'Such a lovely animal you never saw,' said Lance, swinging himself downstairs. 'You must walk out and see it, Fee, for you'll have it in the Pursuivant some Saturday.'
'Lance, I am very sorry,' said Felix, standing upright, with his back to the exhausted grate. 'Just attend to me, both of you.'
'Oh!' said Lance, hastily, 'I know there's a lot of old women's gossip about Collis; but nobody minds such stuff. Harry is as good a lad as ever stepped; and there was no harm to be seen about the place;-was there, Ful?'
'The old Frog has been croaking,' hoarsely muttered Fulbert.
Boys of sixteen and fourteen were incapable of coercion by a youth of one-and-twenty, and the only appeal must be to conscience and reason, so Felix went on speaking, though he had seen from the first that Fulbert's antagonism rendered him stolid, deaf, and blind; and Lancelot's flushed cheeks, angry eyes, impatient attempts to interrupt, and scornful gestures told of scarcely repressed passion.
'You may have seen no harm, I find no fault' (Fulbert scowled); 'but if I had known what I do now I should not have let you go to-day. My father would rather have cut off his right hand than have allowed you to begin an acquaintance which has been ruinous to almost all the young men who have been in that set.'
'But we are not young men,' cried Lance, 'it is only for the holidays; and we only want a little fun with poor Harry, he is so lonely-and just to go out rabbiting and skating. It is very hard we can't be let alone the first time anything worth doing has turned up in this abominable, slow place.'
'It is very hard, Lance. No one is more concerned than I; but if this intimacy once begins, there is no guessing where it will lead; and I do not speak without grounds. Listen-'
'If it comes from old Frog, you may as well shut up,' said Lance. 'There's been no peace at Marshlands since he took that cottage-a regular old nuisance and mischief-maker, spiting the Captain because one of the dogs killed his old cock, and bothering Charlie to no end about him.'
'I have heard from others as well,' said Felix; and he briefly mentioned some facts as to the scandals of the dissipated household, some of the imputations under which Captain Collis lay, and named two or three of the young men whose unsatisfactory conduct was ascribed to his influence.
He saw that both lads were startled, and wound up with saying, 'Therefore it is not without reason that I desire that you do not go there again.'
With which words, he opened the door, turned off the gas, and walked upstairs, hearing on the way a growl of Fulbert's-'That's what comes of being cad to a stupid brute of an old tradesman;' and likewise a bouncing, rolling, and tumbling, and a very unchorister-like expletive from Lance, but he hurried up, like the conclave from the vault at Lindisfarn, only with a sinking heart, and looks that made his sisters say how tired he must be. The boys were seen no more, but sent word by Bernard that they were wet through, they should not dress, but should get some supper in the kitchen, and go to bed.
On Sunday Lance had recovered himself and his temper, but in the evening he made another attempt upon Felix in private. His heart was greatly set upon Marshlands, and he argued that there was no evil at all in what they had been doing, and entreated Felix to be content with the promise both were willing to make, to take no share in anything doubtful-not even to play at billiards, or cards-if that would satisfy him, said Lance, 'but we will promise anything you please against playing, or betting, or-'
'I know, Lance, you once made such a promise, and kept it. I trust you entirely. But before, it would have been cruel to keep you from that sick boy; now this would be mere running into temptation for your own amusement.'
'Harry is not much better off than Fernan was,' said Lancelot, wistfully.
'Poor fellow! very likely not; but it would be more certain harm to yourself than good to him. Any way, no respectable person would choose to be intimate there, or to let their boys resort there; and it is my duty not to consent.'
'Ful is in such an awful way,' said Lance, disconsolately. 'Fee, you don't know how hard it is, you always were such a muff.'
'That is true,' said Felix, not at all offended, 'and I had my father and Edgar; but indeed, Lance, nothing ever was so hard to me to do as this. I cannot say how sorry I am.'
'You do really order me not?' said Lance, looking straight up at him.
'I do. I forbid you to go into Captain Collis's grounds, or to do more than exchange a greeting, if you meet him.'
'I will not. There's my word and honour for it, since-since you are so intolerably led by the nose by old Frog;' and Lance flung away, with the remains of his passion worked up afresh, and was as glum as his nature allowed the rest of the evening; but Felix, though much annoyed, saw that the boy had set up voluntarily two barriers between himself and his tempted will-in the command and the promise.
But the command that was a guard to the one, was a goad to the other; for Fulbert had never accepted his eldest brother's authority, and could not brook interference. Still his school character was good, and there was a certain worth about him, which made him sometimes withdraw his resistance, though never submit; and Felix had some hope that it would be so in the present case, when, while speeding to church in the dark winter Monday morning, he overheard Lance say to Clement, 'I say, Clem, 'tis a jolly stinging frost. If you'll take your skates and give us a lesson, we'll be off for the lake at Centry.'
One of the Whittingtonian curates had taken the boys to the ice in the parks, and taught them so effectively, that Clement was one of the best skaters in Bexley; but he was too much inclined to the nayward not to reply, 'I have to practise that anthem for Wednesday.'
'Oh, bother the practice!'
(Which Felix mentally echoed.)
'I can play that anthem, if that's all,' said Lance; 'and I believe you know it perfectly well. Now, Clem, don't be savage; I think, if you will come, we might put that other thing out of Ful's head.'
'Well, if you think it is to be of use--'
'That's right! Thank you,' cried Lance. 'And you won't jaw us all the way? He can't stand that, you know.'
Clement winced; but in compensation, apparently, for this forbidden lecture, he observed, 'I am glad you at least take it properly, Lance, though it would be worse in you than in him, considering your-'
'Bother it!' unceremoniously broke in Lance; and the words of wisdom were silenced.
Lance did his best to organise his party, but it was a failure; Fulbert said he had made an engagement, and would not break it; he was not bound to toady old Froggy, nor in bondage to any old fogeys of a dean and chapter; and he walked off the faster for Clement's protest, leaving Lance to roll on the floor and climb the balusters backwards to exhale his desire to follow. He was too much upset even to follow Clement to the organ, or to settle to the drawing which Cherry was teaching him, and was a great torment to himself and his sisters till dinner-time, when Clement had done his organ and his Greek, and was ready for a rush for the ice; and Robina went joyously with them. 'Between two young ladies one can't well run into harm's way,' said Lance.
So things went on for a fortnight. Fulbert never shuffled, he went openly to Marshlands Hall; and though not boasting of his expeditions, did not treat them as a secret. Wilmet and Geraldine each tried persuasion, but were silenced rudely; and Felix, unable to enforce his authority, held his tongue, but was very unhappy, both for the present and for the future. He did not believe much harm was doing now, but the temptation would increase with every vacation as the boys came nearer to manhood; and he seemed to have lost all influence and moral power over Fulbert.
Good old Mrs. Froggatt gave a small children's party, to which, with many apologies, she invited the lesser Underwoods, under charge of Wilmet. They were to sleep at the cottage, and Wilmet having offered to help in dressing the Christmas-tree, they set out early in the day to walk, escorted by the three brothers. That the trio did not return to tea did not alarm Felix and Geraldine, who suspected that the dislike the two elder expressed to the whole house of Froggatt had melted before the pleasure of working at the tree.
The evening was taken up in the discussion of a letter of Edgar's, more than usually discontented with his employment; and another of Alda's, who had been laid under orders to write to her eldest brother, and desire him to remonstrate with Edgar on his inattention, laziness, and pleasure-seeking. The anxiety had long been growing up; Felix had come to write his difficult letter by the light of Geraldine's sympathy, and they were weighing what should be said, when the door-bell rang, some sounds puzzled them, and just as Felix was getting up to see what was the matter, Fulbert put his head in at the door, and said, low but earnestly, 'Step here, Felix, please.'
He thought there must have been some terrible accident; but when from the top of the stairs he beheld
