' I have been waiting for some months in hopes that you would open your mind to me, for I have seen that you were unhappy; but it was not for me to force your confidence.'
' I don't know that there's much to tell,' Ned said wearily. ' Everything has happened just as it was certain it would do. Mulready is a brute; he ill-treats my
mother, he ill-treats Charlie and Lucy, and he would ill-treat me if he dared.'
'All this is bad, Ned,' Mr. Porson said gravely; 'but of course much depends upon the amount of his ill- treatment. I assume that he does not actively ill-treat your mother.'
'No,' Ned said with an angry look in his face; 'and he'd better not.'
'Yes, Ned, he had better not, no doubt,' Mr. Porson said soothingly; 'but what I want to know, what it is essential I should know if I am to give you any advice worth having, is what you mean by ill-treatment—is he rough and violent in his way with her ? does he threaten her with violence? is he coarse and brutal ?'
' No,' Ned said somewhat reluctantly; 'he is not that, sir; he is always snapping and snarling and finding- fault.'
' That is bad, Ned, but it does not amount to ill-treatment. When a man is put out in business and things go wrong with him it is unhappily too often his custom to vent his ill-temper upon innocent persons; and I fancy from what I hear—you know in a little place like this everyone's business is more or less known—Mr. Mulready has a good deal to put him out. He has erected new machinery and dare not put it to work, owing, as I hear —for he has laid the documents before the magistrates— to his having received threatening letters warning him against doing so. This is very trying to the man. Then, Ned, you will excuse my saying that perhaps he is some-
what tried at home. It is no pleasant thing for a man to have a young fellow like yourself in the house taking up an attitude of constant hostility. I do not say that his conduct may or may not justify it; but you will not deny that from the first you were prepared to receive him as an enemy rather than as a friend. I heard a story some weeks ago in the town, which emanated no doubt from the servants, that you had actually struck him.'
' He hit Charlie, sir,' Ned exclaimed.
'That may be,' Mr. Porson went on gravely; 'and I have no doubt, Ned, that you considered then, and that you consider now, that you were acting rightly in interfering on behalf of your brother. But I should question much whether in such a matter you are the best judge. You unfortunately began with a very strong prejudice against this man; you took up the strongest attitude of hostility to him; you were prepared to find fault with everything he said and did; you put yourself in the position of the champion of your mother, brother, and sister against him. Under such circumstances it was hardly possible that things could go on well. Now I suppose, Ned, that the idea which you have in your mind in deciding to give up the profession you have chosen, is that you may remain as their champion and protector here.'
'Yes, sir,' Ned said. ' Father told me to be kind to mother, whatever happened.'
' Quite so, my boy; but the question is, Are you being kind ?'
Ned looked surprised.
' That you intend to be so, Ned, I am sure. The question is, Are you going the right way to work? Is this championship that you have taken upon yourself increasing her happiness, or is it not ?'
Ned was silent.
' I do not think that it is, Ned. Your mother must be really fond of this man or she would not have married him. Do you think that it conduces to the comfort of her home to see the constant antagonism which prevails between you and him ? Is it not the fact that this ill-temper under which she suffers is the result of the irritation caused to him by your attitude? Do you not add to her burden rather than relieve it ?'
Ned was still silent. He had so thoroughly persuaded himself that he was protecting his mother, his brother, and sister from Mr. Mulready that he had never considered the matter in this light.
'Does your mother take his part or yours in these quarrels, Ned ?'
' She takes his part, sir,' said Ned indignantly.
'Very well, Ned; that shows in itself that she does not wish for your championship, that in her eyes the trouble in the house is in fact caused by you. You must remember that when a woman loves a man she makes excuses for his faults of temper; his irritable moods, sharp expressions, and what you call snapping and snarling do not seem half so bad to her as they do to a third person, especially when that third person is her partisan. Instead of your adding to her happiness by renouncing
your idea of going into the army, and of deciding to remain here in some position or other to take care of her, as, I suppose, is your intention, the result will be just the contrary. As to your sister, I think the same thing would happen.
' Your mother is certainly greatly attached to her; and owing to her changed habits—for I understand that she is now a far more active, and I may say, Ned, a more sensible woman than before her marriage—I see no reason why Lucy should not be happy with her, especially if the element of discord—I mean yourself—were out of the way. As to Charlie, at the worst I don't think that he would suffer from your absence. His stepfather's temper will be less irritable; and as Charlie is away at school all day, and has to prepare his lessons in the evening, there is really but slight opportunity for his stepfather treating him with any active unkindness, even should he be disposed to do so.
'Did I think, my boy, that your presence here would be likely to benefit your family I should be the last person to advise you to avoid making a sacrifice of your private wishes to what you consider your duty; but upon the contrary I am convinced that the line which you have, with the best intention, taken up has been altogether a mistake, that your stay at home does vastly more harm than good, and that things would go on very much better in your absence.'
This was a bitter mortification for Ned, who had hitherto nursed the idea that he was performing rather
a heroic part, and was sacrificing himself for the sake of his mother,
'You don't know the fellow as I do,' he said sullenly at last.
'I do not, Ned; but I know human nature, and I know that any man would show himself at his worst under such circumstances as those in which you have placed him. It is painful to have to say, but I am sure that you have done harm rather than good, and that things will get on much better in your absence.'
' I believe he is quite capable of killing her,' Ned said passionately, ' if he wanted her out of the way.'
'That is a hard thing to say, Ned; but even were it so, we have no reason for supposing that he does want her out of the way. Come, Sankey, I am sure you have plenty of good sense. Hitherto you have been acting rather blindly in this matter. You have viewed it from one side only, and with the very best intentions in the world have done harm rather than good.
' I am convinced that when you come to think it over you will see that, in following out your own and your father's intentions and wishes as to your future career you will really best fulfil his last injunctions and will show the truest kindness to your mother. Don't give me any answer now, but take time to think it over. Try and see the case from every point of view, and I think you will come to the conclusion that what I have been saying, although it may seem rather hard to you at first, is true, and that you had best go into the army, as you had
intended. I am sure in any case you will know that what I have said, even if it seems unkind, has been for your good.'
'Thank you, Mr. Porson,' Ned replied; 'I am quite sure of that. Perhaps you are right, and I have been making a fool of myself all along. But anyhow I will think it over.'
,*-#-»)•
CHAPTER XL
THE NEW MACHINERY.
T is rather hard for a lad who thinks that he has been behaving somewhat as a hero to come to the conclusion that he has been making a fool of himself; but this was the result of Ned Sankey's cogitation over what Mr. Porson had said to him. Perhaps he arrived more easily at that conclusion because he was not altogether unwilling to do so. It was very mortifying to allow that he had been altogether wrong; but, on the other hand, there was a feeling of deep pleasure at the thought that he could, in Mr. Por-son's deliberate opinion, go into the army and carry out all his original hopes and plans. His heart had been set upon this as long as he could remember, and it had been a bitter disappointment to him when he had arrived at the conclusion that it was his duty to abandon the idea. He did not now come to the conclusion hastily that Mr. Porson's view of the case was the correct one; but after a fortnight's consideration he went down on New Year's-day to the school, and told his master that he had
