rhead, walking to the door and opening it.
"Come along, look sharp, you're to go. I'll take you with me, do you
hear? And May will see to sending you your boxes. Quick, come along,
there's no time to lose."

"Go!" said Clarence, coming in startled, with his eyebrows rising almost
into his hair. "Go? What do you mean? Out of the Parsonage? The
Governor's been having too much sherry," he said, coming close to Mr.
May's arm; he had himself been taking too much of the sherry, for the
good reason that nobody had taken any notice of what he did, and that he
had foreseen the excitement that was coming. "You don't mean it, I
know," he added aloud; "I'll go over for the night if Sir Robert will
have me, and see my mother--"

"Ask May," said Mr. Copperhead, "you'll believe him, I suppose; he's as
glad to get rid of you as I am to take you away."

"Is this true?" cried Clarence, roused and wondering, "and if so, what's
happened? I ain't a baby, you know, to be bundled about from one to
another. The Governor forgets that."

"Your father," said Mr. May, "chooses to remove you, and that is all I
choose to say."

"But, by George, I can say a deal more," said Mr. Copperhead. "You
simpleton, do you think I am going to leave you here where there's
man-traps about? None of such nonsense for me. Put your things together,
I tell you. Phoebe Beecham's bad enough at home; but if she thinks she's
to have you here to pluck at her leisure, she and her friends--"

"W--hew!" said Clarence, with a long whistle. "So that's it. I am very
sorry, father, if these are your sentiments; but I may as well tell you
at once I shan't go."

"You--must go."

"No," he said, squaring his shoulders and putting out his shirt front;
he had never been roused into rebellion before, and perhaps without
these extra glasses of sherry he would not have had the courage now. But
what with sherry, and what with _amour propre_, and what with the thing
he called love, Clarence Copperhead mounted all at once upon a pedestal.
He had a certain dogged obstinacy in him, suspected by nobody but his
mother, who had little enough to say in the guidance of her boy. He set
himself square like a pugilist, which was his notion of resistance. Mr.
May looked on with a curious mixture of feelings. His own sudden and
foolish hope was over, and what did it matter to him whether the
detestable father or the coarse son should win? He turned away from them
with contempt, which was made