Uncle Silas J. Sheridan Le Fanu (good books to read for beginners .TXT) 📖

that conversation should flag where Lady Knollys was; and Mr. Carysbroke was very agreeable and amusing. At the other side of the table, the little pink curate, I was happy to see, was prattling away, with a modest fluency, in an undertone to Milly, who was following my instructions most conscientiously, and speaking in so low a key that I could hardly hear at the opposite side one word she was saying.

That night Cousin Monica paid us a visit, as we sat chatting by the fire in our room; and I told her⁠—

“I have just been telling Milly what an impression she has made. The pretty little clergyman⁠—il en est épris⁠—he has evidently quite lost his heart to her. I dare say he’ll preach next Sunday on some of King Solomon’s wise sayings about the irresistible strength of women.”

“Yes,” said Lady Knollys, “or maybe on the sensible text, ‘Whoso findeth a wife findeth a good thing, and obtaineth favour,’ and so forth. At all events, I may say, Milly, whoso findeth a husband such as he, findeth a tolerably good thing. He is an exemplary little creature, second son of Sir Harry Biddlepen, with a little independent income of his own, beside his church revenues of ninety pounds a year; and I don’t think a more harmless and docile little husband could be found anywhere; and I think, Miss Maud, you seemed a good deal interested, too.”

I laughed and blushed, I suppose; and Cousin Monica, skipping after her wont to quite another matter, said in her odd frank way⁠—

“And how has Silas been?⁠—not cross, I hope, or very odd. There was a rumour that your brother, Dudley, had gone a soldiering to India, Milly, or somewhere; but that was all a story, for he has turned up, just as usual. And what does he mean to do with himself? He has got some money now⁠—your poor father’s will, Maud. Surely he doesn’t mean to go on lounging and smoking away his life among poachers, and prizefighters, and worse people. He ought to go to Australia, like Thomas Swain, who, they say, is making a fortune⁠—a great fortune⁠—and coming home again. That’s what your brother Dudley should do, if he has either sense or spirit; but I suppose he won’t⁠—too long abandoned to idleness and low company⁠—and he’ll not have a shilling left in a year or two. Does he know, I wonder, that his father has served a notice or something on Dr. Bryerly, telling him to pay sixteen hundred pounds of poor Austin’s legacy to him, and saying that he has paid debts of the young man, and holds his acknowledgments to that amount? He won’t have a guinea in a year if he stays here. I’d give fifty pounds he was in Van Diemen’s Land⁠—not that I care for the cub, Milly, any more than you do; but I really don’t see any honest business he has in England.”

Milly gaped in a total puzzle as Lady Knollys rattled on.

“You know, Milly, you must not be talking about this when you go home to Bartram, because Silas would prevent your coming to me any more if he thought I spoke so freely; but I can’t help it: so you must promise to be more discreet than I. And I am told that all kinds of claims are about to be pressed against him, now that he is thought to have got some money; and he has been cutting down oak and selling the bark, Doctor Bryerly has been told, in that Windmill Wood; and he has kilns there for burning charcoal, and got a man from Lancashire who understands it⁠—Hawk, or something like that.”

“Ay, Hawkes⁠—Dickon Hawkes; that’s Pegtop, you know, Maud,” said Milly.

“Well, I dare say; but a man of very bad character, Dr. Bryerly says; and he has written to Mr. Danvers about it⁠—for that is what they call waste, cutting down and selling the timber, and the oakbark, and burning the willows, and other trees that are turned into charcoal. It is all waste, and Dr. Bryerly is about to put a stop to it.”

“Has he got your carriage for you, Maud, and your horses?” asked Cousin Monica, suddenly.

“They have not come yet, but in a few weeks, Dudley says, positively⁠—”

Cousin Monica laughed a little and shook her head.

“Yes, Maud, the carriage and horses will always be coming in a few weeks, till the time is over; and meanwhile the old travelling chariot and post-horses will do very well;” and she laughed a little again.

“That’s why the stile’s pulled away at the paling, I suppose; and Beauty⁠—Meg Hawkes, that is⁠—is put there to stop us going through; for I often spied the smoke beyond the windmill,” observed Milly.

Cousin Monica listened with interest, and nodded silently.

I was very much shocked. It seemed to me quite incredible. I think Lady Knollys read my amazement and my exalted estimate of the heinousness of the procedure in my face, for she said⁠—

“You know we can’t quite condemn Silas till we have heard what he has to say. He may have done it in ignorance; or, it is just possible, he may have the right.”

“Quite true. He may have the right to cut down trees at Bartram-Haugh. At all events, I am sure he thinks he has,” I echoed.

The fact was, that I would not avow to myself a suspicion of Uncle Silas. Any falsehood there opened an abyss beneath my feet into which I dared not look.

“And now, dear girls, good night. You must be tired. We breakfast at a quarter past nine⁠—not too early for you, I know.”

And so saying, she kissed us, smiling, and was gone.

I was so unpleasantly occupied, for some time after her departure, with the knaveries said to be practised among the dense cover of the Windmill Wood, that I did not immediately recollect that we had omitted to ask her any particulars about her guests.

“Who can Mary be?” asked Milly.

“Cousin Monica says