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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Huron Expositor, 1921-11-04, Page 7'r 4 aro r onsith Hodpos Bade Toronto—William Briggs. (Continued from .cast week) They had become even greater friends and inbhmatee by this time than the already astonished neigh- borhood suspected them of being, That they .spent much time together in an sweving degree of familiarity was the talk of the country, in fact, one ad the most frequent resources of eomreraalbion. Everybody endeavored to find reason for the situation, but none had been presented which seem- ed of sufficiently logical convincing- ness. The duke was eccentric, of course. That was easy to hit upon. He was amiably perverse and good- humoredly cynical. He was of course immensely amused by the incongru- ity of the acquaintance. This being the case why exactly he had never before chosen for himself a compan- ion equally out of the picture it was not easy to explain. There were plow -boyo or clerics out of provincial shops who would surely have been quite as incongruous when surround- ed by ducal splendors. He might have got a young man from Liver- pool or Blackburn who would have known as little of polite society as lir. Temple Barholm; there were few of course, who eou•!d knew ,less. But be had never shown the faintest de- sire to geek one out. Palliser, it is true, suggested it was Tembarom's "cheek" which stood him in good stead. The young man from behind the counter in a Liverpool or I3lack- burn shop would probably have been frightened to death and afraid to open his mouth In self -revelation, whereas Temple Barholm was so en- tirely a bounder that he did not know he was one and was ready to make an ass of himself to any extent. The frankest statement of the situation, if any one had so chosen to put it, would have been that he was regard- ed as a sort of court fool without cap or .bells. No one was aware of 'the odd con- fidences which passed between the weirdly pair. No one guessed that the old ser sat and listened to stories of a re'i'leaded, slim -bodied girl in a dingy N - York boarding-house, that be liked •hem sufficiently to encour- age their 'ening, that he had made a mental pi .'ore of a certain look in a pair of maternally yearning and fear- fully convincing round young eyes, that he knees the burnished fullness and glow ' the red hair until he could imag' •e the feeling of its tex- ture and ae•ndant warmth in the hand. And :';:s subjedt was only one of many. And of others they talked With interest, doubt, argument, spec- uletien, holding a living thrill. The tap of croquet mallets sounded hollow and clear from the sunken lawn below the mats of shrubs be- tween them and the players as the duke repeated. "It's hugely amusin'," dropping his "g," which was not one of his usual aff ectat i ons. "Confound it!" he said next, wrink- ling the thin, fine skin round his eyes in a speculative smile, "I wish I had had a son of my own just like you." All of Tembarom's white teeth re- vealed themselves. "I'd have liked to have been in it," he replied, "but I shouldn't have,been like me." "Yes, you would." The duke put the tips of his fingers delicately to- gether. "You are of the kind which in all circumstances is like itself." He looked about him, taking in the tur- reted, majestiee age and mass of the castle. "You would have been born here. You would have learned to ride your pony down the avenue. You would have gone to Eton'and to Ox- ford. I don't think you would have learned much, but you would have been decidedly edifying and compan- ionable. You would have had a sense of humor which would have made you popular in society and at court. A young. fellow who makes those people laugh holds success in his hand. They want to be made to laugh as much as I do. Good God! how they are obliged to be bored and behave descently under it! You would have seen and known more things to be humorous about than you know now. I don't think you would ,.,..E+1ili+ IOW of) ;to Ainisin aHli i'� t lr dove, ksid hied an -Safi ths� answer' bee $to0 • air Shine, Horn (home, you MONO bare been you!' .• GRAPTRR ICRIX AMter tails came a. maw. Back man sat thinking Site own *oughts, w hich, while. marked with difference in forte, doubtleee apbtiy alike In thene they tadldwed. Duriag the silence T. Tembarom looked out at the late afternoon shadows • length- ening:themaelves in darkening velvet across the lawns. . ' At last be said: I never told you that I've been reading some of the '+teen thousand books in the library. I started It a- bout a month ago. And somehow they've got me going," The slightly lifted eyebrows of hie host did not express surprise so much as questioning interest, This man, at least, had discovered that one need find no cause for asboniehment in any discovery that he had been doing a thing for some time for some reason or through some prompting of his own, and had said nothing whatever about it until ke was what he called "good and ready." When he was "good and ready" he usually reveal- ed himself to the duke, but he was not equally expansive wick others. "No, you have not. mentioned it," Ma grace answered, and laughed a little. "You frequentl r fail to men- tion things. When. first we knew each other I used to wonder if you were naturally a secrdtiYe fellow; but yop are not. You always have a reason for your silences." "lit took about ten years to kick that into me—ten good years, I should say." T. Tembarom looked as if he were looking backward at many epi- sodes as he said it. "Naturally, I guess, I must have been an innocent, blabernout'hed kid. I Meant no harm, but I just didn't know. Sometimes it looks as if just not knowing is about the worst disease you can be troubled with. But if you don't get killed first, you find out in time that what you've got to hold on to hard and fast is the trick of 'saying noth- ing and sawing wood.'" The duke took out kis memoran- dum -book and began to write hastily. T. Tembarom was quite accustomed to this. He even repeated his axiom for him. r, "Say nothing and saw wood," he said. 'It's worth writing down. It means 'shut your mouth and keep on working."' "Thank you," said the duke. "It is worth writing down. Thank you." •"I did not talk about the books because I wanted to get used to them before I began to talk," Tembarom explained. "I wanted to get some- where. I'd never rend a .book through in my life before. Never wanted to. Never had one and never had time. When night came, I was dog-tired and dog -ready to drop down and sleep." Here was a situation of interest. A young man of odd, direct shrewdness, who had never read a book through in his existence, had plunged sudden- ly into the extraordinary varied lit- erary resources of the Temple Bar - holm library. If he had been a fool or a genius one might have guessed at the impression made on him; being T. Tembarom, one speculated with secret elation. The primitiveness he might reveal, the profoundities he might touch the surface of, the unex- pected ends he might reach, suggest- ed the opening of vistas. "I have often thought that if books attracted you the library would help you to get through a good many of the hundred and thirty-six hours a day you've spoken of, and get through thbm pretty decently," commented the duke. "That's what's happened," Tembar- om answered. "There's not so many now. I can cut 'em off in chunks." "How did it begin?" He listened 'with much pleasure 'chile Tembarom told him how it had begun and how it had gone on. "I'd been having a pretty bad time one day. iStrangenvays had been worse —a darned sight worse—just when I thought he was better. I'd been try- ing to help him to think straight; and suddenly I made a break, somehow, and must have touched exactly the wrong spring. It seemed as if I set hini nearly crazy. I had to leave him to Pearson right away. Then it pour- ed rain steady for about eight hours and I couldn't get out. and 'take a walk.' Then I went wandering into the picture -gallery and found Lady Joan• there, looking at Miles Hugo. And she ordered me out, or blamed near it have been a fool about women, but "You are standing a good deal," some of them would have been fools said t'he duke. about you, because you've got a way. "Yes, I am but so is she." He I had one myself. It's all the more set his hard young jaw and nursed dangerous because it's possibility seg- his knee, staring once more at the Besting without being sentimental. A velvet shadows. "The girl in the friendly young fellow always suggests book I picked up—" he began. possibilities without being aware of it. • "Would I have been Lord Temple Barholm or something of that sort?" f Tembarom asked. You would have been the Marquis of Belearcy," • the dulce replied, look- ing him over thoughtfully, "and your name would probably have been Hugh Lawrence Gilbert Henry Charles Adel- bert, or words to that effect." "A regular six-shooter," said Tem - barons. The duke was following it up with absorption in his eyes. "You'd have gone into the Guards, per!haps," he said, "and drill would have made gnu carry yourself better. You're a geld height. You'd have been a wet%set-up fellow. I should have been rather proud of you. I can see you riding to the palace with the 'rest of them, sabres and chains clank- ing and glfbtering and helmet with plumes streaming. By Jove! I don't wonder at the effect they have on nursery-areida. On a sunny morning in spring they suggest knights in a fairytale. I should have liked it all tight if I hadn't been born in Beboklyn," grin- ned Tembatoan. "But that otayte yon HORSE AILMENTS of many kinds - quickly remedied with DOUGLAS' EGYPTIAN LINIMENT STOPS BLEEDING INSTANTLY. PREVENTS BLOOD POISONING. CURES TURUSH, FISTULA, SPRAINS AND remises. The beet all around Liniment for thi eahk AB well ne Inc household use. KEEP IT HANDY. At all Deeded% and Druggists. Manufactured only by DOUGLAS & CO., NAPAN*E, Oat. wf`uapat .rOg VIDOwt :a .Pg1 wlndfre *bent Aare es►in►adatgctll. �, e9l4 elle month d the 'things. oa the Shelves. I was thinking over a•. le OM of tiiingss,4 wholar at —and 'I didn't know' I was dig tulbil eogaethlog made the *tap. and read 'a .nam. again. It was a Look caned +(idod-by, 8weetheert; Good -by, and it hit me tend 'lot, I wondered what dt Was edited, and I wondered where old Temp. Barholm iad fish - ad .�. t a thing like that.. 'I never beard he was that kind:" fie wee a cantankerous old brute, said the Duke of Stone with candor, "but he chanced to be an omnivorous novel reader. Nothing, was too sen- timental for hien in his later yearn." "I took the thing out and read it," Tem/harem went on, uneasily, the mho - tion of his first ,novel -reading stirring shim as be talked. "It kept me up half the night, and I hadn't finfahed it then. I wanted to know the' end." "'Benisons upon the books of which one wants to knobs the end!" the duke murmured. Tembarom'' intertest had plainly not terminated with "the end." Bs fresh- ness made it easily revived. There was a hint of emotional indignation in his relation of the plot. "It was about a couple of fools who were dead stuck on each other— dead. There was no mistake about that. It was all real. But what do they do but work up a fool quarrel about nothing, and break away from each other. There was a lot of stuff about pride. Pride be da[nned! How's a man going to be prowl and put on airs when he loves a woman? How's a woman going to be proud and stick out about things when she loves a man? At least, that's the way it hit me." "That's the way it hit Mme—once," remarked his grace. "There is Drily once," said Tembar- am, doggedly. "Occasionally," said his host. "Oc- calionally." Tembarom knew what he meant. "The fellow went away, and neither of them would give in. I't's queer how real it was when you read it. You were right there looking on, and swallowing hard every few minutes— though you were as mad as hops. The girl began to die—slow—and lay there day after day, longing for him to come back, and knowing he wouldn't. At the very_ end, when there was scarcely a breath left in her a young fellow who was crazy about her himself, and always had been, put out after the hard•Iheaded fool to bring him to her anyhow. The girl had a- bout given in then. And she lay and waited hour after hour, and the youngaber came back by himself. He couldn't bring the man he'd gone af- ter. He found him getting married .to a nice girl he didn't really care a darn for. Iie'd sort of set his teeth and done it—just because he was all in and down and out, and a fool. The girl just dropped her head back on the pillow and lay there, dead! What do you think of that?" quite fiercely. "I guess it was sentimental all right but it got you by the throat." "'Good-bye, Sweetheart, Good- bye,'" his grace quoted. "First-class title. We are all sentimental. And that was the first, was it?"- "Yes, t?""Yes, but it wasn't the last. I be- gan to read the others. I've been reading then ever since. I tell you, for a fellow that knows nothing it's an easy way of finding out a lot of things. You find out what different kinds of people there are, and what different kinds of ways. If you've lived in one place, and been up against nothing but earning your living, you think that's all there is of it—that it's the whole thing. But it isn't, by gee!" His air became thoughtful. 'I've begun to kind of get on to what all this means"— glancing about him—"to you people; and how a fellow like T. T. must look to you. I've always sort of guessed, but reading a few dozen novels 'has helped me to see why it's that way. I've yelled right out laughing over it many a time. That fellow called Thackeray—I can't read his things right straight through— but he's an eye-opener." "You have tried nothing but nov- els?" his enthralled hearer inquired. "Not yet. I shall conte to the others in time. I'm sort of hungry for these things about people. It's the ways they're different that gets nie going. There was one that shirred '.me all up--ibut it wasn't like that first one. It was about a man"—he spoke slowly, as if searching for words and parallels—'well, I guess he was,one of the early savages here. It read as if they were like the first Indiana, in America, only stronger and fiercer. When Palford was ex- plaining things to me he'd jerk in every now and then something about 'coming over with t o Conqueror' or being ,here 'before tie Conqueror.' I didn't know what it meant. I found out in this book Pm telling about. Ft gave me the whole thing so that you SER. it. Here was this little country, with no one !n it but these first sav- age fellows it'd always belonged to. They thought it was the world." There was a humorous sense of illumination in his half -laugh. "It was their New Work, by jings," he put in. "Their little old New York that they'd never been outside ofl And then first one lot slams in, and then an- other., and another, and tries to take it from them. Julius Caisar was the first Mr. Buttinsiki; and they fought like hell. They were fighters from Fightersville, anyhow. They fought each ether, took each other's castles and bands and wives and jewelry— just any old thing they wanted. The only jails were private ones meant for their particular friends. And a man was hung only when one of hie neighbors got mad enough at him, and then he had to catch him first and run the risk of being strung up himrself, er have his head.ohopped off and stuck up on a apike somewhere for ornament. But fight! Good Lordl They were at it day and night. Did it for fun, just like folks go to the show. They didn't know what fear was. Never heard of it. They'd was 'TO?" Hera t al"Ojddtos. "Iforen+ard fief of tbs F,rtg1 1. '"An n eoga til end thief lad a *gelling murderer, and gelling one aha," commented the date. You liked biro!" lie •really *anted to (mow. 01 like the way lot went after wheat he waisted to get, and the May he fought for his (fit of 1 ngiand, r O gee When be went rushing into a fight,' shouting and boasting and trwinseng his award, I got hot in the ool•leg. It was tats England. What was old Bill doing iihere anyhow, darn hien! Those chaps essade him swim in their blood before they let him put the thing over. Good business! I'an glad they gave frim all that was com- ing to him -hot and strong." His sharp dace had reddened and his voice rose high and nasal. There was a look of roused blood in him. "Are you a fighter from Fighters- ville?" the duke asked, far from un- stirred ldmsetf. These things had be- come myths to most people, but here was Broadway in the midst of them unconsciously suggesting that it might not have done ill in the mat- ter of swinging "Braic-Biter" itself The modern entity +dipped back again through the lengthened links of by- gone centuries—back until it became T, Tembarom once more—casual though shrewd; ready and jocular. His eyes resumed their dry New York (humor of expreseien as they fixed themselves on his wholly modern questioner. "I'll fight," he said, "for what I've got to fight for, but not for a darn- ed thing else. Not a darned thing." "But you would fight," smfiled the duke, grimly. "Did you happen to remember that blood like that has come down to you? It was some drop of it which made you 'hot in the collar' over that engaging savage etering •and slashing about him for his 'bit of England.'" Tembarom seemed to think it out nterestedly. "No, I did not," he answered. "But I guess that's so. I guess it's so. Great Sakes! Think of me perhaps being sort of kin to fellows just like that. Some way, you couldn't help liking him. He was elwaya making big breaks and bellowing out 'The Wake! The Wakei' in season and out of season; but the way he got there—just got there!" He was oddly in sympathy with "the early savages here," and ss un- .ters;andingingly put hinssr.f into 'heir places as he had put himself in- to Galton's. His New York compre- hc•nsion of their berserker furies was parently without limit. Strung partizan as he was of the last of the English, however, he admitted that William of Normandy had "gut in sense good work, though it wasn't square." "He was a big man," he ended. "If he hadn't been the kind he was I don't know how I should have stood it when the Hereward fellow knelt down before him, and put his hands between his and swore to be his man. That's the way the book said it. I tell you that must have been tough —tough as hell!" "Front "Good-bye, Sweetheart" to "Hereward the Last of the English" was a far cry, but he had gathered a curious collection of ideas by the way and with characteri.tie everday rea- soning had linked them to his own experiences. The women in the Hereward book made me think of lady Joan," he re- marked, suddenly. "Torfreda?" the duke asked. Ile nodded quite seriously. She had ways that reminded me of her, and I kept thinking they must bath have had the same look in their eyes sort of fierce and hungry. Torfreda had black hair and was a winner as to looks; but people were afraid of her and called her a witch. Hereward went mad over her and she went mad over hin. That part of it was 'way out of sight, it was so fine. She helped him with •his fights and told him what tad", and tried to keep him from drinking and bragging. Whatever he did, she never stopped being crazy about him. She mended This men's clothes, and took care of their wounds, and lived in the forest with him when he was driven out." "That sounds rather like Miss Hut- chingon," his host suggested, "though the parallel between a Harlem flat and a English forest in the eleventh century is not exact" "I thought that, too," Tembarom admitted, "Ann would have done the same things, bol she'd have done them in her way. if that fellow had taken his wife's advice, he wouldn't have ended with his head sticking on a spear." "Another lady, if I remember rightly," said the duke. "He left her, the fool!" Temharor answered. "And there's where I couldn't get away from seeing Lady .roan; .Tem Temple llarholm didn't go off with another woman, but what Torfreda went,through, this one has gone through, and .she's going through it yet. She can't dress herself in sackcloth, and cut off her hair, and hide herself away with a bunoh of - nuns, as the other one did. She has to stay and stick it out, 'however bad it is. That's a darned sight worse. The day after I'd finished the book, I eouldn't keep my eyes off her. I tried to stop it, but it was no use. I kept hearing that Torfreda one screaming out, 'i.eet! Lost! Lost!' It was all in her face." "But, my good fellow," protested the duke, despite feel'in'g a touch of the thrill again, "msfortnnately, she would not suspect you of looking at her became you were recalling Tor- freda and Hereward the Wake. Men stare at her for another reason." "Thalia what 1 know about half as well again as I know anything else," answered Tembarom. He added, with a deliberation bold"ang Ba own mean- ing, "That's what I'm coating to." Thd duke waited. What was ft he was coming to? Beading that novel put me wise to tr the ens lighter of Out Mitat to Tat•batt �ti'OW •,Nle. , 1• went' d4d kid' bolt �, a that nigM,Dlrr SW' ' 'et lea; OE, way she bask" et urs nada est. ell 1tfl,iwl s "Wen wosdd bel' velli ss iter" Ira * If 1bee anisistist *et' this WWI 14 et she * =intim Ind—I" `YWleart she doss tb i*. eke 1ro401 have thought ti the old lady bedn',t been &bow her ola4 by' ltamen�i�s� it in Shed have hided me ail "='AF' and I don't biome her when I think of how poor Jenr Anss treated; but she wouldn't have tlfobgbt that every time I trled•td be decentaadfrieadly to her I was butting in and making a sick fool of myself, She a got to stay where her mother keeps her, and she's got tx, listen to 'her. Ob, hen! She's got to be told!" The duke set the tips of kis fingers "How would you do it?' be inquir- ed." "Jiret straight," replled T,'fembar- om. "There's . no ,other way." From the old worldling broke forth an involuntary 'low 'laugh, which was a sort of cackle. So this was what he_ was, coming to. "I cannot, think of any devious method," he'said, "which would hake it leas than delicate thing to do. A beautiful young woman, whose host you are, has Hooted you furiously for weeks, under the impression that you are offensively in love with her. You propose to tell her that her. judgment bus betrayed her, and that, as you Say, 'There's nothing doing.'" "Not a darned thing, and never has been," said T. Tembarom. He 'looked quite grave and not at all emliarress- ed. He plainly did not see it as a 'situation to be regarded with humor. "If ehe will listen—"the duke be- gan. "Oh, she'll listen," put in Tembar- a m. "I'll make her." His was a self -contradicting coun- tenance, the duke reflected, as he took him in with a somewhat long look. One did not usually. see a face built up of boyishness and maturity, simpleness whtoh Was baffling, and a good nature which could be bard. At the moment, it was both of these last at one and the same time. "•I know something of Lady Joan and I know something of you," he said, "but I don't exactly foresee what will happen. I will not say that I should not like to be present." "There'll be nobody present but just me and her," Tembarom answer- ed. to CHAPTER XXX The visits of Duly Mallowe and Captain Palliser had had their fea- tures. Neither of the pair had come to one of the most imposing "places" in Lancashire to live a life of hermit- like seclusion and dullness. They had arrived with the intention ofi avail- ing themselves of all such opportuni- ties for entertainment as could be guided in their direction by the deft- ness of experience. As a result, Thera had been hospitalities at Tem- ple Barholm such as it had not beheld during the last generation at least. T. Tembarom had looked on, an in- terested spectator, as these festivities had been adroitly arranged and mam- aged for him. He had not, however, in the least resented acting as a sort of figurehead in the position of spon- sor and host. "They think I don't know Ism not doing it all myself," was his easy mental sunum inp. "They've got the idea that I'm pleased because I believe I'm It. But that's all to the merry. It's what I've set my mind on having going on here, a and I couldn't have started it as well my- self. I shouldn't have known how. They're teaching me. All I hope is that Ann's grandmother is keeping tab." "Do you and Bose know old Mrs. Hutchinson?" he had inquired of Pearson the night before the talk with the duke. "Well, not to say exactly know her, sir, but everybody knoevs of her. She is a most remarkable old person, sir." Then, after watching his face for a moment or so, he added tentatively, "Would you perhaps wish us to make her acquaintance for—for any reas- on?" Tembarom thought the matter over speculatively. He had learned that 'his first liking for Pearson had been founded upon a rock. He was al- ways to be trusted to understand, and also to apply a quite unusual intelli- gence to such matters as he became aware of without having been told about them. "What I'd like would be for her to hear bhat there's plenty doing at Temple Barholm; that people are coming and going all the time; and that there's ladies to burn—and most of them lookers, at that," was his answer, Haw Pearson had discovered the exotic subtleties of his master's sit- uation and mental attitude toward it, only those of his class and gifted with his occult powers could explain in detail. The fact c'rie's that Pearson did know an immense number bf things his employer had not ment,ion- ed to him, and held thins locked in his bosom in honored security, like a little gentleman. He made his reply with a polite conviction whiceh car- ried weight. "It would not be necess'ary for either Rose or me to make old Mrs. Hutchinson's acquaintance with a view to informing her of anything which ()Cann, on the estate ar in the village, sir," he remarked. "Mrs. Hutchinson knows more of things than any one ever tells her. She sits in her cottage there, and she just knows things and sees through peo- ple in a way that'd be almost un- earthly, if she vd'asn't a good old per- son, and so respectable that there's those that touches their hats to her as if she belonged to the gentry. She's got a blue eye, sir—" "Has she?" exclaimed Tembarom. Continued next week. It takes nine tailors to make a man a pauper. ---Brandon gun. Wvegetable • lib deal aniaddle at tlYadOw I wet aka to eke it ▪ :'. have beer se I have it abs Meese Set . dean sr vim. WMy are sisters ser ism01 WI may relish mg Woe isle , the ilelle kw* mid I will writs be the wee �,1"--li L as as Mc At. 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