for to Armine, who was sufficiently better to want to hear all about the services, the procession, the wheat-sheaf, the hymns, and the sermons. Jock stood the examination well till it came to evensong, when, as his sister had conjectured, he knew nothing, except one sentence, which he said had come over and over again in the sermon, and he wanted to know whence it came. It was, 'Seekest thou great things for thyself.'
Even Armine only knew that it was in a note in the 'Christian Year,' and Babie looked out the reference, and found that it was Jeremiah's rebuke to Baruch for self-seeking amid the general ruin.
'I liked Baruch,' she said. 'I am sorry he was selfish.'
'Noble selfishness, perhaps,' said Armine. 'He may have aimed at saving his country and coming out a glorious hero, like Gideon or Jephthah.'
'And would that have been self-seeking too, as well as the commoner thing?' said Babie.
'It is like a bit of New Testament in the midst of the Old,' said Armine. 'They that are great are called Benefactors-a good sort of greatness, but still not the true Christian greatness.'
'And that?' said Babie.
'To be content to be faithful servant as well as faithful soldier,' said Armine, thoughtfully. 'But what had it to do with the harvest?'
He got no satisfaction, Babie could remember nothing but Jock's face, and Jock had taken the Bible, and was looking at the passages referred to He sat for a long time resting his head on his hand, and when at last he was roused to bid Armine goodnight, he bent over him, kissed him, and said, 'In spite of all, you're the wise one of us, Armie boy. Thank you.'
CHAPTER XXXII. THE COST.
O well for him who breaks his dream With the blow that ends the strife, And waking knows the peace that flows Around the noise of life. G. MacDonald.
'Jock! say this is not true!'
The wedding had been celebrated with all the splendour befitting a marriage in high life. Bridesmaids and bridesmen were wandering about the gardens waiting for the summons to the breakfast, when one of the former thus addressed one of the latter, who was standing, gazing without much speculation in his eyes, at the gold fish disporting themselves round a fountain.
'Sydney!' he exclaimed, 'are not your mother and Fordham here? I can't find them.'
'Did you not hear, Duke has one of his bad colds, and mamma could not leave him? But, Jock, while we have time, set my mind at rest.'
'What is affecting your mind?' said Jock, knowing only too well.
'What Cecil says, that you mean to disappoint all our best hopes.'
'There's no help for it, Sydney,' said Jock, too heavy-hearted for fencing.
'No help. I don't understand. Why, there's going to be war, real war, out there.'
'Frontier tribes!'
'What of that? It would lead to something. Besides, no one leaves a corps on active service.'
'Is mine?'
'It is all the same. You were going to get into one that is.'
'Curious reasoning, Sydney. I am afraid my duty lies the other way.'
'Duty to one's country comes first. I can't believe Mrs. Brownlow wants to hold you back; she-a soldier's daughter!'
'It is no doing of hers,' said Jock; 'but I see that I must not put myself out of reach of her.'
'When she has all the others! That is a mere excuse! If you were an only son, it would be bad enough.'
'Come this way, and I'll tell you what convinced me.'
'I can't see how any argument can prevail on you to swerve from the path of honour, the only career any one can care about,' cried Sydney, the romance of her nature on fire.
'Hush, Sydney,' he said, partly from the exquisite pain she inflicted, partly because her vehemence was attracting attention.
'No wonder you say Hush,' said the maiden, with what she meant for noble severity, 'No wonder you don't want to be reminded of all we talked of and planned. Does not it break Babie's heart?'
'She does not know.'
'Then it is not too late.'
But at that moment the bride's aunt, who felt herself in charge of Miss Evelyn, swooped down on them, and paired her off with an equally honourable best man, so that she found herself seated between two comparative strangers; while it seemed to her that Lucas Brownlow was keeping up an insane whirl of merriment with his neighbours.
Poor child, her hero was fallen, her influence had failed, and nothing was left her but the miserable shame of having trusted in the power of an attraction which she now felt to have been a delusion. Meanwhile the aunt, by way of being on the safe side, effectually prevented Jock from speaking to her again before the party broke up; and he could only see that she was hotly angered, and not that she was keenly hurt.
She arrived at home the next day with white cheeks and red eyes, and most indistinct accounts of the wedding. A few monosyllables were extracted with difficulty, among them a 'Yes' when Fordham asked whether she had seen Lucas Brownlow.
'Did he talk of his plans?'
'Not much.'
'One cannot but be sorry,' said her mother; 'but, as your uncle says, his motives are to be much respected.'
'Mamma,' cried Sydney, horrified, 'you wouldn't encourage him in turning back from the defence of his country in time of war?'
'His country!' ejaculated Fordham. 'Up among the hill tribes!'
'You palliating it too, Duke! Is there no sense of honour or glory left? What are you laughing at? I don't think it a laughing matter, nor Cecil either, that he should have been led to turn his back upon all that is great and glorious!'
'That's very fine,' said Fordham, who was in a teasing mood. 'Had you not better put it into the 'Traveller's Joy?''
'I shall never touch the 'Traveller's Joy' again!' and Sydney's high horse suddenly breaking down, she flew away in a flood of tears.
Her mother and brother looked at one another rather aghast, and Fordham said-
'Had you any suspicion of this?'
'Not definitely. Pray don't say a word that can develop it now.'
'He is all the worthier.'
'Most true; but we do not know that there is any feeling on his side, and if there were, Sydney is much too young for it to be safe to interfere with conventionalities. An expressed attachment would be very bad for both of them at present.'
'Should you have objected if he had still been going to India?'
'I would have prevented an engagement, and should have regretted her knowing anything about it. The wear of such waiting might be too great a strain on her.'
'Possibly,' said Fordham. 'And should you consider this other profession an insuperable objection?'
'Certainly not, if he goes on as I think he will; but such success cannot come to him for many years, and a good deal may happen in that time.'
Poor Lucas! He would have been much cheered could he have heard the above conversation instead of Cecil's wrath, which, like his sister's, worked a good deal like madness on the brain.
Mr. Evelyn chose to resent the slight to his family, and the ingratitude to his uncle, in thus running counter to their wishes, and plunging into what the young aristocrat termed low life. He did not spare the warning that it would be impossible to keep up an intimacy with one who chose to 'grub his nose in hospitals and dissecting rooms.'
Naturally Lucas took these as the sentiments of the whole family, and found that he was sacrificing both love
