Part 4 (2/2)

But then came the crash; and this well-nigh broke the faithful old servant's heart. She whom he still loved as though she were his own, following her own unrestrained fancies, left her father's house to unite herself to a heartless adventurer before she had reached full womanhood, and thus closed the door of her old home against her. Then followed a frightful blank. An allusion by the old butler to ”Miss Julia,” when the squire and he were alone together, was met by a burst of violence on his master's part, and a threat that Harry must leave if he ever again mentioned his old favourite's name to her father. So his lips were closed, but not his heart; for he waited, watched, and prayed for better times, even after a still heavier cloud had gathered over the family in the removal of poor Mrs Huntingdon, and all the love he had to spare was given to his poor desolate young master, whose spirit had been crushed to the very dust by the sad withdrawal of his mother and sister from his earthly home.

Walter too was, of course, grieved at the loss of his sister and mother, but the blow was far lighter to him than to his brother, partly from his being of a more lively and elastic temperament, and partly because he did not, being so young a boy when the sad events took place, so fully understand as did his elder brother the shame and disgrace which hung over the family through his sister's heartless and selfish conduct. His aunt soon came to supply his mother's place, and completely won the impulsive boy's heart by her untiring and thoughtful affection. And one lesson he was learning from her, which was at first the strangest and hardest of lessons to one brought up as he had been, and that was, to respect the feelings and appreciate, though by very slow degrees, the character of his brother. His own superiority to Amos he had hitherto taken as a matter of course and beyond dispute. Everybody allowed it, except perhaps old Harry; but that, in Walter's eyes, was nothing. Amos was the eldest son, and heir to the family estate, and therefore the old butler took to him naturally, and would have done so if he had been a cow without any brains instead of a human being. So said Walter, and was quite content that a poor, ignorant fellow like Harry, who could have no knowledge or understanding of character, should set his regards on the elder son, and not notice the otherwise universally acknowledged bodily and intellectual superiority of his more worthy self. No wonder, then, that pity more than love was the abiding feeling in Walter's heart towards his less popular and less outwardly attractive brother. And it was a very strange discovery, and as unwelcome as strange, which his aunt was now leading him gradually to make spite of himself, that in real sterling excellence and beauty of character the weight, which he had hitherto considered to lie wholly in his own scale, was in truth to be found in the opposite scale on his brother's side of the balance.

Very slowly and reluctantly indeed was he brought to admit this at all, and, even when he was constrained to do so, he by no means surrendered at discretion to his aunt's view of the matter, but fought against it most vigorously, even when his conscience reproved him most loudly. And thus it was that a day or two after his conversation with Miss Huntingdon on the moral courage exhibited by Colonel Gardiner, he was rather glad of an opportunity that presented itself of exhibiting his brother in an unamiable light, and ”trotting him out with his shabby old horsecloth on,” as he expressed it, for the amus.e.m.e.nt of himself and friends. It was on a summer evening, and very hot, so that Miss Huntingdon, her two nephews, and two young men, friends of Walter, were enjoying tea and strawberries in a large summer-house which faced a sloping lawn enamelled with flower-beds glowing with ma.s.ses of richly tinted flowers. Mr Huntingdon was not with them, as this was Bench day, and he was dining after business hours with a brother magistrate.

Walter, full of life and spirits, rattled away to his heart's content, laughing boisterously at his own jokes, which he poured forth the more continuously because he saw that Amos was more than usually indisposed to merriment.

”By-the-by, Tom,” he said suddenly to one of his companions, ”what about the boat-race? When is it to come off?”

”In September,” replied his friend. ”But we are in a little difficulty.

You know Sir James has lent us the Park for the occasion, and a capital thing it will be; for we can make a good two miles of it by rowing round the ornamental water twice. It is to be a four-oared match; four Cambridge against four Oxford men, old or young, it doesn't matter. It is to be part of the fun on the coming of age of Sir James's eldest son.

I rather think he was born on the eighth. Young James is a Cambridge man and a capital oar, and I'm of the same college, and so is Harrison here, as you know, and we shall have no difficulty in finding a fourth; but we are rather puzzled about the Oxford men. We can calculate upon three, but don't know where to look for the fourth. I wish, Walter, you'd been old enough, and a member of the university.”

”Ay, Tom, I wish I had been. But, by-the-by, there's no difficulty after all. Here's Amos, an Oxford man, and a very good oar too--he's just the very man you want.”

It was quite true, as Walter said, that Amos had been a good rower at the university. Rowing was one of the few amus.e.m.e.nts in which he had indulged himself, but he had never joined a racing boat though often solicited to do so.

”What do you say, Amos?” asked his young companion. ”Will you join us, and make up the Oxford four complete? We shall be really much obliged if you will; and I'm sure you'll enjoy it.”

”Thank you,” replied Amos; ”it's very kind of you to ask me, I'm sure.

I should have liked it had I been able to undertake it, but I am sorry to say that it cannot be.”

”Cannot be!” exclaimed Walter. ”Why, what's to hinder you?”

”I cannot spare the time just now,” said his brother quietly.

”Not spare the time!--not spare half-an-hour one fine afternoon in September! Dear me! you must be oppressed with business. What is it?

It isn't farming, I know. Is it legal business? Have you got so many appointments with the Lord Chancellor that he can't spare you even for one day?”

”It will not be only for one day,” replied Amos quietly. ”If the race is to be a real trial of skill and strength we must train for it, and have many practices, and I cannot promise to find time for these.”

”Oh, nonsense! Why not? You've nothing to do.”

”I have something to do, Walter, and something too that I cannot give up for these practisings.”

”What! I suppose you think such vanities as these waste of precious time.”

”I never said nor thought so, Walter; but I have a work in hand which will prevent my having the pleasure of taking a part in this race, for it really would have been a pleasure to me.”

”Ah! it must be a precious important work, no doubt,” said his brother satirically. ”Just tell us what it is, and we shall be able to judge.”

Amos made no reply to these last words, but turned first very red and then very pale.

”Humph!” said Walter; ”I guess what it is. It's a new scheme for paying off the national debt, by turning radishes into sovereigns and cabbage- leaves into bank-notes; and it'll take a deal of time and pains to do it.” He laughed furiously at his own wit, but, to his mortification, he laughed alone. There was a rather painful silence, which was broken by the gentle voice of Miss Huntingdon.

”I think, dear Walter,” she said, ”that you are a little hard on your brother. Surely he may have an important work on hand without being engaged in such a hopeless task as attempting to turn radishes into sovereigns and cabbage-leaves into bank-notes. And does it follow that he despises your boat-race because he prefers duty to pleasure?”

”Ah! that's just it,” cried Walter, in a tone of mingled excitement and displeasure. ”Who's to know that it _is_ duty? I think one duty is very plain, and I should have thought you would have agreed with me here, and that is to give up your own way and pleasure sometimes, when by doing so you may help to make other people happy.”

”I quite agree with you in that, Walter,” said his aunt. ”It may be and often does become a duty to surrender our own pleasure, but never surely to surrender our duty.”

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