The Toll-Gate Read Free

having Cocking to ride beside the chaise in my stead, will you, Mama? You'll be quite safe with him."
    "By all means, my dear. But had you not better take him with you?"
    "Lord, no! I'll take what I want in a saddle-bag, and shan't have the least need of him,"
    "When," demanded Fanny, a look of foreboding in her eyes, "do you mean to return to Mildenhurst?"
    "Oh, I don't know!" said her maddening brother. "In a week or so, I daresay. Why?"
    Fanny, prohibited by a quelling glance from her mama from answering this question, merely looked her disapprobation. Mrs. Staple said: "It is not of the smallest consequence. I have friends coming to stay at Mildenhurst next week, so you are not to be thinking that I may be lonely, John."
    "Oh, that's famous, then!" he said, relieved. "You know, Mama, I don't know how it is—whether it's my uncle, with his bamboozling ways, or Aunt Caroline, or Lucius's laugh, or Ralph Tackenham prosing on for ever, or young Geoffrey aping the dandy-set, or just the devilish propriety of Easterby—but I can't stand it here!"
    "I know just what you mean," his mother assured him.
    He bent, giving her a hug and a kiss. "You are the best mother in the world!" he said. "What's more, that's a very fetching nightcap, ma'am! I must go: Melksham wants to start a faro-bank now, and Bevis don't like it above half. Poor old fellow! he'll never be able to handle Melksham—not when Melksham's muddled, which he is, six days out of the seven. Christened with pump-water, that lad! He'll be as drunk as an artillery-man before morning."
    With this ominous prophecy, the Captain then took himself off, leaving his parent unperturbed, and his sister seething. Hardly had the door closed behind him, than she exclaimed: "I think John is the most vexatious creature alive! How could you let him go, Mama? You know what he is! I daresay you won't set eyes on him again for a month! And now he won't even meet Elizabeth!"
    "It is unfortunate, but I don't despair," replied Mrs. Staple, smiling faintly. "As for letting him go, a man of nine-and-twenty, my love, is not to be held in leading-strings. Moreover, had I obliged him to come home to meet Elizabeth I am persuaded he would have taken her in aversion from the outset."
    "Well," said Fanny crossly, "I think he is odiously provoking, ma'am!"
    "Very true, my dear: all men are odiously provoking," agreed Mrs. Staple. "Now I am going to bed, and you had best do the same."
    "Yes, or Lichfield will wonder what has become of me," Fanny said, getting up from her chair.
    "Not at all," responded her mother coolly. "Lichfield, dear child, is no less provoking than any other man, and is at this moment—I have no doubt—playing faro downstairs."
    Fanny acknowledged the probable truth of this pronouncement by bidding her parent a dignified goodnight.
     
    CHAPTER II.
    CAPTAIN STAPLE was not destined to leave Easterby at an early hour on the following morning. Thanks to the nocturnal habits of Lord Melksham, it was daylight before he went to bed. That amiable but erratic peer, dissuaded from opening a faro bank, had challenged the company to a quiet game of loo; and since the elders of the party, who included besides the Archdeacon, his brother-in-law, Mr. Yatton, and Mr. Merridge the Earl's chaplain, had retired soon after the ladies, and the Earl was plainly unable to keep the situation within bounds, Captain Staple had not the heart to desert him. The Earl was grateful, but he would not permit him to break up the party, which he was perfectly willing to do.
    He said: "No, no! If Melksham is determined—— He is my guest, you know, and, besides—— Well, you will understand how it is!"
    "No, I don't," said John bluntly. "And if I were you, old fellow, I would order things as I liked in my own house!"
    No one, after as much as one glance at the Captain's good-humoured but determined countenance, could doubt this. The Earl said fretfully: "Yes, but you don't understand! It's all very well for