Squire Raleigh was a philanthropist. But philanthropy in town is a costly amusement, and Squire Raleigh had a large family, whose claims could not comfortably be ignored in favor of charitable institutions, although a philanthropist with a love for mankind cannot be expected to do as much for his own children as an ordinary domesticated egoist. Nevertheless, after the endowment of an orphan asylum, and the failure of a Liberal newspaper speculation, and the gift of a public park to the people had been followed by the reduction of his income to one-third of its original value, the vigorous reformer yielded to the persuasions of his sons and his lawyers and retired to his country estate, with a knighthood, a troublesome liver, and a firm resolve to get to the bottom of the land question.

At Murville Manor, an old Georgian house standing near a quaint little village in one of the home counties, Sir Marcus Raleigh once more tried to forget the disagreeable facts of an income with decreasing resources and a family of increasing claims, and plunged into fresh philanthropic schemes, this time relating to small holdings, and the growth of potatoes for the million, and the advancement in general of the agricultural laborer. Such energy naturally brought the enthusiast into collision with his own farming tenants, who liked to preserve the monopoly of grumbling to themselves, and although not hesitating to complain of the difficulties of making their land pay, yet objected strongly to having small portions of it wrested from them and given to their own laborers instead, who throve upon them straightway. It likewise bred strained relations between the Squire and the old rector, who in his own way of Sunday-schools, and coal clubs, and relief funds, was a philanthropist of an old world form, and could not understand why the traditional supporter of church charities should prefer to invent charities of his own and allow the church to fall into debt meanwhile. His family also, who had not inherited philanthropic tendencies, failed to appreciate the unselfishness of their father in this direction, and complained with the grossest individualism of the want of pocket money. They complained, too, of being forced to exchange a town life, where they could at least sink their father's personality in the oblivion of society, for a country one, where it was impossible to remain unknown for miles round, where philanthropy was cheap and therefore more rife than before, and where a large staff of men-servants was replaced by a so-called handy man. The handy man, by the way, in spite of advertising himself in the county paper as competent to look after "pony, cart, garden, boots, knives, fifteen shillings a week, Sundays, and beer," had as yet shown no decided talent in any of these particulars, except in the last-mentioned one.

Among a mass of other inconsistencies, which almost likened him to a schoolboy who is having a romp through life instead of playing the game seriously, the Squire, while considering his children in the light of impedimenta, yet cherished a passionate affection for the least worthy of them all, for the one to whom nature had decreed that he should bequeath, with a liberality he had shown his children in no other respect, the largest share of his own failings. Jack Raleigh was handsome, fascinating, improvident to a degree, with no fixed code of morality and no definite powers of reasoning, ruling himself and his actions entirely by a kind of blind instinct such as we find in healthy animals or in children. His love, like his antipathy, was of an elementary character; if he found himself in a complicated situation, which was not rare, he would merely choose the most pleasant course open to him, without giving it a moment's consideration, and would follow it gayly until another obstacle arose which would have to be treated in a similar manner. Whether he was the happier for feeling nothing deeply, belongs to those questions which are argued by thousands of lives every day without a conclusive answer being found to them. That his temperament was the sunnier for it and that his misdeeds were less harmful, is most certain; and since the God whom he believed in, if he believed in one at all, was a kind of inexhaustible Being who could offer him as many fresh opportunities as he had squandered already, and seemed to be the cause, in some indirect way that Jack never attempted to fathom, of occasional magnificent music in churches and cathedrals, his religion as well as his excellent digestion saved him from the fits of depression that usually accompany the sanguine disposition. He had discovered before he was out of his teens that England was not the place for one so restless as he, and he had been sent out to more than one colony "to try his luck," as the Squire said, in a vague hope of shifting his uneasy responsibility for his son's actions on to fortune. But fortune, although not philanthropic in her tendencies, and having no nobler vocation to distract her from her plain duty of looking after her prodigal sons, refused to help him, and he inevitably returned home with more debts, more friends, more anecdotes, but no more stability than before.

It was on a dull morning in July, at breakfast time, that Jack caused his father for the hundredth time to recognize his existence in an unpleasant manner. It was an unfortunate time for his letter to arrive, for there was a mist that day, and as Sir Marcus was profoundly ignorant both of meteorology and the crops, and pretended to be an authority on both, he chose to feel injured because Helen assured him that it was not going to rain, and that his hay was not going to be spoiled. To which the Squire, who never could endure the plain truths of his eldest daughter, replied testily that the mist did mean rain, that his hay was going to be spoiled as it always was, and that he himself was a ruined man; he then sat down at the now silent table and sighed in a dejected manner. Presently, finding that no one was looking at him, he roused himself partially, and made a hearty breakfast behind his newspaper; and when the conversation around him was once more in full swing he condescended to look at his letters. He opened Jack's first, as he always did. It was the old story, told in the boy's usual careless manner: Canada had grown too small for him, he was feeling homesick, and was about to sail for England, and would be with his father almost as soon as his letter, to which effect he was his loving son Jack.

It was not the first letter of the kind that the Squire had received from the same source, and he knew what this one meant: Jack would be back again before the week was out, with an accumulation of debts and not a dollar in his pocket, Jack, with his sunny smile, and his nonchalance, and his utter unconsciousness of offence. Jack meant money, family meant money, and Sir Marcus was close upon overdrawing his banking account already, and had promised a large subscription only the day before to the building fund of the village reading-room. If there had been no stranger present he would have relieved his feelings by a characteristic outburst; but Lady Joan sat opposite to him and saw as much as she wished to see without raising her eyes from her plate, and he felt instinctively that he might merely succeed in making himself ridiculous if he spoke before the opportunity occurred; and, impetuous man as he was, something he could not define restrained him from creating a situation just then which should not be dignified. So he read the letter over again, and he listened mechanically to the conversation of his offending children, without heeding what they said.

"After all," Digby was saying, with a gravity which the subject hardly merited, for in the heart of his own family, although he still remained the prophet, yet he refrained from provoking the serious discussions which were only fitting within the sacred walls of the studio, "after all, it does not matter how bad a fellow is, if he is only artistically so, I mean if he will only be thorough over it."

"It does not matter how wicked we all are, so long as we can see the humor of sin. To be able to laugh at ourselves is the great thing," murmured Lady Joan.

"There is nothing so depressing," continued the musician, without heeding the interruption, "as the spectacle of a man who will not face his own wickedness—or even his own goodness. It is a sign of the age, this wretched spirit of compromise; we don't live in town because it is unhealthy, and the fogs are so bad—"

"My dear, that was not the reason," Lady Raleigh murmured—also unheeded.

"—and we don't live in the country because it is too far to come up to the concerts; so we live at Crouch End or Putney, where an exasperating local railway lies between us and St. James's Hall, and where the ends of the fogs hang about for days. We haven't the pluck to say yea or nay; we leave all our decisions to the gods, who throw them back upon us again, or to—to fate, who only plays with us at will; we would do anything to shirk the responsibility of the ego. Look at Helen, now; the bent of her character is towards religion, yet she hesitates to go into a convent. Therefore her religion does not make her picturesque."

"Digby! How can you argue at breakfast time? And I think you might keep your horrid atheistical notions to yourself before the children," cried Helen, crossly. She had not recovered from her passage of arms with the Squire.

Digby plodded on with his breakfast and his theory.

"We are all the same, as a family. Take the father: he would lay down his life for the working-man, or he thinks so; and yet he is afraid to go in for Socialism, which offers the only solution to the labor question. It is an age of compromise; we are all cowards."

"Digby is so fond of taking his own particular failings and generalizing them," said the still ruffled Helen to nobody in particular.

"People with decided opinions, picturesque people, as you call them, are people with fads; and I hate people with fads," said Lady Joan, "they are ten times more uninteresting than the weathercock sort of people who make compromises. Why should you always behave as if you went by clockwork? It is far too much trouble when, after all, nothing matters. And why do you want to be quarrelling with the age perpetually? It seems a nice comfortable sort of age to me; I suppose it has a different aspect for musical people."

Digby's end of the table was always the most popular whenever he was at home, which was not often enough to spoil his reputation,—more popular at all events than the other end, where Lady Raleigh insisted on making the tea, and made it very badly, and where the Squire opened his letters and found they were mostly bills. If his eldest son had not been monopolizing the conversation on this morning in particular, the efforts of Sir Marcus to make a sensation by sighing deeply and rustling the letter in his hand might have succeeded in attracting some notice; but as it was, he was quite unheeded, and his wife went on spilling the milk behind the urn, and filling up the teapot with water which had boiled half an hour ago, while the noisy chatter was carried on uninterruptedly round Digby and Lady Joan.

"Of all forms of self-indulgence, unintelligent self-sacrifice is the most degrading. Somebody says that the time of the clever people is taken up in undoing the harm done by the good people."

"By the stupid people," objected Helen brusquely.

"That is just the point," began Digby, vigorously; but his mother's complaining voice broke in upon the conversation.

"What is to be done, Helen? Have you heard, my dear? Mrs. Bates says she cannot let me have more than three pounds of butter a week. Did you ever know anything more provoking? Oh, the difficulty of getting dairy produce in the country! Why did we ever leave Cadogan Square?"

Perhaps country life was more trying to Lady Raleigh than to any other member of her family; for, with the inconsequence of woman, she could not forgive her husband for selling their London house, although herself the first instigator of the scheme. To remind him continually of the fact that the place did not agree with her, she refused to trust herself to the handy man's whip, and never walked further than the garden gate, by which means she preserved her constitution admirably, and ruined her nervous system; and in this unhealthy condition of mind she shut herself up in Murville Manor, where her sole occupations became the mismanagement of her household, and the perusal of the illustrated papers.

Her last remark caught the Squire's ear, and gave him the opportunity he wanted.

"Why did we leave Cadogan Square, Lettice?" he shouted, wheeling round upon her suddenly. "I will tell you why, if you can't see for yourself by merely looking down the table. Because I am a poor man, Lettice; because I have a large family that would swallow up any income; because it is money, money, all day long, until I feel I can't give a shilling to a poor laboring man to—to improve his mind and—and his position, without feeling, without feeling extravagant, in short."—The Squire always found that his philanthropic sentiments did not sound nearly so effective in his own home as when thundered forth from a rickety platform in the village schoolroom; the family circle is at all times a great leveller, and his constant terror of the ridiculous brought him swiftly back to the present actual grievance: "Do you ask me why, when I receive a letter like this from the son I have loved and educated and denied myself for? I will tell you why, if you like, Lettice. Because I am not a millionnaire, Lettice; because I have four sons doing nothing but spend money; because Jack, confound the fellow, is in England at the present moment, and may be here to-day—"

Lady Raleigh gave a little scream, and possessed herself of the offending letter. The children began to ask innumerable questions in hushed voices, the elder ones looked dejected, and Lady Joan sipped her coffee with an exaggerated look of unconcern on her face, and a twinkle in the gray eyes which all the powers of dissimulation that she possessed could not quite conceal.

"He does not say he is in debt," said Lady Raleigh, through a mist of joyful tears.

Sir Marcus twisted his napkin into a tangle and threw it on the floor.

"Say?" he cried, striding towards the door; "don't I know what he means, the rascal? I tell you I've done with him for once and for always; he shall enter my house no more; and if he comes here with his intolerable impudence, I shall show him the door. It is right that I should make an example of him, whatever it costs me to do it; and though he is my own son I will harden my heart and do it. Not a penny more shall he get out of me; I wash my hands of him and his debts; it is my—my duty as a father to—to do it, in short, and you may tell him so when he comes, the young scapegrace!"

And with a sense almost of relief at having found a justifiable reason for avoiding this fresh trouble, and moreover a lurking suspicion that any such reason was wholly ineffectual to prevent Jack from coming home, Sir Marcus flung himself out of the room and banged the door.

"Jack ought to be ashamed of himself; how can he expect papa to do any more for him?" said the implacable Helen. There is a kind of religious woman who, although she is a woman and although she is religious, is a slave to her own ideal of justice.

"Helen, don't be unjust," complained her mother, wiping her tears, and alive to half-a-dozen sensations at the same instant; "the dear boy cannot help being fond of his home, so sweet and affectionate of him. Dear Lady Joan, you must pay no heed to what Sir Marcus said just now; he does not mean all he says, you know, and he was just a little startled by the suddenness of dear Jack's decision; it is my husband's way of hiding his real emotion. I'm sure I don't know why he should make so much fuss over a trifle when we have so many real troubles to bear.—Now, my dear Digby, you know I do not allow smoking in the dining-room; how can you be so unkind as to add wilfully to all my worries? I shall have a headache for certain, now.—Tom, darling, open the window, and try to get the horrid smell out; I feel distracted! And has any one seen my key-basket?"

"When will Jack be here, I wonder?" observed Digby, holding the offending cigarette out of the window, and trying to hide by a supreme indifference his consciousness at that moment that a prophet is without honor in his own country. Lady Joan, from a studied attitude on the wide old window seat, was not in the least deceived by his manner, and laughed clearly and mockingly.

"Oh, the dear boy," said Lady Raleigh, in a restored and cheerful tone, "to think that he may come at any moment, and there is no ale in the house. Helen, you must write at once, and, dear me! we must watch for every footstep all day; and there are the sheets too,—where is Nurse? Dear Lady Joan, you must forgive the emotions of a foolish old mother; I assure you I am never flurried like this; but even the best of housekeepers would be disturbed by such a sudden event. And he really must not have damp sheets; he has slept in a blanket for two years, he tells me, and damp sheets are so dangerous; but he shall have them to-night, bless him! Oh, children! look, look! who is that coming along behind the hedge? Move out of the way, Digby, and don't make so much noise, everybody. Why can't I make myself heard in my own house? Is it—can it—oh, tell me who it is!"

A moment's breathless silence was followed by a shout of laughter as the unmistakable corduroys of the handy man came into view.

"George, George, come here," exclaimed Lady Raleigh; "you must not leave this spot all day long, as Master Jack may be here at any minute. Do you understand? So go into the field at once and get the pony in, and you had better have him harnessed, all ready to go to the station. And will you go now to the post-office and see if there is a telegram? You might wait there on the chance, or at all events be in readiness. But don't go beyond the grounds, whatever you do. Dear boy, how I love him!"

And perfectly happy in the certainty of everything being properly arranged now that she had given her own orders, Lady Raleigh swept away to arrange a royal feast for the prodigal.

"Please, Mr. Digby, be I to stop here till Master Jack comes?" asked the bewildered George.

Digby laughed quietly, and re-lighted his cigarette.

"If you take my advice, George, do your work as usual, and don't bother about Master Jack. When he does come he won't dream of sending a telegram to say so. That is not Jack's way."

"Will he walk from the station?" asked Lady Joan, carelessly. The others had all strolled away; and, in the presence of the maid who was clearing away the breakfast things, she felt it incumbent upon her to say something commonplace. Digby, who, being a man, felt no such necessity, looked at the pretty little foot that was swinging backwards and forwards, and wondered why she wanted to know.

"Not he! That is not Jack's way either. He will drive up in a coach and four when we have given up expecting him, and want to know why we did not all go down to the station in a body to meet him. Then there will be a hubbub, and Jack will be king of the house again."

"And you will be dethroned?" she asked maliciously.

He heard the question, and did not notice the malice in it.

"Only until he begins to say why he has come, and the rain has spoiled the hay," he said, with another laugh.