"First and foremost then," suggested Malduke, "make away with this stupid scrawl. I'll soon do it," and he seized the document spread before them.
"Not so fast," replied the elder man, laying his heavy hand on the crackling sheet. "He's been a good friend to me. This is a noble settlement of his property." The man hesitated. He looked out on to the bright, luxuriant garden, and then down to the dark floor, and seemed, as expressions of good and evil flitted across his face, to receive suggestion from the dark and from the light.
"Such a friend," growled Malduke, with vehemence, "as the conscience-stricken oppressor ever is to the poor who serve him. A friend remember, John Elms, who spurned your daughter from his son's side."
"That's true," muttered Elms, with an oath. "If they'd only let that come off, and not allowed their blessed pride to break the child's heart, as her mother's afore her, I'd have no need to think of this," holding up the slip of paper, "to get my girl her rights.—It is her rights," he continued, smiting the table with energy. "I have sworn she shall have the position her mother lost. She's a born lady, if ever there was one."
"It seems to me," Malduke could not resist slyly remarking, "that with all your levelling, old cove, you're always ready—specially you half-and-half chaps—to scramble up into the place you'd pull others down from.—At any rate," he continued, noting the fiery Irishman's darkening face, "your daughter's been badly done by; she's been scorned and shamed. You, too, shoved into a corner. No real leader as you're born to be—a mere farm-hand 'boss.' It wasn't for this you put the old man up to the business. See again," pointing contemptuously to the document, "he's not left you a thing
