The Measure of a Man

"Oh, mother dear, don't speak unkindly of her!"

"Nay; why should I? She is, as you say, very pretty; and I'll warrant she is as good as she is pretty. I could trust Lugur to bring her up properly—but she is not a mate for you."

"I will have no other mate."

"Miss Lugur may be all your fancy paints her, but why should your mother be asked to leave her home, her duties, and pleasures for a year? To subject herself to bad weather and sickness and loneliness and fatigue of all kinds in order that she may throw the mantle of her social respectability over an equivocal situation. I do not blame the girl, but I feel more keenly and bitterly than I can tell you the humiliation and discomfort you would gladly put upon me in order to give yourself the satisfaction of Miss Lugur's company. Harry, you are the most selfish creature I ever met. John has promised to give up your rightful assistance in the mill, to really do your work for a year, your income is to be paid in full, though you won't earn a farthing of it; you expect the use of the yacht for yourself and a girl out of my knowledge and beneath my social status. Oh, Harry! Harry! It is too much to ask of any mother."

"I never thought of it in this way. Forgive me, mother."

"And who is to take care of John if I go with you? Who is to care for the old home and all the treasures gathered in it? Who will look after the farm and the horses and cattle and poultry, the fruit-trees and lawns and flowers as I do? Do you think that all these cares are pleasures to me? No, my dear lad, but they are my duty. I wouldn't have thy father find out that I neglected even a brooding hen. No, I wouldn't. And the yacht was thy father's great pleasuring. I only went with him to double that pleasure. I don't like the sea, though I never let him know it. Oh, my dear! But there! You haven't learned yet that self-sacrifice is love, and no love without it."

"Mother, I am ashamed of my selfishness. I never realized before how many things you have to care for."

"From cocklight to the dim, Harry, there is always something needing my care. Must house and farm and John and all our dumb fellow creatures go to the mischief for pretty Lucy Lugur? My dear, I'm saying these things to you, because nobody else has a right to say them; but oh, Harry, it breaks my heart to say them!"

"Mother, forgive me. I did not think of anything but the fact that you have always stood by me through thick and thin."

"In all things right, I will stand by you. In whatever is wrong I will be against you. You have fallen into the net of bad company, and you can't mend that trouble—you can only run away from it. Take John's advice, and get out of the reach of that Naylor influence."

"I never saw anything wrong with Frank Naylor. He did not drink, he never touched a card, and he was always respectful to the women we met."

"Harry, you would not dare to repeat to me all that Frank Naylor said to you. Oh, my dear, there it is! When you can shut your ears, as easily as your eyes, you can afford to be less particular about the company you keep—not until."

At this moment John entered, and the conversation became general and impersonal. But the influence of uncertain and unlooked-for anxiety was over all, and Harry was eager to escape it. He said the young men would be expecting him at their association hall, as he had promised to explain to them the mysteries of golf, which he wished them to favor above cricket.

He had, indeed, a promised obligation on this subject, but the exact time was as yet within his own decision. Yet he was ready to fulfill it that evening, rather than listen to the conversation about himself and his future, which he knew would ensue whether he was present or not. And the promise John had given him of a year's holiday was so satisfactory that he longed to be alone and at liberty to follow it out and fit it into his life.

He felt that John had been generous to him, but he also felt that the proposed manner of rest and recreation was in one respect altogether unsatisfactory—he was to be sent away from Lucy Lugur. He was sure that was John's real and ultimate motive, whatever other motive was virtually put in its place. Mother and brother would agree on that point and he thought of this agreement with a discontent that rapidly became anger. Then he determined to marry Lucy, and so have a right to her company on land or sea, at home or abroad.

For he argued only from his own passionate desire. Lucy had never said she loved him, yet he felt sure she did so. He loved her the moment they met, and he had no doubt Lucy had been affected in the same manner as himself. He knew her for his own, lost out of his soul-life long ago and suddenly found one afternoon as she stood with her father at the gate of their little garden. She had roses in her hands, or rather they were lying across her white arms, and her exquisite face rose above them, thrilling his heart with a strange but powerful sense of a right in her that was wholly satisfying and indisputable.

"I will suffer no one to part me from Lucy," he mused. "She is mine. She belongs to me, and to no other man in this world. I will not leave her. I might lose her; if I go away, she must go with me. She loves me! I know it! I feel it! When she sat at my side as we were driving together she was me. Her personality melted into mine, and Lucy Lugur and Harry Hatton were one. If I felt this, Lucy felt it. I will tell her, and she will believe me, for I am sure she shared that wonderful transfusion of the 'thee into me' which is beyond all explanation, and never felt but with the one soul that is our soul."

Thus as he walked down to the village he thrilled himself with the pictures of his own imaginings; for a passionate bewildering love, that had all the unbearable realism of a dream, held him in its unconquerable grip. There may be men who can force themselves to be reasonable in such a condition, but Henry Hatton was not among them; and when he unexpectedly met Lucy's father in the village, he quite forgot that the man knew nothing at all of his affection for his daughter and his intention to marry her.

"Mr. Lugur," he cried almost joyfully, "I was looking for you, hoping to meet you, and here you are! I am so glad!"

Lugur looked up curiously. People did not usually address him with such pronounced pleasure, and with Henry Hatton he had not been familiar, or even friendly. "Good evening, Mr. Hatton," he answered, and he touched the cap set so straight and positive on his big, dark head with slight courtesy. "Have you any affair with me, sir?" he asked.

"I have."

"It is my busy night. I was going home, but–"

"Allow me to walk with you, Mr. Lugur."

"Very well. Talking will not hinder. I am at your service, sir."

Then Henry Hatton made his heart speak words which no one could have doubted. He was a natural orator, and he was moved by an impetuous longing, that feared nothing but its own defeat. He told Lugur all that he had told himself, and the warmth and eagerness of his pleading touched the man deeply, though he did not interrupt him until he said, "I am going for a year's travel, and I want to marry Lucy, and take her with me."

Then he asked, "Have you spoken to my daughter on the subject of marriage?"

"I want your permission in order to gain hers."

"Does she know that you love her?"

"I have not told her so. I ask that you take me now to your home that I may speak to her this hour."

Lugur made no further remark, until they reached the schoolmaster's house. Then he said, "There is a light, as you may see, in the right-hand room; Lucy is there. Tell her I gave you permission to call on her. Leave the door of the room open; I shall be in the room opposite to it. You may remain an hour if you wish to do so. Leave at once if your visit troubles Lucy." Then with a cold smile he added, "I am her only cicerone, you see. She has no mother. You will remember that, Mr. Hatton." As he spoke, he was looking for his latch-key and using it. There was a lamp in the hall, and he silently indicated the door of the room in which Lucy was sitting. At the same moment he opened a door opposite and struck a light. Seeing Hatton waiting, he continued, "You have already introduced yourself—go in—the door is open."

He stood still a moment and listened to the faint flutter of Lucy's movement, and the joyous note in her voice as she welcomed her lover. With a sigh, he then turned to a table piled with papers and slates and apparently gave himself up to the duty they entailed.

In the meantime Harry had seated himself by the side of Lucy, and was telling her in the delicious, stumbling patois of love all that was in his heart. She was bewilderingly beautiful; all his thoughts of her had been far below this intimate observation. Not that he analyzed or tabulated her charms—that would have been like pulling a rose to pieces. He only knew that her every glance and word and movement revealed a new personal grace. He only felt that her dress so daintily plain and neat and her simplicity and natural candor were the visible signs of a clear and limpid nature such as gods and men must love.

It was easy for Harry to tell her his love and his wishes. She understood him at once, and with sweet shy glances answered those two or three questions which are so generally whispered to a woman's heart and which hold the secret of her life and happiness. In this wonderful explanation the hour given was all too short, and Harry was just beginning to plead for an immediate marriage so that they might see the world together when Lugur entered the room and said it was the hour at which they usually closed the—

Harry did not let him finish his request. "Sir," he cried enthusiastically, "Lucy loves me. She loves me as I love her. I was just asking her to marry me at once."

"That is an impossible request, Mr. Hatton. Under no circumstances, none whatever, would I permit Lucy to marry for at the least a year. Many things must be determined first. For instance, I must have a conversation with your mother and with Mr. John Hatton, your elder brother."

"You can see them tomorrow, sir—early in the morning—if you would be so kind to Lucy and myself, we should be very grateful—what time can you see them tomorrow?"

"You go too fast, sir. I cannot see either of them tomorrow, nor yet for many tomorrows."

"Oh, sir, Lucy loves me and I love her, and–"

"Love must learn to wait—to be patient and to be satisfied with hopes. I am weary, and we will bid you good night."

There was something so definite and positive in this good night that Harry felt it to be irresistible, and with an air of disappointment made his departure. At the outer door Lugur said, "I do not lack sympathy with you, Mr. Hatton, in your desire to hurry your marriage forward, but you must understand that there will be necessary delays. If you cannot bear the strain of waiting and of patiently looking forward, you are mistaken in the quality of your love and you had better give it up at once."

"No, sir. Right or wrong, it is my love, and Lucy is the only woman who will ever bring joy or sorrow to me."

Lugur did not answer, but his tall, dark figure standing with his hand on the half-shut door impressed Harry painfully with the hopelessness of further argument. He bowed silently, but as he passed through the little gate the sound of the hastily closed door followed him up the hill to Hatton Hall. Lugur went into the parlor to look for his daughter; she had gone to her room. Some feeling of maidenly reserve had led her to take this step. She never asked herself why or wherefore; she only felt that it would be good for her to be alone, and the need had been so urgent that she forgot her father's usual good-night kiss and blessing. Lugur did not call her, but he felt the omission keenly. It was the first change; he knew that it prefigured many greater ones, and he was for the hour stunned by the suddenness of the sorrow he had to face. But Lugur had a stout heart, a heart made strong and sure by many sufferings and by one love.

He sat motionless for an hour or more; his life was concentered in thought, and thought does not always require physical movement. Indeed, intense thought on any question is, as a rule, still and steady as a rock. And Lugur was thinking of the one subject which was the prime mover of his earthly life—thinking of his daughter and trying to foresee the fate he had practically chosen for her, wondering if in this matter he had been right or wrong. He had told himself that Lucy must marry someone, and that Henry Hatton was the best of all her suitors. Thirsk he hardly took into consideration; but there was young Bradley and Squire Ashby and the Wesleyan minister, and his own assistant in the school. He had seen that these men loved her, each in his own way, but he liked none of them. Weighed in his balance, they were all wanting.

Neither was Henry Hatton without fault; but the Hatton family was good to its root, as far as he knew or could hear tell, and at least he had been frankly honest both with his daughter and himself. He found strength and comfort in this reflection, and finally through it reached the higher attitude, which made him rise to his feet, clasp his hands, and lift his face with whispered prayer to the Father and Lover of souls. Leaving Lucy in His care, his heart was at rest, and he lay down in peace and slept.

CHAPTER V

THE HEARTH FIRE

He who has drunk of Love's sharp strong wine,
Will drink thereof till death.
Love comes in silence and alone
To meet the elected One.

It was a chill, misty evening in the last days of September, and John Hatton was sitting by the fire in the great central hall. He was thinking of many things, but through all of them the idea of his brother Harry swept like an obliterating cloud. He was amazed at the hot impetuous love which had taken possession of the boy—for he still thought of him as a boy—and wondering how best to direct and control a passion that had grown like a force of Nature, which it really was. Now great and fervid emotions are supposed to be the true realization of life, but they do not, as a rule, soften the nature they invade; very frequently they render it cruel and indifferent to whomever or whatever appears to stand in the way of its desires. John realized this fact in Harry's case. He was going from home for a year, and yet he had never before been so careless and unconcerned about his home.

It was not a pleasant train of thought, and he was pleased when it was interrupted by the entrance of Mrs. Hatton. "Why, John, my dear," she said, "I was wondering if you had come home yet. Have you seen Harry?"