The brothers could answer for nothing. Archie must decide for himself what he would accept as restoration of his character, and Mrs. Poynsett could alone answer as to whether she would accept the compensation. But neither of them could be hard on one so stricken and sorrowful, and they did not expect hardness from their mother and cousin, especially so far as old Mr. Proudfoot and his daughter were concerned.
That the confession was made, and that Archie should be cleared, was enough for Julius to carry to Herbert’s room, while Miles repaired to his mother. It was known in the sick-room where the brothers had been, and Julius was watched as he crossed the street by Jenny’s eager eye, and she met him at the door of the outer room with a face of welcome.
“Come in and tell us all,” she said. “I see it is good news.” Herbert was quite well enough to bear good news in full detail as he lay, not saying much, but smiling his welcome, and listening with ears almost as eager as his sister’s. And as Julius told of the crushed and broken man, Jenny’s tears rose to her eyes, and she pressed her brother’s hand and whispered, “Thanks, dear boy!”
“Small thanks to me.”
“Yes, I can enjoy it now,” said Jenny; “thanks to you for forcing the bitterness out of me.”
“Can you bear a little more good news, Herbert?” said Julius. “Who do you think is to have St. Nicholas?”
“Not William Easterby? That’s too good to be true.”
“But so it is. All the Senior Fellows dropped it like a red-hot coal.”
“I thought Dwight wanted to marry?”
“Yes, but the lady’s friends won’t hear of his taking her there; so it has come down to young Easterby. He can’t be inducted of course yet; but he has written to say he will come down on Saturday and take matters in hand.”
“The services on Sunday? Oh!” said Herbert, with as great a gasp of relief as if he had been responsible for them; and, indeed, Rosamond declared that both her husband and Mr. Bindon looked like new men since Wil’sbro’ was off their backs. Archie was coming back that evening. Jenny much longed to show her two treasures to each other, for it was a useless risk for the healthy man, and the sick one was too weak and tired to wish for a new face, or the trouble of speaking; nay, he could not easily bring himself to cheerful acquiescence in even his favourite Lady Rose taking his sister’s place to set her free for an evening with Archie at the Hall.
Mrs. Poynsett was in the drawing-room. She had taken courage to encounter the down-stair associations, saying she would make it no sadder for the dear boy than she could help, and so Miles had carried her down to meet one who had been always as one of her own sons.
And thus it was that she gathered him into her embrace, while the great strong man, only then fully realizing all the changes, sobbed uncontrollably beside her.
“My boy, my poor Archie,” she said, “you are come at last. Did you not know you still had a mother to trust to?”
“I ought to have known it,” said Archie, in a choked voice. “Oh that I had seen Jenny in London!”
For indeed it had become plain that it had been his flight that had given opportunity and substance to the accusation. If he had remained, backed by the confidence of such a family as the Poynsetts, Gadley would have seen that testimony in his favour would be the safer and more profitable speculation; and Moy himself, as he had said, would have testified to the innocence of a living man on the spot, though he had let the blame rest on one whom he thought in the depths of the sea. Archie’s want of moral courage had been his ruin. It had led him to the scene of temptation rather than resist his companions, and had thus given colour to the accusation, and in the absence of both Joanna and of his cousins, it had prevented him from facing the danger.
This sense made him the more willing to be forbearing, when, after dinner, the whole council sat round to hear in full the history of the interview with Mr. Moy; Anne taking up her position beside Frank, with whom, between her pencil and the finger-alphabet, she had established such a language as to make her his best interpreter of whatever was passing in the room.
“One could not help being sorry for Moy,” said Miles, as he concluded; “he turns out to be but half the villain after all, made so rather by acquiescence than by his own free will.”
“But reaping the profit,” said Mrs. Poynsett.
“Yes, though in ignorance of the injury he was doing, and thus climbing to a height that makes his fall the worse. I am sorry for old Proudfoot too,” added Julius. “I believe they have not ventured to tell him of his granddaughter’s marriage.”
“I do not think the gain to me would be at all equal to the loss to them,” said Archie. “Exposure would be ruin and heartbreak there, and I don’t see what it would do for me.”
“My dear Archie!” exclaimed both Mrs. Poynsett and Joanna, in amazement.
“So long as you and Mr. Bowater are satisfied, I care for little else,” said Archie.
“But your position, my dear,” said Mrs. Poynsett.
“We don’t care much about a man’s antecedents, within a few years, out in the colonies, dear Aunt Julia,” said Archie, smiling.
“You aren’t going back?”
“That depends,” said Archie, his eyes seeking Joanna’s; “but I don’t see what there is for me to do here. I’m spoilt for a solicitor anyway—”
“We could find an agency, Miles, couldn’t we?—or a farm—”
“Thank you, dear aunt,” said Archie; “I don’t definitely answer, because Mr. Bowater must be consulted; but I have a business out there that I can do, and where I can make a competence that I can fairly offer to Jenny here. If I came home, as I am now, I should only prey on you in some polite form, and I don’t think Jenny would wish for that alternative. I must go back any way, as I have told her, and whether to save for her, or to make a home for her there, it must be for her to decide.”
They looked at Jenny. She was evidently prepared; for though her colour rose a little, her frank eyes looked at him with a confiding smile.
“But we must have justice done to you, my dear boy, whether you stay with us or not,” said Mrs. Poynsett.
“That might have been done if I had not been fool enough to run away,” said Archie; “having done so, the mass of people will only remember that there has been something against me, in spite of any justification. It is not worth while to blast Moy’s character, and show poor old Proudfoot what a swindler his son was, just for that. The old man was good to me. I should like to let it rest while he lives. If Moy would sign such an exculpation of me as could be shown to Mr. Bowater, and any other whom it might concern, I should be quite willing to have nothing told publicly, at least as long as the old gentleman lives.”
“I think Archie is right,” said Miles, in the pause, with a great effort.
“Yes, right in the highest sense of the word,” said Julius.
“It is Christian,” Anne breathed across to her husband.
“I don’t like it,” said Mrs. Poynsett.
“Let that scoundrel go unhung!” burst from Frank, who had failed to catch the spirit of his interpreter.
“I don’t like it in the abstract, mother,” said Miles; “but you and Frank have not seen the scoundrel in his beaten down state, and, as Archie says, it is hard to blacken the memory of either poor George Proudfoot or Tom Vivian, who have fathers to feel it for them.”
“Poor Tom Vivian’s can hardly be made much blacker,” said Mrs. Poynsett, “nor are Sir Harry’s feelings very acute; but perhaps poor old Proudfoot ought to be spared, and there are considerations as to the Vivian family. Still, I don’t see how to consent to Archie going into exile again with this stigma upon him. I am sure Raymond would not, and I do not think Mr. Bowater will.”
“Dear Aunt Julia,” said Archie, affectionately, coming across to her, “it was indeed exile before, when I was dead to all of you; but can it be so now the communication is open, and when I am making or winning my home?” and his eyes brought Jenny to him by her side.
“Yes, dear Mrs. Poynsett,” she said, holding her hand, “I am sure he is right, and that it would spoil all our own happiness to break that poor old father’s heart, and bring him and his wife to disgrace and misery. When I think of the change in everything since two days back—dear Herbert wrung a sort of forgiveness out of me—I can’t bear to think of anybody being made miserable.”
“And what will your papa say, child?”
“I think he will feel a good deal for old Proudfoot,” said Jenny. “He rather likes the old man, and has laughed at our hatred of Miss Moy’s pretensions.”
“Then it is settled,” said Archie; “I will write to Moy, for I suppose he had rather not see me, that I will say nothing about it publicly while Mr. Proudfoot lives, and will not show this confession of his, unless it should be absolutely necessary to my character. Nor after old Proudfoot’s death, will I take any step without notice to him.”
“Much more than he ought to expect,” said Mrs. Poynsett.
“I don’t know,” said Archie. “If he had refused, it would not have been easy to bring him to the point, I suppose I must have surrendered to take my trial, but after so many years, and with so many deaths, it would have been awkward.”
“And the money, mother,” said Miles, producing a cheque. “Poor Moy, that was a relief to him. He said he had kept it ready for years.” Mrs. Poynsett waved it off as if she did not like to touch it.
“I don’t want it! Take it, Archie. Set up housekeeping on it,” she said. “You are not really going back to that place?”
“Yes, indeed I am; I sail on Tuesday. Dear good Aunt Julia, how comfortable it is to feel any one caring for me again; but I am afraid even this magnificent present, were it ten times as much, could not keep me; I must go back to fulfil my word to my partner out there, even if I returned at once.”
“And you let him go, Jenny?”
“I must!” said Jenny. “And only think how different it is now! For the rest, whether he comes back for me at once, or some years hence, must depend on papa and mamma.”
She spoke with grave content beaming in her eyes, just like herself. The restoration was still swallowing up everything else.
CHAPTER XXXV
Herbert’s Christmas
And when the self-abhorring thrill
Is past—as pass it must,
When tasks of life thy spirit fill,
Then be the self-renouncing will
The seal of thy calm trust.
—Lyra Apostolica
By Christmas Day Archie Douglas was in the Bay of Biscay; but even to Joanna it was not a sorrowful day, for did not Herbert on that day crawl back into his sitting-room, full dressed for the first time, holding tight by her shoulder, and by every piece of furniture on his way to the sofa, Rollo attending in almost pathetic delight, gazing at him from time to time, and thumping the floor with his tail? He had various visitors after his arrival—the first being his Rector, who came on his way back from church to give his congratulations, mention the number of convalescents who had there appeared, and speak of the wedding he had celebrated that morning, that of Fanny Reynolds and her Drake, who were going forth the next day to try whether they could accomplish a hawker’s career free from what the man, at least, had only of late learnt to be sins. It was a great risk, but there had been a penitence about both that Julius trusted was genuine. A print of the Guardian Angel, which had been her boy’s treasure, had been hung by Fanny in her odd little bedroom, and she had protested with tears that it would seem like her boy calling her back if she were tempted again.
“Not that I trust much to that,” said Julius. “Poor Fanny is soft, and likes to produce an effect; but I believe there is sterling stuff in Drake.”
“And he never had a chance before,” said Herbert.
“No. Which makes a great difference—all indeed between the Publicans, or the Heathens, and the Pharisees. He can’t read, and I doubt whether he said the words rightly after me; but I am sure he meant them.”
“I suppose all this has done great good?” said Jenny.
“It will be our fault if it do not do permanent good. It ought,” said Julius, gravely. “No, no, Herbert, I did not mean to load you with the thought. Getting well is your business for the present—not improving the occasion to others.”
To which all that Herbert answered was, “Harry Hornblower!” as if that name spoke volumes of oppression of mind.
That discussion, however, was hindered by Mrs. Hornblower’s own arrival with one of her lodger’s numerous meals, and Julius went off to luncheon. The next step on the stairs made Herbert start and exclaim, “That’s the dragoon! Come in, Phil.”
And there did indeed stand the eldest brother, who had obtained a few days’ leave, as he told them, and had ridden over from Strawyers after church. He came in with elaborate caution in his great muddy boots, and looked at Herbert like a sort of natural curiosity, exclaiming that he only wanted a black cap and a pair of bands to be exactly like Bishop Bowater, a Caroline divine, with a meek, oval, spiritual face, and a great display of delicate attenuated fingers, the length of which had always been a doubt and marvel to his sturdy descendants.
“Hands and all,” quoth Philip; “and what are you doing with them?” as he spied a Greek Testament in the fingers, and something far too ponderous for them within reach. “Jenny, how dare you?” he remonstrated, poising the bigger book as if to heave it at her head. “That’s what comes of your encouraging followers, eh?”
“Ah!” said Jenny, pretending to dodge the missile, while Rollo exercised great forbearance in stifling a bark, “Greek is not quite so severe to some folks as dragoon captains think.”
“Severe or not he might let it alone,” said Phil, looking much disposed to wrest away the little book, which Herbert thrust under his pillow, saying—
“It was only the Lesson.”
“Why can’t you read the Lesson like a sensible man in its native English? Don’t laugh, children, you know what I mean. There’s no good in this fellow working his brain. He can’t go up again before September, and according to the Bishop’s letter to my father, he is safe to pass, if he could not construe a line, after what he did at Wil’sbro’. The Bishop and Co. found they had made considerable donkeys of themselves. Yes, ’tis the ticket for you to be shocked; but it is just like badgering a fellow for his commission by asking him how many facets go to a dragon-fly’s eye, instead of how he can stand up to a battery.”
“So I thought,” said Herbert; “but I know now what it is to be in the teeth of the battery without having done my best to get my weapons about me.”
“Come now! Would any of those poor creatures have been the better for your knowing
“How many notes a sackbut has,
Or whether shawms have strings,”
or the Greek particles, which I believe were what sacked you?”
“They would have been the better if I had ever learnt to think what men’s souls are, or my own either,” said Herbert, with a heavy sigh.
“Ah! well, you have had a sharp campaign,” said Phil; “but you’ll soon get the better of it when you are at Nice with the old folks. Jolly place—lots of nice girls—something always going on. I’ll try and get leave to take you out; but you’ll cut us all out! Ladies won’t look at a fellow when there’s an interesting young parson to the fore.”
Herbert made an action of negation, and his sister said—
“The doctors say Nice will not do after such an illness as this. Papa asked the doctor there, and he said he could not advise it.”
“Indeed! Then I’ll tell you what, Herbs, you shall come into lodgings at York, and I’ll look after you there. You shall ride Pimento, and dine at the mess.”
“Thank you, Phil,” said Herbert, to whom a few months ago this proposal would have been most seducing, “but I am going home, and that’s all the change I shall want.”
“Home! Yes, Ellen is getting ready for you. Not your room—oh, no! but the state bedroom! When will you come? My leave is only till Tuesday.”
“Oh! I don’t know how to think of the drive,” sighed Herbert wearily.
“We must wait for a fine day, when he feels strong enough,” said Jenny.
“All right,” said Phil; “but ten days or a fortnight there will be quite enough, and then you’ll come. There are some friends of yours, that only looked at me, I can tell you, for the sake of your name—eh, Master Herbs?”
Herbert did not rise to the bait; but Jenny said, “The Miss Strangeways?”
“Yes. Wouldn’t he be flattered to hear of the stunning excitement when they heard of Captain Bowater, and how the old lady, their mother, talked by the yard about him? You’ll get a welcome indeed when you come, old fellow. When shall it be?”
“No, thank you, Phil,” said Herbert, gravely. “I shall come back here as soon as I am well enough. But there is one thing I wish you would do for me.”
“Well, what? I’ll speak about having any horse you please taken up for you to ride; I came over on Brown Ben, but he would shake you too much.”
“No, no, it’s about a young fellow. If you could take him back to York to enlist—”
“My dear Herbert, I ain’t a recruiting-sergeant.”
“No, but it might be the saving of him,” said Herbert, raising himself and speaking with more animation. “It is Harry Hornblower.”
“Why, that’s the chap that bagged your athletic prizes! Whew! Rather strong, ain’t it, Joan!”
“He did no such thing,” said Herbert, rather petulantly; “never dreamt of it. He only was rather a fool in talking of them—vaunting of me, I believe, as not such a bad fellow for a parson; so his friends got out of him where to find them. But they knew better than to take him with them. Tell him, Jenny; he won’t believe me.”
“It is quite true, Phil,” said Jenny, “the poor fellow did get into bad company at the races, but that was all. He did not come home that night, but he was stupefied with drink and the beginning of the fever, and it was proved—perfectly proved—that he was fast asleep at a house at Backsworth when the robbery was committed, and he was as much shocked about it as any one—more, I am sure, than Herbert, who was so relieved on finding him clear of it, that he troubled himself very little about the things. And now he has had the fever—not very badly—and he is quite well now, but he can’t get anything to do. Truelove turned him off before the races for hanging about at the Three Pigeons, and nobody will employ him. I do think it is true what they say—his mother, and Julius, and Herbert, and all—that he has had a lesson, and wants to turn over a new leaf, but the people here won’t let him. Julius and Herbert want him to enlist, and I believe he would, but his mother—as they all do—thinks that the last degradation; but she might listen if Captain Bowater came and told her about his own regiment—cavalry too—and the style of men in it—and it is the only chance for him.”
Philip made a wry face.
“You see I took him up and let him down,” said Herbert, sadly and earnestly.
“I really do believe,” said Jenny, clenching the matter, “that Herbert would get well much faster if Harry Hornblower were off his mind.”
Phil growled, and his younger brother and sister knew that they would do their cause no good by another word. There was an odd shyness about them all. The elder brother had not yet said anything about Jenny’s prospects, and only asked after the party at the Hall.
“All nearly well, except Frank’s deafness,” said Jenny. “In a day or two he is going up to London to consult an aurist, and see whether he can keep his clerkship. Miles is going with him, and Rosamond takes Terry up to see his brother in London, and then, I believe, she is going on to get rooms at Rockpier, while Miles comes home to fetch his mother there.”
“Mrs. Poynsett!” with infinite wonder.
“Oh yes, all this has really brought out much more power of activity in her. You know it was said that there was more damage to the nervous system than anything else, and the shock has done her good. Besides, Miles is so much less timid about her than dear Raymond, who always handled her like a cracked teapot, and never having known much of any other woman, did not understand what was good for her.”
“Miles has more pith in him than ever poor old Raymond had,” said Phil. “Poor old Poynsett, I used to think he wanted to be spoony on you, Joan, if he had only known his own mind. If he had, I suppose he would have been alive now!”
“What a pleasing situation for Jenny!” Herbert could not help muttering.
“Much better than running after ostriches in the wilderness,” quoth Philip. “You ride them double, don’t you?”
“Two little negro boys at a time,” replied Jenny, “according to the nursery-book. Will you come and try, Phil?”
“You don’t mean to go out?”
“I don’t know,” said Jenny; “it depends on how mamma is, and how Edith gets on.”
Philip gave a long whistle of dismay. Herbert looked at him wistfully, longing to hear him utter some word of congratulation or sympathy with his sister; but none was forthcoming. Philip had disliked the engagement originally—never had cared for Archie Douglas, and was not melted now that Jenny was more valuable than ever. She knew him too well to expect it of him, and did not want to leave him to vex Herbert by any expression of his opinion on the matter, and on this account, as well as on that of the fatigue she saw on her patient’s features, she refused his kind offer of keeping guard while she went in the afternoon to church, adding that Herbert must rest, as Mrs. Duncombe was coming afterwards to take leave of him.
Philip shrugged his shoulders in horror, and declared that he should not return again till that was over; but he should look in again before he went home to settle about Herbert’s coming to York.
“York!” said Herbert, with a gasp, as Jenny brought his jelly, and arranged his pillows for a rest, while the dragoon’s boots resounded on the stairs. “Please tell him to say no more about it. I want them all to understand that I’m not going in for that sort of thing any more.”
“My dear, I think you had better not say things hotly and rashly; you may feel so very differently by and by.”
“I know that,” said Herbert; “but after all it is only what my ordination vows mean, though I did not see it then. And this year must be a penance year; I had made up my mind to that before I fell ill.”
“Only you must get well,” said Jenny.
“That takes care of itself when one is sound to begin with,” said Herbert. “And now that I have been brought back again, and had my eyes opened, and have got another trial given me, it would be double shame to throw it away.”
“I don’t think you will do that.”
“I only pray that all that seems burnt out of me by what I have seen, and heard, and felt, may not come back with my strength.”
“I could hardly pray that for you, Herbert,” said Jenny. “Spirits are wanted to bear a clergyman through his work, and though you are quite right not to go in for those things, I should be sorry if you never enjoyed what came in your way.”
“If I never was tempted.”
“It need not be temptation. It would not be if your mind were full of your work—it would only be refreshment. I don’t want my boy to turn stern, and dry, and ungenial. That would not be like your Rector.”
“My Rector did not make such a bad start, and can trust himself better,” said Herbert. “Come, Jenny, don’t look at me in that way. You can’t wish me to go to York, and meet those rattling girls again?”
“No, certainly not, though Sister Margaret told Rosamond they had never had such a sobering lesson in their lives as their share in the mischief to you.”
“It was not their fault,” said Herbert. “It was deeper down than that. And they were good girls after all, if one only had had sense.”
“Oh!—”
“Nonsense, Jenny,” with a little smile, as he read her face, “I’m not bitten—no—but they, and poor Lady Tyrrell, and all are proof enough that it is easy to turn my head, and that I am one who ought to keep out of that style of thing for the future. So do silence Phil, for you know when he gets a thing into his head how he goes on, and I do not think I can bear it now.”
“I am sure you can’t,” said Jenny, emphatically, “and I’ll do my best. Only, Herbie, dear, do one thing for me, don’t bind yourself by any regular renunciations of moderate things now your mind is excited, and you are weak. I am sure Julius or Dr. Easterby would say so.”
“I’ll think,” said Herbert. “But if I am forgiven for this year, nothing seems to me too much to give up to the Great Shepherd to show my sorrow. ‘Feed My sheep’ was the way He bade St. Peter prove his love.”
Jenny longed to say it was feeding the sheep rather than self-privation, but she was not sure of her ground, and Herbert’s low, quiet, soft voice went to her heart. There were two great tears on his cheeks, he shut his eyes as if to keep back any more, and turned his face inwards on the sofa, his lips still murmuring over ‘Feed My sheep.’ She looked at him, feeling as if, while her heart had wakened to new glad hopes of earth, her brother, in her fulfilled prayer, had soared beyond her. They were both quite still till Mrs. Duncombe came to the door.
She was at the Rectory, her house being dismantled, and she, having stayed till the last case of fever was convalescent, and the Sisters recalled, was to go the next day to her mother-in-law’s. She was almost as much altered as Herbert himself. Her jaunty air had given way to something equally energetic, but she looked wiry and worn, and her gold pheasant’s crest had become little more than a sandy wisp, as she came quietly in and took the hand that Herbert held out to her, saying how glad she was to see him on the mend.
He asked after some of the people whom they had attended together, and listened to the details, asking specially after one or two families, where one or both parents had been taken away. “Poor Cecil Poynsett is undertaking them,” was the answer in each case. Some had been already sent to orphanages; others were boarded out till places could be found for them; and the Sisters had taken charge of two.
Then one widow was to ‘do for’ the Vicar, who had taken solitary possession of the Vicarage, but would soon be joined there by one or more curates. He had been inducted into the ruinous chancel of the poor old church, had paid the architect of the Rat-house fifty pounds (a sum just equalling the proceeds of the bazaar) to be rid of his plans; had brought down a first-rate architect; and in the meantime was working the little iron church vigorously.
“Everything seems to be beginning there just as I go into exile!” said Mrs. Duncombe. “It seems odd that I should have to go from what I have only just learnt to prize. But you have taught mo a good deal—”
“Every one must have learnt a good deal,” said Herbert wearily. “If one only has!”
“I meant you yourself, and that is what I came to thank you for. Yes, I did; even if you don’t like to hear it, your sister does, and I must have it out. I shall recollect you again and again standing over all those beds, and shrinking from nothing, and I shall hold up the example to my boys.”
“Do hold up something better!”
“Can you write?” she said abruptly.
“I have written a few lines to my mother.”
“Do you remember what you said that night, when you had to hold that poor man in his delirium, and his wife was so wild with fright that she could not help?”
“I am not sure what you mean.”
“You said it three or four times. It was only—”
“I remember,” said Herbert, as she paused; “it was the only thing I could recollect in the turmoil.”
“Would it tire you very much to write it for me in the flyleaf of this Prayer-Book that Mr. Charnock has given me?”
Herbert pulled himself into a sitting posture, and signed to his sister to give him the ink.
“I shall spoil your book,” he said, as his hand shook.
“Never mind,” she said, eagerly, “the words come back to me whenever I think of the life I have to face, and I want them written; they soothe me, as they soothed that frightened woman and raving man.”
And Herbert wrote. It was only—‘The Lord is a very present help in trouble.’
“Yes,” she said; “thank you. Put your initials, pray. There—thank you. No, you can never tell what it was to me to hear those words, so quietly, and gravely, and strongly, in that deadly struggle. It seemed to me, for the first time in all my life, that God is a real Presence and an actual Help. There! I see Miss Bowater wants me gone; so I am off. I shall hear of you.”
Herbert was exhausted with the exertion, and only exchanged a close pressure of the hand, and when Jenny came back, after seeing the lady to the door, she thought there were tears on his cheek, and bent down to kiss him.
“That was just the way, Jenny,” his low, tired voice said. “I never could recollect what I wanted to say. Only just those few Psalms that you did manage to teach me before I went to school, they came back and back.”
Jenny had no time to answer, for the feet of Philip were on the stairs. He had been visiting Mrs. Hornblower, and persuading her that to make a dragoon of her son was the very best thing for him—great promotion, and quite removed from the ordinary vulgar enlistment in the line—till he had wiled consent out of her. And though Philip declared it was blarney, and was inclined to think it infra dig. to have thus exerted his eloquence, it was certain that Mrs. Hornblower would console herself by mentioning to her neighbours that her son was gone in compliment to Captain Bowater, who had taken a fancy to him.
The relief to Herbert was infinite; but he was by this time too much tired to do anything but murmur his thanks, and wish himself safe back in his bed, and Philip’s strong-armed aid in reaching that haven was not a little appreciated.
Julius looked in with his mother’s entreaty that Philip, and if possible his sister, should come up to eat their Christmas dinner at the Hall; and Herbert, wearily declaring that sleep was all he needed, and that Cranky would be more than sufficient for him, insisted on their accepting the invitation; and Jenny was not sorry, for she did not want a tête-à-tête with Philip so close to her patient’s room, that whatever he chose to hear, he might.