Chapter V: Sir Ernest “scatters His Enemies.”

Meanwhile the select committee had not been idle; the bridge progressed apace, the farmers rejoiced as the affair proceeded rapidly towards completion. Sir Hugh Xifer rode down day after day to note how the workmen were “getting on;” the owners of land in the vicinity had become reconciled to the idea of a most moderate toll, as the “roundabout” seven miles nuisance had really become unbearable. Everybody was satisfied, everybody, even to Sir Ernest Ivraine, only the baronet did not tell the select committee so; no, he held his peace, and they saw their bridge rise quickly to something fit to put a toll on, and were thankful.

There were many, indeed, who whispered “Sir Ernest meant mischief,” but the wise men of Lorton laughed the assertion to scorn.

“He would like to do us mischief, we have no doubt,” they said, “but we defy him legally to carry out his wishes, and if he attempt to carry them out illegally, we ‘have him;’ but he is too wise by far for that.”

Yes, Sir Ernest Ivraine was too wise for that, particularly as he knew he “had them.” He neither summoned them for trespass nor served them with notice not to build on his premises, nor bribed “parties” to undermine the foundations, nor ordered out a select band to pull down the toll gate; he did not threaten, or rage, or trouble himself apparently in the slightest degree about the matter; he expressed, indeed, perfect indifference on the subject when it was named in his presence, and was altogether so externally careless, that he contrived to deceive his old enemy, Sir Hugh, and the remainder of the select committee most completely; he lulled them into a state of the most placid contentment and unbounded confidence, induced them to believe he was vanquished; in fine, he was so clever as to let them build away in peace and make them think they had triumphed over him so completely, that he had ceased to talk of opposition or of annoyance.

There was a look, however, in the baronet’s face which Mr. Medill distrusted, a sort of half-suppressed malicious expression, that puzzled the worthy attorney; he could not, indeed, tell exactly what plot the old miser was hatching, but he felt convinced there was something disagreeable in the wind, else Sir Ernest would never be taking the matter so quietly and making so little noise about it.

“I fear,” remarked Mr. Medill to Sir Hugh, “the weather is too calm at Paradise; we shall certainly have a storm before long, blowing due north from that quarter.”

“Nay; rather,” returned the knight, “remember the inverse of the proverb you were thinking of, ‘after a storm comes a lull.’ We had high winds and high words and thunder threats some months since: I am sure it is not to be marvelled at there should be a little peace now, after the tempest he raised last winter.”

“But that tempest did no harm; it was fierce, it is true, but it was also open: this time he is brewing some precious mess in that impenetrable cauldron of a brain of his; and I know, by the sarcastic twinkle of his eye and a peculiar curl, or rather twist, of his lip, that he is not merely bent on crossing your plans, but has found out some way of effecting his design.”

“I defy him,” said Sir Hugh solemnly.

“Do you defy the devil?” demanded the attorney.

“And all his imps,” answered the other; “he has no law on his side: the road is ours; we repair the bridge at our private cost, and every individual who has any influence in the matter, excepting, perhaps, himself, has agreed that our proposal of a nominal toll is only just and equitable. He dare not damage the building, he cannot pass over the bridge without paying; he could only remove the gate by using illegal force; in short, I defy him to outwit us now in any way which would not overstep the bounds of law and render him liable to an action. I have looked at the matter from every point of view, and I see nothing that he can do to annoy us or benefit himself.”

“Well, you may depend he does,” briefly responded Mr. Medill.

“Do not believe it,” said the knight, shaking his wise head in a sceptical manner; “I feel sure we have got the better of Sir Ernest Ivraine for once.”

“Never knew any man yet who was so fortunate,” was the reply. “Other people swear and bluster quite as much, perhaps, but they stop sometimes: now there is _no end_ to Sir Ernest; he never lets go his hold; he never lifts his nose from the scent till he has hunted his game down; he never turned aside from any purpose in his life: if he cannot do harm one way, he will in another; he never forgets, he never forgives. Take my advice and have a care; I know there is danger near at hand, for the owner of Paradise is never so dangerous as when apparently perfectly tranquil.”

But Sir Hugh laughed the injunction to scorn; and he laughed still more confidently when the bridge was finished, when carts passed over, and their drivers paid tolls, and the temporary plank affair was removed altogether, and the other opened and presented to the public, renewed, strengthened, beautified, as a route for regular traffic.

Still the lull remained unbroken at Paradise: it is true Sir Ernest had been heard to remark he would pay toll one day on the bridge, but never again; it was also noticed that not a single one of his tenants had been seen to pass over it, and somebody asserted that a fresh “opinion” had been taken on some mysterious subject connected with the bridge affair; but the committee pursued the even tenor of their self-sufficient course, perfectly satisfied that they were so excessively clever, nobody could, by any stretch of human ingenuity, manage to outwit them.

The structure, however, had not been a “perfect miracle of art” for more than three days, ere the worn-out old pensioner, whom Sir Hugh and his brethren—he being fit for nothing else—had hired “cheap” to do their “dirty work,” as the ungrateful farmers now styled the task of collecting their pennies, came hobbling up to Lorton Hall, and craved an interview with its owner, Sir Hugh Xifer.

“I am afraid, sir,” he began, “there is something astir up there,” and he jerked his head in the direction of Paradise, “so I made free to come and tell you so, and to say I think it might be well to keep a sentinel or two about the place for a few nights.”

“Confound your sentinel,” said Sir Hugh, savagely; “we are, and have been, at sufficient expense already; he _dare_ not do us any injury; he will never put himself within the clutch of the law; I only wish he would, hang him, but he won’t, I know he won’t.”

“Well, sir,” recommenced the old man, who had “stood at ease” during the rapid delivery of the above speech, “when I served under the Duke I learned two things; the first was to report all I saw to my superiors, the next, to obey their commands implicitly; so I will, first, if you please, tell you what happened this afternoon, and then leave you to order what you think best to be done.”

“Make haste, then,” growled Sir Hugh, who listened only with one ear to the pensioner’s harangue, the other being amply engaged hearkening for the sound of the dinner bell; “make haste, then,” and, accordingly, thus graciously permitted to proceed, the man began:

“About half-past three, sir, I was leaning over the side wall, looking at the river, and thinking how quiet and sluggish it seemed, and of how it could brawl at times, when who should I see coming to have a glance at the work but Sir Ernest Ivraine—he, and a friend with him, and they did take a precious stare at it to be sure.”

“I hope they admired it,” remarked the knight.

“I don’t know about that, sir; but they walked over and over and round and round it, and down on to the bank, and stood for more than fifteen minutes staring at the supports and buttresses, or whatever they call them; and then they came up again and leant over the parapet, and talked like pickpockets together for ever so long: and, at last, when they passed me on their way home, I saw the baronet was laughing in that strange fashion of his, not out loud, but in to himself—quietly in his throat; and, when they had got twenty yards or so from the bridge, again I saw them stop and look back, and I heard the gentleman, whoever he was, laughing, till the very arches rung, as they walked away to Paradise.”

“Is that all?” demanded Sir Hugh.

“Yes, sir, that is all,” answered the man, “and plenty too, I think,” he added, _sotto voce_.

“Sir Ernest Ivraine dare not tamper with that bridge,” remarked the knight, who really felt more uneasy than he cared to confess; “we won’t begin with watchmen, or any other useless expense; but it is quite right for you to notice everything, and let me hear it, quite: however, I am sure we have nothing to fear in that way; you may rest perfectly easy; if he could have given us any trouble, he would have done so long ago:” and, as the dinnerbell rung at this juncture, Sir Hugh summarily dismissed the pensioner, and repaired to that meal with what appetite the rather disagreeable intelligence just received had left him.

“Medill was right,” he muttered, “there is mischief brewing; I wonder when death will try a tussle with the old fellow. I am sure it could not be too soon for the peace of the shire.” And Sir Hugh spent the remainder of that evening in grumbling about his neighbour, wishing savage and unchristian things concerning him, and hoping all sorts of evil might shortly happen to him: for the society about Lorton was none of the most select; manners were of rather a common standard, and refinement at the lowest ebb: the knight was much coarser in demeanour and rougher in speech than the baronet; but still he was rich enough to head and lead on a band of insurgents, whose pride Sir Ernest had wounded by his taunts, his contemptuous sneers, and his unanswerable sarcasms; and thus war for ever raged betwixt the owners of Paradise and Lorton Hall, thus it was that Sir Hugh defied Sir Ernest, and that the baronet declared, with a diabolical grin, he “had” the knight at last.

For there were times and circumstances in and under which the miser never scrupled to expend money to effect a purpose; and, having once vowed that the Lincolnshire sages should have, as he styled it, “to knock under,” he rested neither by day nor night till he discovered a plan likely to meet his views, and disconcert theirs: and, that he might be enabled to carry it completely into action, and know exactly on what ground he was standing, he first got an “opinion” as to whether the committee, having opened the bridge as a public thoroughfare for general traffic, had the power to refuse any toll; and, finding such was not the case, he got a friend of his, an engineer, to come and inspect the masonry, and give an idea of how many tons weight it would require to injure it: then he had a vehicle purposely constructed, tested, and found suitable, procured horses _ad libitum_, and at length announced himself ready.

“Come, Ernest,” he said, “and see the fellows settled;” so Ernest walked down by his side to the scene of action, and witnessed the final result of his parent’s long concerted experiment.

The men in charge of the enormous load soon came in sight, and the old pensioner, who had closed the gate, in anticipation of a passage being forced, was agreeably surprised to find the toll instantly paid without a word of remonstrance or irritation.

As the horses dragged countless tons over the bridge, a slight cracking, however, was heard, which filled the soul of the old pensioner with dreadful alarm.

“The general in black uniform must have dealings with you,” he thought, scowling at the baronet; “but, thank heaven! it is safe over at last.”

“Turn,” called out Sir Ernest, as he had just muttered the last words; and, with some difficulty, the horses’ heads were turned, and again the bridge was passed, but this time it bent perceptibly.

“Turn,” was again the baronet’s order; “here, fellow, take your toll,” he added, holding out the proper amount. “What, in the name of all the fiends, are you doing, closing the gate in the face of my servants! Open it at once, sirrah, or I’ll make an example of you.”

“You are set to break down the bridge,” answered the man, assuming a defiant attitude—a stiff military position.

“And what business is it of yours what I do?” returned Sir Ernest; “you are here to receive tolls, not to obstruct traffic: open the gate, I say, and let the horses pass.”

“I won’t,” responded the man, doggedly. “I understand perfectly what you are up to, but I know something too——and——”

“You absolutely refuse to open that gate?” said the baronet.

“I do,” was the reply.

“Though the proper toll be offered to you?”

“Though fifty tolls be offered to me.”

“And you persist in obstructing the passage of my carts and horses?”

“Yes.”

“Well, then, the consequences be on your own head,” finished off the baronet; “you are only making trouble for yourself and your employers. Put rests under the shafts and keep the horses quiet,” he added, addressing the men, “till I can obtain legal assistance to enable me to cross a bridge on a public road.”

“Run and tell Sir Hugh Xifer that Sir Ernest Ivraine is going to break down the bridge by law,” whispered the pensioner to a boy who stood near him; “run like the wind, and say I want to know what I’m to do; make haste and I will give you a penny,” which remarkable piece of liberality produced such rapidity of movement in the youth, that before five minutes had elapsed he was standing in the presence of the worthy knight, gasping forth the frightful legal intention which had taken unexpected possession of his neighbour and enemy, the miser baronet.

“Hang him!” exclaimed Sir Hugh, who could have adjusted the rope himself and swung the adversary with pleasure; “hang him! Here, boy, run off to the other gentlemen and tell them, and if you can find Mr. Medill, bring him down to the place too, and there’s a shilling for you,” and the owner of Lorton Hall absolutely flung the lad the coin he had mentioned, and then hurried off to the point of action, the much-canvassed, greatly-endangered, long-menaced bridge.

“Good morning, Sir Hugh,” said the baronet, nodding superciliously to him, whilst Ernest, who wished himself at the antipodes rather than where he was, vouchsafed a more gracious inclination.

“You are come, I presume, to make straight a matter your servant has chosen to put crooked,” continued the miser, with a diabolical grin; “he declines to receive toll or to permit my horses to pass; may I inquire whether or not he is acting under your orders?”

“How the deuce could he be acting under my orders, when I was not here to give him any?” vociferated the knight, whose flushed face and excited manner afforded a striking contrast to the cool sardonic self-possession of his opponent, who, long and pale and thin, and apparently unconcerned, stood leaning against one of the pillars of the bridge, listening carelessly to Sir Hugh’s answer.

“Then am I to understand,” he said, “that this person has no instructions to close the gate?”

“I never instructed him anything about the matter,” growled forth Sir Hugh, who, in a face-toface encounter with the baronet, found himself no match for the owner of Paradise.

“If he have acted without orders and without instructions, I conclude you disapprove of his conduct and have come to make reparation for it,” said Sir Ernest.

No verbal answer was vouchsafed to this speech; but a puzzled scowl and an eager straining look along the road leading to Lorton, implied, as the baronet knew, volumes.

“This delay has been and is a serious inconvenience to me,” he resumed; “if you wish me to believe your servant is really the party in fault, and not merely an instrument in your hands, please express your desire that no further annoyance be given to me or my people.”

The Knight of Lorton Hall looked wistfully at the load, then at the bridge, then at Sir Ernest Ivraine, finally along the road.

“If you let them ’ere blocks of granite over one time more all will go down together,” ventured the pensioner, who thought he read indecision in his employer’s face.

“Silence, fellow!” bellowed Sir Hugh, as he noted the sneer which curled his opponent’s lip; and thus “put down,” the gate-keeper—by far the honestest man of the trio—relapsed into silence, still, however, sticking as resolutely to his post as if it had been the key to some strong position in the Peninsula, unexpectedly menaced by the French.

“Do you know, Sir Hugh, you are acting very foolishly?” recommenced the miser; “it is nothing to me, or at least merely involves a few minutes’ delay till I procure legal assistance, but it may be much to you: as a friend, therefore, I counsel you not to lend your countenance to such a business.”

Sir Hugh merely bit his lip, by way of rejoinder, and glanced back, for the twentieth time, to see whether help and counsel were coming; as he beheld, however, a solitary figure advancing, he inwardly muttered a fervent “Thank Heaven!” and fresh spirit and fresh hope revived within him, when Mr. Medill, the very man he most desired at that moment to see, drew near to the spot, and inquired, in a cool, quiet tone, what was the matter.

“He wants to break down the bridge,” spluttered forth Sir Hugh.

“Good morning, Medill,” said the baronet in quite a friendly manner, extending one long finger to the attorney; “rather a stand still here, you perceive: I have offered this fellow the proper toll, and it has been refused. Your client won’t cross his servant’s whim, so I am just waiting till proper authority arrives to enable me to get a load of stone along a public thoroughfare. Then I can insist on the gate being opened: meanwhile it is rather idle work standing here; fine morning, though, is not it?”

What response the attorney would have made to this explanatory speech can never now be known, for just as he opened his lips to reply, Sir Hugh, who—feeling himself re-inforced, so to speak—could keep silence no longer, burst forth with the question,

“Pray, Sir Ernest Ivraine, is it your desire to break down that bridge?”

“It is my desire that my men and my horses and my property should cross that bridge,” replied the other.

“That you may demolish the work of months in a few minutes.”

“That is your idea of the matter,” said the baronet.

“And a correct idea, is it not?” retorted Sir Hugh.

“That you can discover for yourself,” replied the miser; “Sir Hugh Xifer’s remarkable powers of mind and rapidity of conception are so well known, it would be worse than superfluous for me to attempt enlightening him.”

The person to whom this polite speech was addressed absolutely gnashed his teeth with rage; he longed to strike his opponent with the riding whip he carried, but a wholesome fear of the consequences restrained him: there was no use getting into an outrageous passion with a man who only became more cool as he became more excited. Sir Ernest would not quarrel—he knew that by experience; and therefore, after a moment’s hesitation, he turned to Mr. Medill and demanded,

“Has he a right to demand leave for that pyramid to cross?”

“Clear,” was the brief response.

“And if we persist in keeping the gate shut——”

“He can force you to open it.”

“Quite correct, my dear sir, else I had never been here,” remarked the baronet.

“Stand aside, then,” roared out the knight to his _employé_, “let them pass and be——”

The holy finale to this brief sentence was lost in the noise which had ensued on a sign from Sir Ernest to his men, who commenced forthwith shouting to their horses and striving to get the animals to start.

“They’ll all go in together,” groaned out the pensioner.

“Let them,” said Sir Ernest with the utmost _sang froid_, and he crossed his arms on his chest and watched—triumph gleaming from his eyes—the countenance of Sir Hugh, who heard the bridge crack and bend under the enormous weight it required almost a regiment of horses to drag over it.

“I have a right to come back now without paying any toll,” remarked the baronet drily, and once again the horses’ heads were turned.

“That will be the fourth time,” said the gate-keeper.

“Will you hold your peace, sirrah!” exclaimed Sir Hugh, who vented his spleen on him in default of being able to expend it on the original cause of irritation.

“May I beg that you will order your drivers to stop for a moment?” interposed Mr. Medill, addressing the baronet; “I see the remaining proprietors coming, and it would be a pity for more damage to be done before they arrive: perhaps you and they could settle the matter amicably.”

“Amicably with him!” said Sir Hugh Xifer, who was fairly distracted; “amicably with——”

“Oh! you might have finished your speech aloud,” laughed Sir Ernest; “the devil, you know, listens to terms occasionally.”

“You know that,” retorted the knight; “for, if all we have heard be true, there is a sort of compact between you and——”

“Don’t excite yourself unnecessarily,” interposed the other; “here come your friends, they will relieve you from the trouble of conversing with me.”

And, as he spoke, the three other individuals, who, with the owner of Lorton Hall, composed the select committee, arrived, filled with vague alarms, in consequence of assurances they had received from the lips of the boy who had been despatched to summon them, that “Sir Ernest Ivraine had sent for a body of police, and was breaking down the bridge by law.”

Mr. Medill, being the only disinterested party present, explained the state of the case to them, during which explanation the baronet stood with his hands buried in the pockets of his threadbare trousers, listening with the most perfect unconcern to the recital. When Mr. Medill concluded, however, he added, by way of a “settler,”

“To condense all into one brief sentence, gentlemen, I have the power, if I pay the proper toll, to cross and recross that bridge till eternity, or rather, as there is little hope of the structure lasting so long, till it break down.”

Here was a “fix;” the proprietors looked at one another, then the stupidest of them inquired,

“How often Sir Ernest wanted to draw the load over?”

“As often as I please,” was the response; “and now, as I have delayed a considerable time to the end that you might have an opportunity of personally admiring the strength of the pile of masonry that owes its existence to your enterprising spirit, I must beg that you will stand a little to one side and let my men pass.”

“For Heaven’s sake, stop!” vociferated the trio with one breath; “what is it you want us to do? only tell us.”

“To keep out of the way, that you may not be knocked down and trampled to death,” answered the baronet.

“But will you listen to no terms, agree to no conditions?” they demanded.

“Ah! now you begin to talk like sensible men,” remarked Sir Ernest; “offer me reasonable terms, and you won’t find me difficult to deal with; be stiff, and, if it prove in the power of granite to do it, I’ll set your bridge swimming.”

“I’d let it swim or sink or stay,” said Sir Hugh Xifer, “before I’d offer you terms or agree to any you proposed.”

“Yes, but you are only one out of four,” replied the baronet; “a very important unit, I admit, but still only an unit.”

“I wish——” began his neighbour.

“I know you do; but what is the good of it? Meantime, your friends are wishing to speak, and you prevent their doing so. Now, gentlemen, if you please,” and Sir Ernest made a patronizing sign for the crest-fallen landowners to commence.

“We can’t propose terms, as we don’t know what ground we are going on: we want to hear what you want.”

“A clear sentence, concisely constructed,” sneered the baronet: “let me see; you can’t propose terms, you have no idea of what ground you are upon, and you want to hear what I want. Well, the latter part seems all I have to do with, and, as I cannot—not having been blessed by nature with the talents of my friend, your colleague—answer such an important question in a moment, I propose, first, a sort of truce between us; and, second, that you send some accredited agent—say Mr. Medill, for instance—to Paradise any time before twelve o’clock to-morrow morning, to hear my decision. If he and I come to terms, well and good; if not, well and good, still: meanwhile, I undertake that my carters do not cross the bridge during some fixed period, say the next four-and-twenty hours; and I shall take means to prevent any injury being done to my property in the interim. Really the air is chilly to-day,” added the baronet, assuming an erect position: “Shall we settle the matter that way, then, gentlemen, for the present?” he continued, after an instant’s pause; and, having received a doleful affirmative from the lips of all concerned, save Sir Hugh Xifer and his _employé_, he first addressed a few words to one of the carters, and then walked off towards Paradise, accompanied by Ernest.

For a full hour the committee remained on the bridge, canvassing, contradicting, grumbling; but there was no use in it: Sir Ernest Ivraine had laid his plans well; there was no getting out of his net; no cheating or deceiving or “putting off” him; and the end of it all was, that when Mr. Medill was despatched to Paradise, he was empowered to accede to any terms the baronet might propose “in reason.”

“As if,” growled out Sir Hugh, “anything he expects could be in reason.”

“They have put me to a deal of expense,” said the person thus spoken of, “a great deal, and given me an incredible amount of annoyance; but I don’t want to be hard with them or impose any disagreeable conditions, solely because I am master now: no; these are the terms I propose, from which I will not abate one iota; and if they do not like them, we need treat no further, that is all.”

And the end of the business was, that Sir Ernest extorted from the proprietors a paper, exempting him and every individual who called him “landlord,” or who should, at any future period, become a tenant of his, from the payment of any toll or tolls whatsoever, by whomsoever demanded, on a certain bridge, built across, etc., etc., flowing through, and so forth.

And, moreover, he made them give him a sum sufficient to repay every shilling he had laid out since the commencement of the affair; and, while Sir Hugh Xifer first swore till he was almost black in the face, and then grew so furious that a doctor had to be sent for to save him from a fit of apoplexy, his enemy, whose power he had defied, remarked, with a quiet smile to his son, pointing at the same time to a cheque for a very respectable amount,

“That settles the cost of your visit to London, Ernest, at any rate.”