“Time!” said the other. “Time
to cheat me out of a little more houseroom. If
I was agoing to live on charity, Mr. Ringgan, I’d
come out and say so, and not put my hand in a man’s
pocket this way. You’ll quit the house by
the day after to morrow, or if you don’t I’ll
let you hear a little more of me that you won’t
like!”
He stalked out, shutting the door after him with a
bang. Mr. Carleton had quitted the room a moment
before him.
Nobody moved or spoke at first, when the man was gone,
except Miss Cynthia, who as she was taking something
from the table to the pantry remarked, probably for
Mr. Rossitur’s benefit, that “Mr. Ringgan
had to have that man punished for something he did
a few years ago when he was justice of the peace,
and she guessed likely that was the reason he had a
grudge agin him ever since.” Beyond this
piece of dubious information nothing was said.
Little Fleda stood beside her grandfather with a face
of quiet distress; the tears silently running over
her flushed cheeks, and her eyes fixed upon Mr. Ringgan
with a tender touching look of sympathy, most pure
from self-recollection.
Mr. Carleton presently came in to take leave of the
disturbed family. The old gentleman rose and
returned his shake of the hand with even a degree
more than usual of his manly dignity, or Mr. Carleton
thought so.
“Good day to you, sir!” he said heartily.
“We have had a great deal of pleasure in your
society, and I shall always be very happy to see you—wherever
I am.” And then following him to the door
and wringing his hand with a force he was not at all
aware of, the old gentleman added in a lower tone,
“I shall let her go with you!”
Mr. Carleton read his whole story in the stern self-command
of brow, and the slight convulsion of feature which
all the self-command could not prevent. He returned
warmly the grasp of the hand answering merely, “I
will see you again.”
Fleda wound her arms round her grandfather’s
neck when they were gone, and did her best to comfort
him, assuring him that “they would be just as
happy somewhere else.” And aunt Miriam earnestly
proffered her own home. But Fleda knew that her
grandfather was not comforted. He stroked her
head with the same look of stern gravity and troubled
emotion which had grieved her so much the other day.
She could not win him to a smile, and went to bed
at last feeling desolate. She had no heart to
look out at the night. The wind was sweeping
by in wintry gusts; and Fleda cried herself to sleep
thinking how it would whistle round the dear old house
when their ears would not be there to hear it.
He from his old hereditary nook
Must part; the summons came,—our
final leave we took.
Wordsworth.
Mr. Carleton came the next day, but not early, to
take Fleda to Montepoole. She had told her grandfather
that she did not think he would come, because after
last night he must know that she would not want to
go. About twelve o’clock however he was
there, with a little wagon, and Fleda was fain to
get her sun bonnet and let him put her in. Happily
it was her maxim never to trust to uncertainties,
so she was quite ready when he came and they had not
to wait a minute.
