Page:Once a Week Volume 7.djvu/719

. 20, 1862.]

was seated in the dining-room at Verner’s Pride. Not its master. Its master, John Massingbird, was there, opposite to Lionel. They had just dined, and John was filling his short pipe as an accompaniment to his wine. During dinner he had been regaling Lionel with choice anecdotes of his Australian life, laughing ever: but not a syllable had he broached yet about the “business” he had put forth as the plea for the invitation to Lionel to come. The anecdotes did not raise the social features of that far-off colony in Mr. Verner’s estimation. But he laughed with John: laughed as merrily as his heavy heart would allow him.

It was quite a wintry day, telling of coming winter. The skies were leaden-grey; the dead leaves rustled on the paths; and the sighing wind swept through the trees with a mournful sound. Void of brightness, of hope, it all looked, like Lionel Verner’s fortunes. But a few short weeks ago he had been in John Massingbird’s place, in the very chair that he now sat in, looking never to be removed from it during life. And now!—what a change!

“Why don’t you smoke, Lionel?” asked John, setting light to his pipe by the readiest way—that of thrusting it between the bars of the grate. “You did not care to smoke in the old days, I remember.”

“I never cared for it,” replied Lionel.

“I can tell you that you would have cared for it, had you been knocked about as I have. Tobacco’s meat and drink to a fellow at the Diggings: as it is to a sailor and a soldier.”

“Not to all soldiers,” observed Lionel. “My father never smoked an ounce of tobacco in his life, I have heard them say: and he saw some service.”

“Every man to his liking,” returned John Massingbird. “Folks preach about tobacco being an acquired taste! It’s all bosh. Babies come into the world with a liking for it, I know. Talking about your father, would you like to have that portrait of him that hangs in the large drawing-room? You can if you like. I’m sure you have more right to it than I.”

“Thank you,” replied Lionel. “I should very much like it, if you will give it me.”

“What a fastidious chap you are, Lionel!” cried John Massingbird, puffing vigorously; for the pipe was turning refractory, and would not keep alight. “There are lots of things you have left behind you here, that I, in your place, should have marched off without asking.”

“The things are yours. That portrait of my father belonged to my Uncle Stephen, and he made no exception in its favour when he willed Verner’s Pride, and all it contained, away from me. In point of legal right, I was at liberty to touch nothing, beyond my personal effects.”

“Liberty be hanged!” responded John. “You are over fastidious; always were. Your father was the same, I know; can see it in his likeness. I should say, by the look of that, he was too much of a gentleman for a soldier.”

Lionel smiled.

“Some of our soldiers are the most refined gentlemen on the world’s soil.”

“I can’t tell how they retain their refinement, then, amid the rough and ready of camp life. I know I lost all I had at the Diggings.”

Lionel laughed outright at the notion of John Massingbird’s losing his refinement at the Diggings. He never had any to lose. John joined in the laugh.

“Lionel, old boy, do you know I always liked you, with all your refinement; and it’s a quality that never found great favour with me. Liked you better than I liked poor Fred: and that’s the truth.”

Lionel made no reply, and John Massingbird smoked for a few minutes in silence. Presently he began again.

“I say, what made you go and marry Sibylla?”

Lionel lifted his eyes. But John Massingbird resumed, before he had time to speak.

“She’s not worth a button. Now you need not fly out, old chap. I am not passing my opinion on your wife; wouldn’t presume to do such a thing; but on my cousin. Surely I may find fault with my cousin, if I like! Why did you marry her?”

“Why does anybody else marry?” returned Lionel.

“But why did you marry her? A sickly fractious thing! I saw enough of her in the old days. There! be quiet! I have done. If it hadn’t been for her, I’d have asked you to come here to your old home; you and I should jog along together first-rate. But Sibylla bars it. She may be a model of a wife; I don’t insinuate to the contrary, take you note, Mr. Verner; but she’s not exactly a model of temper, and Verner’s Pride wouldn’t be big enough to hold her and me. Would you have taken up your abode with me, had you been a free man?”

“I cannot tell,” replied Lionel. “It is a question that cannot arise now.”

“No. Sibylla stops it. What are you going to do with yourself?”

“That I cannot tell. I should like an appointment abroad, if I could get one. I did think of going to London, and looking about me a bit; but I am not sure that I shall do so just yet.”

“I say, Lionel,” resumed John Massingbird, sinking his voice, but speaking in a joking sort of way, “how, do you mean to pay your debts? I hear you have a few.”

“I have a good many, one way or another.”

“Wipe them off,” said John.

“I wish I could wipe them off.”

“There’s nothing more easy,” returned John in his free manner. “Get the whitewash brush to