And he turned abruptly away—his head down, his coat-tails swinging, and both his hands thrust deep into his trouser-pockets—such a shrewd, angular, ungainly figure as only a small country town can show. He left the rector standing before his rectory in a state of profound surprise and bewilderment. The young man felt something very like a lump in his throat as he turned to go in. He discerned that the lawyer had meant to do a kind, nay, a generous action; and yet if there was a man in the world whom he had judged incapable of such magnanimity it was Mr. Bonamy! He went in not only touched, but ashamed. Here, if he had not already persuaded himself that the world was less ill-conditioned than he had lately thought it, was another and a surprising lesson!
Meanwhile Mr. Bonamy went home, and finding his family already at breakfast, sat down to the meal in a very snappish humor. The girls were quick to detect the cloud on his brow, and promptly supplied his wants, forbearing, whatever their curiosity, to make any present attempt to satisfy it. Jack was either less observant or more hardy. He remarked that Mr. Bonamy was late, and elicited only a grunt. A further statement that the morning was more like April than February gained no answer at all. Still undismayed, Jack tried again, plunging into the subject which the three had been discussing before the lawyer entered. “Did you hear anything of Lindo, sir?” he asked, buttering his toast.
“More right than he deserved to be!” Mr. Bonamy snarled. “What right had he down the pit at all? Gregg did not go.”
“More shame to Gregg, I think!” Jack said.
Mr. Bonamy prudently shifted his ground, and got back to the rector. “Well, all I can say is that a more foolish, reckless, useless piece of idiocy I never heard of in my life!” he declared in a tone of scorn.
“I call it glorious!” said Daintry, looking dreamily across the table and slowly withdrawing an egg-spoon from her mouth. “I shall never say anything against him again.”
Mr. Bonamy looked at her for an instant as if he would annihilate her. And then he went on with his breakfast.
Apparently, however, the outburst had relieved him, for presently he began on his own account.
“Has your friend any private means?” he asked, casting an ungracious glance at the barrister, and returning at once to his buttered toast.