The sudden alarm
pushed him on to take the next step- a very slight impulse suffices
for that on a downward road.
'Why, sir,' he said, trying to speak with careless ease, 'it was
a little affair between me and Dunsey; it's no matter to anybody else.
it's hardly worth while to pry into young men's fooleries: it wouldn't
have made any difference to you, sir, if I'd not had the bad luck to
lose Wildfire. I should have paid you the money.'
'Fooleries! Pshaw! it's time you'd done with fooleries. And I'd
have you know, sir, you must ha' done with 'em,' 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. There's my grandfather had
his stables full o' horses, 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. I've been
too good a father to you all- that's what it is. But I shall pull
up, sir.'
Godfrey was silent. He was not likely to be very penetrating in his
judgments, but he had always had a sense that his father's
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.
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