Miser Farebrother

“ Jeremiah nodded, and went out of the room. Miser Farebrother's eyes followed him; and when the door was closed, he groaned:
"He's as bad as the rest, I believe; but I've not been able to find him out. Is he cunninger and cleverer than I am? Curse my bones! Why can't I buy a new set? There isn't an honest man in the whole world. If Phœbe had been a boy instead of a girl, I might have had a little peace of mind; but as it is, I'm robbed right and left—right and left! Who's that at the door? Come in, can't you? Oh, it's you, Tom Barley?" ”

“ Miser Farebrother felt as if a great weight had been lifted from his heart. He had been apprehensive that Phœbe intended to ask him to lend them a sum of money.
"They wished me," said Phœbe, "to spend my birthday at their house; but I thought I should like them to come here instead. They made a party for me last year, and the year before last too; and it is so mean to be always taking and never giving."
"I don't agree with you. If people like to give, it shows they get a pleasure out of it, and it is folly to prevent them. ”

“ Speak low, Jeremiah. Miser Farebrother is as cunning as a fox. For all his lameness, he can creep about the house as soft as a cat. I was awake last night with a bad toothache, and I heard his bedroom door creak, and then I heard him go softly, softly down-stairs. ”

“ You have not a deep acquaintance with me, sir; but the knowledge of human nature you must have gained as a lawyer will convince you that nothing can turn me from a resolution I have formed, more especially from a resolution in which vital interests are involved—my vital interests! My daughter's hand is promised to my manager, Mr. Jeremiah Pamflett."
"Oh, Phœbe!" cried Aunt Leth, with quivering lips and overbrimming eyes. "My poor, poor Phœbe!"
"Spare your heroics," said Miser Farebrother; "we know the value of them. My daughter will give me what she owes me—love and obedience." ”

“ I was in a great passion, and I asked him if Miser Farebrother had given him four thousand pounds for the bracelet—which money he said he had given to Captain Ablewhite—how it was that it was now in his possession. He said that was his business; and then we got to higher words, and I accused him of murdering Miser Farebrother so that he might rob him. Then Jeremiah Pamflett said: "Do you want to know the truth? I did kill him; and that is how I got the bracelet back again. But you shall not live to tell anybody else. I will kill you as I killed the miser!" ”

“ Since Phœbe was fourteen years of age Aunt Leth had not set foot inside the gates of Parksides.
"Let it be well understood," said Miser Farebrother to his daughter, "I am nothing to them, and they are nothing to me. If they expect me to do anything for them, they will be disappointed, and they will have only themselves to blame for it."
"They don't expect you to do anything for them," said Phœbe, with a flush of shame on her face. "They never so much as give it a thought." ”

“ Well, she would perform her duty to the uttermost of her strength; but to one thing she was resolved.
"Sit here," said Miser Farebrother. Phœbe took the chair he indicated; it was between him and Jeremiah Pamflett, and as she passed her enemy she drew herself carefully from him. He noted this avoidance, but made no comment upon it. At present his case was in his master's hands. "You are well?" asked Miser Farebrother.
"Not quite well, father," said Phœbe.
"But well enough," he retorted. "You have a long life before you. Look at me. How long do you think I shall live?" ”

“ Pamflett, calmly; "and if that doesn't content you, nothing will. He writes well, as you have seen; he knows all about book-keeping; and he's as sharp as a needle."
"Takes after his mother?" observed Miser Farebrother, with a sardonic leer.
"No; I was never very clever, I've missed things. He won't, being a man. I'm glad I didn't have a girl. As a rule, I hate them."
"How about Phœbe?"
"She's well enough, but there's not much love lost between us. She don't take to me, and I don't take to her. It's on her side, mostly, not mine. She has nothing to complain of, any more than you have." ”

“ Miser Farebrother fished out of his scanty wardrobe some tattered garments, which he disposed of to Tom, and it was then that the lad exhibited himself in a new character, which drove the miser to desperation. He bargained with his master and beat him down to the last penny; Tom was not devoid of shrewdness, and he was beginning to understand the miser.
"If every man was as generous as I am," grumbled Miser Farebrother, at the conclusion of their first barter, "he'd soon be on the road to ruin." ”

“ If you have deserted me, you have not deserted my dear child, who is always full of praises of you."
"We love her," said Aunt Leth, "as well as we love our own."
"It is very good of you. Is that your husband? My eyesight is shockingly weak. I'm breaking fast, I'm afraid."
Mr. Lethbridge came forward, and Miser Farebrother seized his hand and gave it a cordial grasp. The kind-hearted man could find nothing better to say than,
"I am very glad to see you, Mr. Farebrother."
"Not so glad to see me as I am to see you. It is quite like old times—quite like old times. How is the world using you? ”

“ In Miser Farebrother's feelings there was something of the delight and the triumph which one rogue experiences when he overreaches another. "It looks like it, doesn't it? And we mustn't lose sight of the uncomfortable fact that Mr. Cornwall looks like a gentleman, while you, Jeremiah, you—not to mince the matter—look quite the other thing." He rubbed his hands with a sense of great enjoyment, and proceeded: "There you were, Jeremiah, sitting in the pit all the time this fine lawyer-gentleman was paying court to your sweetheart in a private box. ”

“ How should they?" retorted Miser Farebrother. "It would be so unnatural, wouldn't it? so very unnatural; they being poor, as they say they are, and I being rich as they think I am! They do say they're poor, now, don't they?"
"No," said Phœbe, considering; "I never remember their saying so. But they have as much as ever they can do to get along nicely. I know that without being told."
"So have we all, more than ever we can do. I can't get along nicely. Everything goes wrong with me—everything; and everybody tries to cheat me. ”

“ Pamflett?" he asked.
"I hate and abhor him," said Phœbe, firmly. "He is not a man; he is a reptile."
The door opened, and Mrs. Pamflett appeared.
"Come in," cried Miser Farebrother, "and hear what this ungrateful child calls your son. Repeat it in her hearing," he said to Phœbe.
The girl did not speak.
"I will tell you," said Miser Farebrother, "and if she denies it she lies. I asked her what objection she had to Jeremiah, and she answered that she hated and abhorred him, and that he was not a man but a reptile." ”

“ He would go down to Parksides immediately. Perhaps he might find Miser Farebrother's hidden treasure.
He emerged into the streets. As he descended the stairs he saw before him a vision of blood. Two men struggled for life and death. The house was very quiet. Only he and the other man occupied space. He tore at the Shadow's throat, he took a knife from his pocket, he plunged it in—
Blood, blood everywhere! Above him, beneath him, around him. Again and again the knife descended. What a delight to punish an enemy so! ”

“ Miser Farebrother is bound to me, and there shall be no backing out. He can't back out: I've got his signature to his written promise, and Mr. Lawyer may go to the devil. I'll wring his heart! I'll wring all their hearts!" To such a nature as Jeremiah's this was an agreeable contemplation, and he revelled in it, setting every tender glance that passed between Phœbe and Fred in the private box to the account which at no distant time he should commence to square up. It was a delight to him that A Heart of Gold had failed. ”

“ Lethbridge," thought Miser Farebrother, "not a penny shall ever pass from my pockets to yours." But the danger might not present itself through the Lethbridges. Phœbe might fall in love with a spendthrift or a cunning rogue. That would be as bad—worse, perhaps. Despite his aversion to the Lethbridges, his experience of them had taught him that they were proud, and that in the event of Phœbe marrying into their family there would be a chance of respite for him after a time, a chance that they would make up their minds to submit to poverty, and trouble him no more. ”

“ Lethbridge, on his way to the bank, had a little day-dream. He and his wife and children had arrived at the railway station which led to Parksides, and had beguiled the journey by discussing how they should get to Miser Farebrother's house. Should they ride? Should they walk? Would Phœbe meet them? The question was settled for them immediately they alighted from the train. There was Phœbe, all smiles, and dressed most beautifully, even elegantly. ”

“ Miser Farebrother was not in the least discomposed by Jeremiah's defence of himself. "Words, Jeremiah, words!" he said, with a sneering laugh. "Are you a fool as well as a rogue? What you have said is as so much air, and will not save you from the felon's fate. In everything I have done the law is on my side; I have seen to that. As to what is between us, let matters be settled quickly. You have saved a little, you say; you have friends who will assist you. Good! By noon to-morrow pay me the money you induced me to advance upon the bracelet. ”

“ I can hardly afford to keep a—a wheelbarrow—eh, Jeremiah?"
"Yes, sir," said Jeremiah, obsequiously.
"We can't have all we wish," pursued Miser Farebrother; and Jeremiah, although he was impatient to go in search of Phœbe, whom he now looked upon as his property, could not help taking interest and pleasure in his master's gentle and philosophic departure, which he, better than any one of the other listeners, could appreciate at its true value. "In a hundred years to come, a carriage and a wheelbarrow will be all the same to us. Still, I am glad to hear of your good fortune." ”

“ These circumstances were the breeders of an uneasy consciousness that he and the lad, in their right to occupy Parksides, were somewhat upon an equality. Hence it was necessary to be cautious, and to feel his way, as it were.
"Where are your people?" he asked.
The lad stared at him.
"My people!"
"Your people," repeated Miser Farebrother. "Where you live, you know."
"Ain't got no people," said the lad. "Don't live nowhere."
"Listen to me, you young scoundrel," said Miser Farebrother, shaking a menacing forefinger at him ”

“ No one understood it, no one could attend to it, but Jeremiah. What, then, was more feasible than Jeremiah's scheme of becoming Miser Farebrother's son-in-law? "To think," she mused in the night, "that it never entered my mind! But Jeremiah's got a head on him. He will be a millionaire, and I shall be a lady!" The idea of a repulse—that Phœbe would not think Jeremiah good enough for her—never occurred to Mrs. Pamflett; if it had, she would have rejected it with scorn. What! her son, her bright boy—handsome, shrewd, and clever—not good enough for the best lady in the land! ”

“ You are in trouble now, and I will share it. Give me a kiss, and say you love me!"
"I should be a beast if I didn't," said Jeremiah, kissing her. "You're something like a mother!"
"Jeremiah, if that venomous wretch Phœbe Farebrother had married you, would you be in danger now?"
"No; there would be nothing to trouble me if she hadn't rounded on me. I shouldn't have been compelled to do what I have done."
"Ah! She called you a reptile, and I am your mother. Oh, to be even with her—to be even with her!"
Half an hour afterward Jeremiah Pamflett was in the presence of Miser Farebrother. ”

“ Phœbe replied, "and I shall never love you."
"Proud spirits can be broken," said Mrs. Pamflett.
"Yes," sighed Phœbe; "but I am not proud—I am only faithful; and perhaps I shall soon die."
"You will be no loss," said Mrs. Pamflett; "but before you die you will be my daughter-in-law."
At this period Miser Farebrother had not spoken positively to Phœbe about Jeremiah; he had left it to the young villain to make his way, and, indeed, Jeremiah had attempted to do so. But Phœbe utterly baffled him. He brought her flowers, and at her father's command she received them from his hands. ”

“ The tongue of that clever young person, Miss Fanny Lethbridge, must have wagged rarely against you after you took your departure. You rubbed them the wrong way, Jeremiah—a mistake, a great mistake! Instead of oil, you used vinegar. 'Tis a million to one that the lawyer scoundrel saw through you; you made an enemy of him when you might have thrown dust into his eyes."
"What does it matter?" said Jeremiah, rather sulkily. "I'm not afraid of him."
"It matters everything," retorted Miser Farebrother. "It matters that you exposed your hand, and gave your rival the advantage over you." ”

“ Can he get you into further trouble?"
"Mother," said Jeremiah, "if he calls in an accountant, as he threatens to do, I am lost. There is no hope of escape for me. If I don't get back that bracelet, I am lost. And he has money, too, here, hidden away, and not a soul knows it but him and ourselves."
"Not a soul, Jeremiah."
"No one comes to the house but us?"
"Not a person has been here for a month past."
"But—attend to me, mother—there comes here to-night, late, a man to see Miser Farebrother. It might be!" ”