little David stood sobbing and crying piteously.
'Davie! what, Davie! What is it, my man? Where are you hurt!'
'No, no! I'm not hurt! Catch Hal, Papa.'
'No, David. I do not play with boys that act like Henry.'
'Speak to him, Papa; oh, speak!'
'I shall, before I go,' said the Captain gravely.
'Now, now! Papa. Oh, do! I did want him to be punished, but not like this.'
'No, David. If he can expect to play with me, and be treated like the others, he is not in the state to receive forgiveness. There, have done crying; let us go on with the game.'
But David could not go on playing; he was too unhappy. Not to be forgiven, even if punished, seemed to him too dreadful to happen to anyone; and he thought that he had brought it all on Henry by his letter of accusation. Tardily and dolefully he crept into the house; and Miss Fosbrook met him, looking so woe-begone, that she too thought he had hurt himself. She took him, dirt and all, on her lap; and there he sobbed out that Papa wouldn't speak to Hal, and it was very dreadful; and he wished there were no such things as pigs, or money, or secrets; they only made people miserable!
'Dear Davie, they only make people miserable when they care too much about them. Papa will forgive Hal before he goes away, I am sure; only he is making him sorry first, that he may never do such a thing again.'
'I don't like it.' And David cried sadly, perhaps because partly he was tired with having been on his legs more than usual that day; but his good and loving little self was come home again. He at least had forgiven his brother the wrong done to himself; and there was no hanging back that night from the fulness of prayer; no, he rather felt that he had been unkind; and the last thing heard of him that night was, that as Sam and Hal were coming up-stairs to bed, a little white figure stood on the top of the stairs, and a small voice said, 'Hal, please kiss me! I am so sorry I told Papa about--'
'There, hold your tongue,' said Hal, cutting him short with the desired kiss, 'if you hadn't told, someone else would.'
But long after Sam was asleep, Hal was wetting his pillow through with tears.
CHAPTER XV.
Still the silence lasted. Henry had tried at first to persuade himself that it was only by chance that he never heard his own name from lips that used to call it more often than any other. Indeed, he was so much used to favour, that it needed all the awe-struck pity of the rest to prove to him its withdrawal; and he was so much in the habit of thrusting himself before Samuel, that even the sight and sound of the First Book of Euclid, all day long, failed to convince him that his brother could be preferred; above all, as Nurse Freeman had been collecting his clean shirts as well as Sam's, and all the portmanteaus and trunks in the house had been hunted out of the roof. Once, either the spirit of imitation, or his usual desire of showing himself off, made him break in when Sam was knitting his brows frightfully over a sum in proportion. Hal could do it in no time!
So he did; but he put the third term first, and multiplied the hours into the minutes, instead of reducing them to the same denomination; so that he made out that twenty-five men would take longer to cut a field of grass than three, and then could not see that he was wrong; but Miss Fosbrook and Sam both looked so much grieved for him, that a start of fright went through him.
Some minds really do not understand a fault till they see it severely visited; and 'at least' and 'couldn't help' had so blinded Henry's eyes that he had thought himself more unlucky than to blame, till his father's manner forced it on him that he had done something dreadful. Vaguely afraid, he hung about, looking so wretched that he was a piteous sight; and it cut his father to the heart to spend such a last day together. Mayhap the Captain could hardly have held out all that second day, if he had not passed his word to his brother.
The travellers were to set off at six in the morning, to meet the earliest train: and it was not till nine o'clock at night, when the four elder ones said good-night, that the Captain, following them out of the room, laid his hand on Henry as the others went up-stairs, and said, 'Henry, have you nothing to say to me?'
Henry leant against the baluster and sobbed, not knowing what else to do.
'You can't be more grieved than I am to have such a last day together,' said his father, laying his hand on the yellow head; 'but I can't help it, you see. If you will do such things, it is my duty to make you repent of them.'
Hal threw himself almost double over the rail, and something was heard about 'sorry,' and 'never.'
'Poor little lad!' said his father aloud to himself; 'he is cut up enough now; but how am I to know if his sorrow is good for anything?'
'O Papa! I'll never do such a thing again!'
'I wish I knew that, Hal,' said the Captain, sitting down on the stairs, and taking him between his knees. 'There, let us talk it over together. I don't suppose you expected to steal and deceive when you got up in the morning.'
'Oh no, no!'
'Go back to the beginning. See how you came to this.'
As he waited for an answer, Hal mumbled out after some time, 'You said we need not go to church on a week-day.'
'Well, what of that?'
'I didn't go in case the telegraph should come.'
'There are different ways of thinking,' said his father. 'Church was the only place where I COULD have gone that St. Barnabas' Day.'
'I would have gone,' said the self-contradictory Henry, 'only the Grevilles are always at one for being like a girl.'
'Ha! now we see daylight!' said the Captain.
''The Grevilles are at one,'--that's more like getting to the bottom of it.'
'Yes, Papa,' said Hal, glad to make himself out a victim to circumstance; 'you can't think what a pair of fellows those are for not letting one alone; Purday says they haven't as much conscience between them as a pigeon's egg has meat; and going down to Mr. Carey's with them every day, they let one have no peace.'
'You will find people everywhere who will let you have no peace, unless you do not care for them; though you will not be left to the Grevilles any longer.'
'Yes, Papa; when I am away from them, you will see--'
'No, Hal, I shall not see, I shall hear.'
'Shall not I sail with you, then, Papa?'
'You will not sail at all: I thought you knew that.'
'I thought the Admiral must have given you two appointments,' said Hal timidly.
'He gave me ONE, for one of my sons. The first choice is Sam's right, even if he had not deserved it by his brave patient obedience.'
Hal hung his head; then said, 'But, Papa, if Sam broke down in his examination, please mightn't I--'
'No, Henry. Not only does your uncle say that though Sam's success is very doubtful, your inaccuracy would make your failure certain; but if your knowledge were ever so well up to the mark, I could not put you into the navy. Left to yourself here, you have been insubordinate, vain, weak, shuffling: can I let you go into greater temptation, where disgrace would be public and without remedy?'
'Oh, but, Papa! Papa! Away from the Grevilles, and not under only a governess--'
'You shall be away from the Grevilles, and not under a governess. Your uncle is kind enough to take you with him to his house, and will endeavour to make you fit to try to get upon the foundation by the time there is a vacancy.'
'O Papa! don't,' sobbed Henry.
'I can't help it, Hal! You have shown yourself unfit either for the sea or for home. What can I do with you?'
'Try me--only try me, Papa. I would--'
'I cannot go by what you say you would be, but what you are. Deeds, not words.'
'But if you won't let me go into the navy, only let me be in real school.'
'No, Henry; I have not the means of sending you there: excepting on the foundation; and if you get admittance
