Part 8 (1/2)
”How benevolent!” exclaimed the dean.
”How prudent!” exclaimed Henry.
”What do you mean by prudent?” asked Lord Bendham. ”Explain your meaning.”
”No, my lord,” replied the dean, ”do not ask for an explanation: this youth is wholly unacquainted with our customs, and, though a man in stature, is but a child in intellects. Henry, have I not often cautioned you--”
”Whatever his thoughts are upon the subject,” cried Lord Bendham, ”I desire to know them.”
”Why, then, my lord,” answered Henry, ”I thought it was prudent in you to give a little, lest the poor, driven to despair, should take all.”
”And if they had, they would have been hanged.”
”Hanging, my lord, our history, or some tradition, says, was formerly adopted as a mild punishment, in place of starving.”
”I am sure,” cried Lady Bendham (who seldom spoke directly to the argument before her), ”I am sure they ought to think themselves much obliged to us.”
”That is the greatest hards.h.i.+p of all,” cried Henry.
”What, sir?” exclaimed the earl.
”I beg your pardon--my uncle looks displeased--I am very ignorant--I did not receive my first education in this country--and I find I think so differently from every one else, that I am ashamed to utter my sentiments.”
”Never mind, young man,” answered Lord Bendham; ”we shall excuse your ignorance for once. Only inform us what it was you just now called _the greatest hards.h.i.+p of all_.”
”It was, my lord, that what the poor receive to keep them from peris.h.i.+ng should pa.s.s under the name of _gifts_ and _bounty_. Health, strength, and the will to earn a moderate subsistence, ought to be every man's security from obligation.”
”I think a hundred pounds a great deal of money,” cried Lady Bendham; ”and I hope my lord will never give it again.”
”I hope so too,” cried Henry; ”for if my lord would only be so good as to speak a few words for the poor as a senator, he might possibly for the future keep his hundred pounds, and yet they never want it.”
Lord Bendham had the good nature only to smile at Henry's simplicity, whispering to himself, ”I had rather keep my--” his last word was lost in the whisper.
CHAPTER XX.
In the country--where the sensible heart is still more susceptible of impressions; and where the unfeeling mind, in the want of other men's wit to invent, forms schemes for its own amus.e.m.e.nt--our youths both fell in love: if pa.s.sions, that were pursued on the most opposite principles, can receive the same appellation. William, well versed in all the licentious theory, thought himself in love, because he perceived a tumultuous impulse cause his heart to beat while his fancy fixed on a certain object whose presence agitated yet more his breast.
Henry thought himself not in love, because, while he listened to William on the subject, he found their sensations did not in the least agree.
William owned to Henry that he loved Agnes, the daughter of a cottager in the village, and hoped to make her his mistress.
Henry felt that his tender regard for Rebecca, the daughter of the curate of the parish, did not inspire him even with the boldness to acquaint her with his sentiments, much less to meditate one design that might tend to her dishonour.
While William was cautiously planning how to meet in private, and accomplish the seduction of the object of his pa.s.sion, Henry was endeavouring to fortify the object of _his_ choice with every virtue. He never read a book from which he received improvement that he did not carry it to Rebecca--never heard a circ.u.mstance which might a.s.sist towards her moral instruction that he did not haste to tell it her; and once when William boasted
”He knew he was beloved by Agnes;”