to make your head as you have made my dog's."

Ernest, in the polite language of youth, opined that there would be hair and toe-nails flying first.

To this sally, Jeremy Jones, for it was he, replied only by springing at him, his hair streaming behind like a Red Indian's, and, smiting him severely in the left eye, caused him to measure his length upon the floor. Arising quickly, Ernest returned the compliment with interest; but this time they both went down together, pummelling each other heartily. With whom the victory would ultimately have remained could scarcely be doubtful, for Jeremy, who even at that age gave promise of the enormous physical strength which afterwards made him such a noted character, must have crushed his antagonist in the end. But while his strength still endured Ernest was fighting with such ungovernable fury, and such a complete disregard of personal consequences, that he was for a while, at any rate, getting the best of it. And luckily for him, while matters were yet in the balanced scales of Fate, an interruption occurred. For at that moment there rose before the blurred sight of the struggling boys a vision of a small woman--at least she looked like a woman--with an indignant little face and an uplifted forefinger.

"O, you wicked boys! what will Reginald say, I should like to know? O, you bad Jeremy! I am ashamed to have such a brother. Get up!"

"My eye!" said Jeremy thickly, for his lip was cut; "it's Dolly!"

"Queer contrast," he muttered to himself; "very queer. Something like that between Reginald Cardus, Esquire, Misanthrope, of Dum's Ness, and Mr. Reginald Cardus, Solicitor, Chairman of the Stokesly Board of Guardians, Bailiff of Kesterwick, etc. And yet in both cases they are part of the same establishment. Case of old and new style!"

Mr. Cardus did not make his way straight to the office. He struck off to the right, and entered the long line of glass-houses, walking up from house to house, till he reached the partition where the temperate sort were placed to bloom, and which was connected with his office by a glass door. Through this last he walked softly, with a cat-like step, till he reached the door, where he paused to observe a large coarse man, who was standing at the far end of the room, looking out intently on the courtyard.

"Ah, my friend," he said to himself, "so the shoe is beginning to pinch. Well, it is time." Then he pushed the door softly open, passed into the room with the same cat-like step, closed it, and, seating himself at his writing-table, took up a pen. Apparently the coarse-looking man at the window was too much absorbed in his own thoughts to hear him, for he still stood staring into space.

"Well, Mr. de Talor," said the lawyer presently, in his soft, jerky voice, "I am at your service."

The person addressed started violently, and turned sharply round. "Good 'eavens, Cardus, how did you get in?"

"Through the door, of course; do you suppose I came down the chimney?"

"It's very strange, Cardus, but I never 'eard you come. You've given me quite a start."

Mr. Cardus laughed, a hard, little laugh. "You were too much occupied with your own thoughts, Mr. de Talor. I fear that they are not pleasant ones. Can I help you?"

"How do you know that my thoughts are not pleasant, Cardus? I never said so."

"If we lawyers waited for our clients to tell us all their thoughts, Mr. de Talor, it would often take us a long time to reach the truth. We have to read their faces, or even their backs sometimes. You have no idea of how much expression a back is capable, if you make such things your study; yours, for instance, looks very uncomfortable to-day: nothing gone wrong, I hope?"

"No, Cardus, no," answered Mr. de Talor, dropping the subject of backs, which was, he felt, beyond him; "that is, nothing much, merely a question of business, on which I have come to ask your advice as a shrewd man."

"My best advice is at your service, Mr. de Talor: what is it?"

"Well, Cardus, it's this." And Mr. de Talor seated his portly frame in an easy-chair, and turned his broad, vulgar face towards the lawyer. "It's about the railway-grease business--"

"Which you own up in Manchester?"

"Yes, that's it."

"Well, then, it ought to be a satisfactory subject to talk of. It pays hand over fist, does it not?"

"No, Cardus, that is just the point: it did pay, it don't now."

"How's that?"

"Well, you see, when my father took out the patent, and started the business, his 'ouse was the only 'ouse in the market, and he made a pot, and, I don't mind telling you, I've made a pot too; but now, what do you think?--there's a beggarly firm called Rastrick & Codley that took out a new patent last year, and is underselling us with a better stuff at a cheaper price than we can turn it out at."

"Well!"

"Well, we've lowered our price to theirs, but we are doing business at a loss. We hoped to burst them, but they don't burst: there's somebody backing them, confound them, for Rastrick & Codley ain't worth a sixpence; but who it is the Lord only knows. I don't believe they know themselves."

"That is unfortunate, but what about it?"

"Just this, Cardus. I want to ask your advice about selling out. Our credit is still good, and we could sell up for a large pile--not so large as we could have done, but still large--and I don't know whether to sell or hold."

Mr. Cardus looked thoughtful. "It is a difficult point, Mr. de Talor, but for myself I am always against caving in. The other firm may smash after all, and then you would be sorry. If you were to sell now you would probably make their fortunes, which I suppose you don't want to do."

"No, indeed."

"Then you are a very wealthy man; you are not dependent on this grease business. Even if things were to go wrong, you have all your landed property here at Ceswick's Ness to fall back on. I should hold, if I were you, even if it was at a loss for a time, and trust to the fortune of war."

Mr. de Talor gave a sigh of relief. "That's my view, too, Cardus. You are a shrewd man, and I am glad you jump with me. Damn Rastrick & Codley, say I!"

"O yes, damn them by all means," answered the lawyer, with a smile, as he rose to show his client to the door.

On the farther side of the passage was another door, with a glass top to it, which gave on to a room furnished after the ordinary fashion of a clerk's office. Opposite this door Mr. de Talor stopped to look at a man who was within, sitting at a table writing. The man was old, of large size, very powerfully built, and dressed with extreme neatness in hunting costume--boots, breeches, spurs, and all. Over his large head grew tufts of coarse gray hair, which hung down in dishevelled locks about his face, giving him a wild appearance, that was added to by a curious distortion of the mouth. His left arm, too, hung almost helpless by his side.

Mr. Cardus laughed as he followed his visitor's gaze. "A curious sort of clerk, eh?" he said. "Mad, dumb, and half-paralysed--not many lawyers could show such another."

Mr. de Talor glanced at the object of their observation uneasily.

"If he's so mad, how can he do clerk's work?" he asked.

"O, he's only mad in a way; he copies beautifully."

"He has quite lost his memory, I suppose?" said De Talor, with another uneasy glance.

"Yes," answered Mr. Cardus, with a smile, "he has. Perhaps it is as well. He remembers nothing now but his delusions."

Mr. de Talor looked relieved. "He has been with you many years now, hasn't he, Cardus?"

"Yes, a great many."

"Why did you bring him 'ere at all?"

"Did I never tell you the story? Then if you care to step back into my office I will. It is not a long one. You remember when our friend"--he nodded towards the office--"kept the hounds, and they used to call him 'hard-riding Atterleigh'?"

"Yes, I remember, and ruined himself over them, like a fool."

"And of course you remember Mary Atterleigh, his daughter, whom we were all in love with when we were young?"

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