"The pride of the
village driven out of it! You may be driving yourself away, Tugwell,
through some scrape, or love affair; but when that blows over you will
soon come back. What would Springhaven do without you? And your dear
good father would never let you go."
"I am not the pride, but the shame, of the village." Dan forgot all his
home-pride at last. "And my dear good father is the man who has done it.
He has leathered me worse than the gentleman you spoke of, and without
half so much to be said against him. For nothing but going to the Club
to-night, where I am sure we drank King George's health, my father has
lashed me so, that I am ashamed to tell it. And I am sure that I never
meant to tell it, until your kindness, in a way of speaking, almost
drove it out of me."
"Daniel Tugwell," Carne answered, with solemnity, "this is beyond
belief, even in England. You must have fallen asleep, Dan, in the middle
of large thoughts, and dreamed this great impossibility."
"My back knows whether it has been a dream, sir. I never heard of dreams
as left one-and-twenty lines behind them. But whether it be one, or
whether it be twenty, makes no odds of value. The disgrace it is that
drives me out."
"Is there no way of healing this sad breach?" Carne asked, in a tone of
deep compassion; "if your father could be brought to beg your pardon, or
even to say that he was sorry--"
"He, sir! If such a thing was put before him, his answer would be just
to do it again, if I were fool enough to go near him.
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