Roger Ingleton, Minor | Page 3

this to plough through the snow for
five miles in search of help, and the lanes to Yeld were, even in open

weather, none of the easiest. But the tutor was not the kind of man to
trouble himself about difficulties of that sort, provided only he could
find the doctor in, and transport him in a reasonable time to Maxfield.
As he passed the stables, he glanced within, on the off-chance of
finding a horse available. But the place was empty, and not even a
stable-boy could be made to hear his summons.
So he tramped out into the road, where the snow lay a foot deep, and
with long strides carved his way through it towards Yeld. Half a mile
on he overtook a country cart, heavily laden and stuck fast in the snow.
"Ah! Hodder," said he to the nonplussed old man in charge, "you may
as well give it up."
"So I are without your telling," growled the countryman.
"Very well; I want your horse for a couple of hours. The Squire's ill,
and I have to fetch the doctor."
And without another word, and heedless of the ejaculations of the
bewildered Hodder, he began to loose the animal's girths.
"I'm blamed if you have a hair of him," said the yokel.
"I don't want one. Here!" and he pitched him a half-crown. The man
gaped stupidly at the unharnessing of his beast, and began to pump up
for another protest.
But before the words were ready, Mr Armstrong had led the horse out
of the shafts and had vaulted on his bare back.
"Eh," sputtered Hodder, "may I--"
"Good-bye and thanks," said the tutor, clapping his heels to the animal's
flanks; "you shall have him back safe."
And he plunged away, leaving the gaping son of the soil, with his half-
crown in his hand, to the laborious task of hoisting his lower jaw back

into its normal position.
Dr Brandram, in whose medical preserves Maxfield Manor lay, was
solacing himself with an after-dinner pipe in his little cottage at Yeld,
when the tutor, crusted in snow from head to foot, broke
unceremoniously on his privacy. An intuition told the doctor what was
the matter before even his visitor could say--
"The Squire has had a stroke. Come at once."
The doctor put down his pipe, and, with a sigh, kicked off his cosy
slippers.
"He has chosen a bad night, Armstrong. How are the roads?"
"A foot deep. Shall you drive or ride?"
"I never ride."
"You'll need both horses to get through, and I can lend you a spent
third."
"Thank you. How did he look?"
"He knew what had happened, I think, but could not speak or move."
"Of course. Suppose you and I do the latter, and postpone the former
till we are under weigh."
In less than ten minutes, the doctor's gig was trundling through the
snow, with three horses to drag it, and Mr Armstrong in charge of the
reins.
"Yes," said the doctor, "he's been leading up to this for a long time, as
you have probably observed."
"I can't say I have," said Mr Armstrong.
"Ah! well, you've only known him a year. I knew him twenty years

ago."
"Ah!" replied the tutor, chirruping encouragement to the horses.
"Roger Ingleton's life twenty years ago was a life to make an insurance
company cheerful," said the doctor.
"What changed it?"
"He had a scape-grace son. They fell out--there was a furious quarrel--
and one day the father and son--ugh!--fought, with clenched fists, sir,
like two--two costermongers!--and the boy did not get the best of it. He
left home, and no wonder, and was never heard of since. Faugh! it was
a sickening business."
"That explains what he was saying this afternoon about a son he had
once. He was telling me about it when he was struck."
"Ay! that blow has been owing him for twenty years. It is the last round
of the fight, Armstrong. But," continued he, "this is all a secret. No one
knows it at Maxfield. I doubt if your pupil so much as imagines he ever
had a brother."
"He has never mentioned it to me," said the tutor.
"No need that he should know," said the doctor. "Let the dead bury his
dead."
"Is he dead, then?"
"Before the Squire married again," said the doctor, "the poor boy went
straight to the dogs, and they made an end of him. There! let's talk of
something else. I don't know why I tell you what has never passed my
lips for twenty years."
"I wish you hadn't," said Mr Armstrong shortly, whipping up his
horses.
The two men remained silent during most of that cold, laborious

journey. The doctor's few attempts at conversation fell flat, and he