Part 5 (1/2)
”True, aunt, if it's really duty; but some people's duty means merely their own fancy, and it's very convenient to call _that_ duty when you don't want to be obliging.”
”It may be so, Walter; but, on the other hand, if we have seen cause even to impose upon ourselves something as a duty, we are bound to carry it out, although others may not see it to be a duty and may call it fancy; and certainly we should at least respect those who thus follow what they firmly believe they _ought_ to do, even though we cannot exactly understand or agree with their views of duty. So you must bear with Amos; for I am certain that he would not say 'No' to you about the race if he were not persuaded that duty stands in the way of his taking a part in it.”
”Ah, well! happy Amos to have such a champion,” cried Walter, laughing, for he had now recovered his good-humour. ”I suppose you are right, and I must allow brother Amos to have his duty and his mystery all to himself. But it's odd, and that's all I can say about it. Such short- sighted mortals as I am can't see those duties which are up in the clouds, but only those which lie straight before our eyes.”
”And yet, Walter, there may be the truest and n.o.blest heroism in sacrificing everything to these self-imposed duties, which _you_ call duties up in the clouds.”
”O aunt, aunt!” exclaimed Walter, laughing, ”are you going to be down upon me again about moral courage? You have not crossed your hands this time, and yet I daresay it will do us all good, my friends here as well as myself, to have a lesson on moral courage from you; so listen all to my dear aunt. She is teaching me moral courage by examples. Who is your hero, dear auntie, this time?”
”Shall I go on?” said Miss Huntingdon, looking round on her hearers; then seeing an expression of interest on every countenance, she continued, ”Well, I will, if you wish it. My hero to-day is John Howard.”
”Not a soldier this time, Aunt Kate.”
”Not in your sense, Walter, but one of the truest and bravest in mine.”
”Pray, then, let us hear all about his exploits, dear aunt.”
”You shall, Walter. His exploits just consisted in this, that he imposed a great duty on himself as the one object of his life, and never let anything turn him from it, though obstacles met him in every direction such as nothing but the highest sense of duty could have nerved him to break through. In the first place, he was of a weakly const.i.tution, and might therefore well have excused himself from any unnecessary labours, and might have indulged in luxuries which might almost have been considered as necessaries to one whose appet.i.te was not strong. He could well have afforded such innocent indulgence, for he was a man of good fortune. He was, however, remarkable for his abstemious habits; and having been led, when high sheriff of his county, to look into the state of Bedford jail, he was so shocked with the miserable condition of the prisoners and their being crowded together in a place filthy, damp, and ill-ventilated, that he set himself to make a tour of inspection of all the county jails in England, and soon completed it, and was examined before the House of Commons on the state of our prisons. And here he had to suffer from that misrepresentation and misunderstanding which are too often the lot of those who have set themselves to some great and n.o.ble work. It seemed so extraordinary to some members of Parliament that a gentleman, out of pure benevolence, should devote himself to such a painful work, and run the risk of contagion, that they could hardly understand it; and one gentleman asked 'at whose expense he travelled,'--a question which Howard could scarcely answer without some indignant emotion. You see, they could not appreciate such exalted heroism; and surely it required no little moral courage to persevere. But he did persevere, and his work grew upon him.
”From England he went abroad, and visited the prisons on the Continent, devoting his time and fortune to the great work of discovering, and, as far as might be, remedying, the abuses he found in these sad places of misery and often cruelty; and though he was introduced to the n.o.ble and the great wherever he went, he paid no visits of mere ceremony, but spoke out most fearlessly, even to the most exalted in rank, about the abuses he found in the prisons under their control. He had set himself one great work to do, and he did it. Suffering, toil, hards.h.i.+p were endured without a murmur. Ah! was not this true heroism?
”And now I come to a point which I want you, dear Walter, specially to notice. Howard might have spent a portion at least of his time when abroad in visiting the beautiful picture-galleries and other works of art in the towns to which his great work led him, but he never suffered himself to do so. He would not even read a newspaper, lest it should divert his thoughts from the one great purpose he had in view. I am not saying for a moment that he would have been wrong to indulge himself with relaxation in the shape of sight-seeing and reading the news; but surely when he made everything bend to his one grand self-imposed duty, we are constrained to admire and not to blame, far less to ridicule, his magnificent heroism. Yes; he never swerved, he never drew back; and, best of all, he did his work as a humble and earnest Christian, carrying it on by that strength and wisdom which he sought and obtained by prayer.
”I cannot give you a better summing up of my hero's character than in the words of the great Edmund Burke. I have them here.” Saying which she opened a small ma.n.u.script book containing extracts from various authors in her own handwriting, which she kept in her work-basket, and read as follows:--”'He has visited all Europe, not to survey the sumptuousness of palaces, or the stateliness of temples; not to make accurate measurements of the remains of ancient grandeur, nor to form a scale of the curiosities of ancient art; not to collect medals, nor to collate ma.n.u.scripts: but to dive into the depths of dungeons, and to plunge into the infection of hospitals; to survey the mansions of sorrow and pain; to take the gauge and dimensions of misery, depression, and contempt; to remember the forgotten, to attend to the neglected, to visit the forsaken, and to compare the distresses of men in all countries. His plan is original, and it is as full of genius as it is of humanity. It was a voyage of discovery--a circ.u.mnavigation, of charity.' Such was Burke's true estimate of my hero. And surely never was a n.o.bler heroism--it was so pure, so unselfish; for when they would have erected a monument to him in his lifetime, and had gathered large sums for that purpose during his absence abroad, he at once put a stop to the project on his return home.--Am I wrong, dear Walter, in taking John Howard for one of my special moral heroes?”
”Not a bit of it, dear aunt. I confess myself beaten; I give in; I hand over the laurel crown to Amos: for I see that Howard's greatness of character was shown especially in this, that he imposed upon himself a work which he might have left undone without blame, and carried it out through thick and thin as a matter of duty. Bravo, Howard! and bravo, Amos, with your duty-work!--three cheers for you both! and one cheer more for Aunt Kate and moral courage.” So saying, with a low bow, half in fun and half in earnest, to Miss Huntingdon and his brother, with a request to the latter to learn the Canadian boat-song, ”Row, Brothers, Row,” at his earliest convenience, he left the summer-house, taking his two friends with him.
Amos, who had been silent during the latter part of the discussion, lingered behind for a moment, and rising from his seat, took his aunt's hand between his own, pressing it warmly as he said, in a voice subdued and trembling with emotion,--”Thank you, dearest aunt; I see you partly understand me now. Some day, I hope, you may understand me more fully.”
CHAPTER SEVEN.
HARRY IN THE SECRET.
A week or more had pa.s.sed since the conversation in the summer-house, and all the family were seated at luncheon in the dining-room of Flixworth Manor, when a shabby and dirty-looking note was handed to Amos by the butler. Having hastily read it, Amos exclaimed in an agitated voice, ”Who brought this? where is he?”
”It's no one as I ever seed afore,” replied Harry. ”He said there was no answer, but I was to take it in straight; and I doubt he's gone now far enough away, for he was nothing but a rough-looking lad, and he ran off when he had given me the note as fast as his legs would carry him.”
”Nothing amiss, I hope?” said Miss Huntingdon kindly.
”I hope not,” replied her nephew. He was evidently, however, greatly troubled and confused, and looked nervously towards his father, whose attention at the time was being given to a n.o.ble-looking dog which was receiving a piece of meat from his hand.
”What's up now?” cried Walter, who, although he was learning to treat his brother with more respect and consideration, was still rather on the look-out for opportunities to play off his fun upon him. ”Why, surely there's something amiss. What's the good, Amos, of putting a spoonful of salt into your gooseberry tart?”
Mr Huntingdon now looked round and stared at his elder son, who had by this time partly recovered his self-possession. ”Nothing serious, my boy, I hope?” he said.
”I hope not, dear father. It's only about a little child that I take an interest in; he seems to have got away from home, and his friends can't find him.”
”Is it one of my tenants' children?”
”No; it's a child that lives in a cottage on the Gavelby estate. We have struck up a friends.h.i.+p. I ride up there sometimes, so they have sent to me about him; and I will ride over after luncheon and see what can be done.”