George E. Sargent

“ I hope, Tom, you won't think that I am one of that sort?"
No, Tom was sure that his father's old friend was not.
"And yet, as we grow older," John went on, "we sometimes see, or fancy (it may be altogether an error on our part, but we fancy) we see things more clearly than at an earlier period of our lives. And especially the blunders we ourselves have at some former time committed, make us think that we are wiser than others—wiser perhaps than we really are, and more competent to set another right when we think him to be in danger." ”

“ TOM GRIGSON was still staying at his brother's—yet not altogether there, for he and the younger Tom, his first-born, pretty equally divided their time between the Manor House and the Mumbles, where the elder Elliston continued to sway the sceptre—an old man now, but as sharp-witted and fond of having his own way as ever he had been.
It was the more to be wondered at that the active man of business, such as we have seen John's old friend had become, should have taken so long a holiday, seeing that there was neither hunting nor shooting to be indulged in at this particular time. ”

“ Rubric know that I am master of my own actions," thought he to himself as he strode along; "and as to Mr. Grigson, I am much obliged to him for his hospitality, but I am a free agent, I hope, for all that."
"It's the way of the world," mused poor John Tincroft, bitterly; "let a fellow like me be under a cloud, and every favourite of fortune may give him a kick. What is it to the parson and the squire if I have chosen to take my walks in this direction? ”

“ I should rather think either of these things than what Ralph says, if I were you, Walter. And then as to what you could, or could not, write to your cousin, would it not have been a good plan to have told her what has been on your mind, and asked her to tell you faithfully whether she wishes to break off the connection? I am a poor, inexperienced hand in these affairs," added the invalid, with a pleasant smile, which had no unhappiness or regret in it; "but I fancy that in love, as in everything also, open straightforwardness is the best plan to adopt." ”

“ Oh, why can't he let me alone?"
"Do you mean that that letter is from your cousin in Australia, my dear?"
"Yes, that is what it is."
"Well, my pretty, I don't know why he should not write to you. He writes no harm, does he? He is a married man, you know. He does not ask you to run away from your own husband, does he, love?" asked John, gravely, but not without a gleam of humour, perhaps, on his countenance.
"How should I know what he writes?" cried Sarah, piteously.
"Have you not read the letter, then?" Tincroft asked, wonderingly.
"Read it! Read it! No, I should think not, John. ”

“ His school breeding, and, after that, his college training, together with his guardian's want of sympathy, had had the further effect of monasticising his young life. And this effect, which had grown into a habit, had been intensified by his narrow circumstances. Everybody knew that John Tincroft was under the cloud of straitened means, and who does not know, or cannot understand, how this evil reputation (according to worldly maxims) inexorably closes one door after another against those who lie under it?
Tincroft, at any rate, had felt it keenly, and it had increased his natural shyness. ”

“ You must put away from you those vain thoughts, those captivating remembrances. You have no business to be thinking admiringly of any daughter of Eve just now; and of her (you know who I mean) least of all."
"True, true," John confessed.
"Well, then, what a blockhead you must be to go about dreaming and mooning as you have done since you got back to Oxford. Why, the other evening, when you went for that stroll round the Magdalen Water Walk, you looked so distraught, and played such moon-struck antics, that a pair of undergraduates burst out in a merry laugh when you passed them." ”

“ By this time the restorative had produced its effect, and the rustic beauty's colour had partially returned to her cheeks.
"I live at High Beech Farm," said she; "and it is time I was there. My father and mother went home long ago, and—oh, dear!"
She was once more on her feet, and anxiously looking out at the darkening landscape.
"It is a fine evening," said John; "and I'll—yes, if you will accept my help, I'll walk home with you. You are not well enough to be by yourself. You might have another fit on the road, you know. You must take my arm, and I'll see you safe, miss." ”

“ And if the tears which ran down Sarah's cheek then, sprang, some of them, from old remembrances revived, there was no treason in them against God or man. In that world whither the words just uttered over the dead transported the thoughts of the living, "they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven."
Old Matthew and his wife followed their first-born to the grave, and in their train came Walter's sister and his brothers and their wives. And then John Tincroft and the lawyer came after. ”

“ And Walter with unwonted tenderness, took his sister's hand, roughened by hard work, and put it to his lips, and a tear fell upon it in the short moment that he held it there. All this Elizabeth afterwards remembered.
There are times when hard, practical men and women, who, if they have feelings, think it a weakness to make display of them, seem to lose their boasted self-command and become as little children. It was so with Elizabeth Wilson, as she sat in the holly arbour with her hand still clasped in her brother's. ”

“ Tincroft—not as you ought to be loved, you know."
And John had taken her, hoping and believing that the love would come in due course. But it had not, and he knew it. A quiet, noiseless wife she was, timid, submissive, and sometimes even slave-like to the benefactor who had ransomed her from ill-will and scorn and poverty. But there the matter ended.
"Poor Sarah!" John sometimes reflected. "She has given me all that is in her power; and I am better off with that than many a husband is with the woman who has made stronger and louder professions. ”

“ There's some of the old grit left, I sometimes feel; and setting myself aside, there are others who wouldn't care a straw so they could have their revenge."
"I thank you for your warning, Styles," said Helen; "and I will do what I can to make your position—I mean to shield you from trouble of any sort. I did not before know what you have now told me; but as you are feeling now the consequences of rash anger, you surely would not give way again to the same temptation?"
"I don't know why not, Miss Sedley. Life such as mine out here is not so valuable as to be worth keeping. ”

“ As to young Tom, he is agreeable, he says, if he must marry, though he doesn't see any occasion for it; but if he must, Blanche Elliston will do as well as any other. That's what he says. The worst of it is, his cousin is a couple of years older than he; but that can't be helped; and perhaps she hasn't the sweetest temper in the world. But we all have something to put up with, you know, John."
"Please don't say any more about it, Tom," said Tincroft, quietly. "You know your own business best, dear friend, and how to bring up a family. ”

“ On a parity of reasoning, and on the same principle, it would seem that when a man sees occasion to put himself to school, he should not be his own schoolmaster; and yet it is not so. There is, of course, one Teacher of whom all ought to learn, and the neglect of whose instructions is infinite loss. But next to Divine instructions, it is almost important that every man should school himself, listening to his own reason and conscience. And this John Tincroft had done. ”

“ Rubric had succeeded in giving a new turn to John's thoughts. It had been pleasant to him to take those walks of which I have spoken, pleasant to worship at the shrine of Sarah's loveliness, without knowing that he worshipped. The old self-accusation of being a woman-hater was fading away; or rather a new light had been cast on that subject. Of course he knew that the maiden's loveliness was nothing to him. Was not Sarah engaged to her cousin? Was not he himself engaged to his Oriental studies? ”

“ By the way, Sarah's simple-heartedness had already found its way to the girl's feelings.
"She isn't like my mother, not at all," Helen said to herself; "but then, nobody could be, or ever was, like dear mother—" and here her tears began to flow; "but Mrs. Tincroft is so good to me, and does everything she can think of for poor father, that I can't help liking her."
It was quite true that Walter Wilson had received, and was receiving, all the attention from both John and Sarah that could have been shown had he been a very dear brother. ”

“ His simplicity had worked wonders, too, in the rough, garden-robbing neighbourhood in the midst of which he dwelt, inasmuch as though no steel-trap and spring-gun warnings were set up on his premises, the apples in his orchard generally hung secure till they were plucked by his own hands, while those of the law and fury breathing country squire and J.P. on the rising ground a quarter of a mile off, though surrounded by a high brick wall, regularly received more than one annual (or seasonal) nocturnal visit. On one occasion, truly, John's exposed orchard was robbed ”

“ While good average crops, as we have seen, were being gathered in all the country round, Mark Wilson's farm presented as miserable a specimen of bad husbandry and neglect as could have been met with in a day's march. Poor lean crops overrun with weeds were the rule from one end of the arable land to the other; and Sarah well knew—for who could help knowing?—that the small amount of money the corn would bring in, when thrashed, would not be a tithe that was wanted to clear her father from his accumulated and constantly accumulating difficulties. ”

“ Apparently this broke the spell, for Tincroft now slipped his arm within that of his young friend, and the two paced up and down the long path as they communed together.
"My dear lad," said John, when they were thus in motion, "your father and I were dear friends when we were about your age. We were almost always together when we were at Oxford. We never had a serious disagreement in our lives; I received many a kindness from him; and though we have not seen so much of each other of late years as formerly, we are as much friends as ever. ”

“ A good many such foolish and incongruous images rising in his mind, found words in a letter he wrote to Ralph Burgess while on his outward-bound voyage, whereat Ralph good-naturedly smiled. The upshot and conclusion in Walter's thoughts were that he couldn't, wouldn't, shouldn't, oughtn't ever to think of matrimony. He would go into the wilds of Australia, he would bury himself alive, he would shun the sight of womankind, he would be a woman-hater all the remainder of his days. ”

“ It might be the revival of vegetation after the winter sleep of nature; or perhaps Helen's reminiscences had wandered back to the far-off land where her mother lay buried. But I know that her simple observation was to be like the little mustard seed, "the smallest of all seeds," which when cast into the ground grows, and "when it is grown is the greatest among herbs."
And I may remark that Sarah and Helen, notwithstanding the difference in their ages, were extremely well suited to each other in pleasant companionship. ”

“ Matthew Wilson—or would not have done had they remembered that where the love of money is the supreme affection, all other natural feelings are inevitably deadened.
Of course it was very wrong in Walter not to write home in all the years of his growing prosperity in Australia. But he is not the first man, nor will he be the last, who, having, under either real or fancied grievances, hastily cut the tie which bound him to the family circle, has felt it a matter of selfish pride, or some other bad feeling, to widen the breach thus made by haughty and obstinate silence. ”

“ It was hard to withstand such a pleading look—so Walter doubtless felt.
"You know the reason why, Sarah," he replied, tremulously; "I have told you, over and over again, that father says there are too many of us at home, eating up all the profits of his small farm, and that one of us boys ought to be getting on at something else, and earning a living for himself."
"I know all that, Walter; but there is no occasion for you to be the one. You are the oldest, and ought to be at home. And we going to be married, too; and that will have to be put off—with such a home as you know I have got! ”

“ What is it, Barry?"
"I wouldn't trouble you, sir; but my mother is in such a way."
"Your mother?"
"She keeps going on at me for not telling her before. You know my mother, sir?"
"I can't say that I do," said John, wondering whether the scout had lost his senses. "I know you have a mother—that is, I heard as much from your wife while I was staying at Jericho. But I never had the pleasure of seeing her, except, to be sure, her back once," added John, with a strict regard to veracity.
"That's very true, sir. You see she doesn't like to be stared at, mother doesn't; that's why, Mr. Tincroft." ”

“ These operations seemed to give some little relief, for a gentle sigh was heard; still the eyes remained half closed, and there was no further sign of returning animation.
"What shall I do next?" muttered John, in perplexity. "I have heard that cutting the stay laces—but that will never do. Ah! I have it," he said, as a sudden thought seized him, and in less time than it takes to tell, he had dived under the low archway into the cool retreat, and as speedily reappeared, bearing in his hand a half-tumbler of the precious hoard from Richard Grigson's locker. ”

“ A sober holiday it was and is, and I hope ever will be, as long as it lasts; and if old Oxford and Cambridge men, who knew once how to handle a bat, but have since had their innings and winnings in a higher sphere of toil and duty, chose (as they did and do choose) for once in a year to unbend and do honour to the good old English game of cricket (if John Tincroft will pardon my saying so) with their presence, and to throw over it a halo of protection, I respect and admire them all the more. ”