Put Yourself in His Place [6]
that he dashed off a warm letter beginning--"My poor Edith, let bygones be bygones," and inviting her and her boy to live with him at Raby Hall.
The heart-broken widow sent back a reply, in a handwriting scarcely recognizable as hers. Instead of her usual precise and delicate hand, the letters were large, tremulous, and straggling, and the lines slanted downward.
"Write to me, speak to me, no more. For pity's sake let me forget there is a man in the world who is my brother and his murderer.
"EDITH."
Guy opened this letter with a hopeful face, and turned pale as ashes at the contents.
But his conscience was clear, and his spirit high. "Unjust idiot!" he muttered, and locked her letter up in his desk.
Next morning he received a letter from Joseph Little, in a clear, stiff, perpendicular writing:
"SIR,--I find my sister-in-law wrote you, yesterday, a harsh letter, which I do not approve; and have told her as much. Deceased's affairs were irretrievable, and I blame no other man for his rash act, which may God forgive! As to your kind and generous invitation, it deserves her gratitude; but Mrs. Little and myself have mingled our tears together over my poor brother's grave, and now we do not care to part. Before your esteemed favor came to hand, it had been settled she should leave this sad neighborhood and keep my house at Birmingham, where she will meet with due respect. I am only a small tradesman; but I can pay my debts, and keep the pot boiling. Will teach the boy some good trade, and make him a useful member of society, if I am spared.
"I am, sir, yours respectfully,
"JOSEPH LITTLE."
"Sir,--I beg to acknowledge, with thanks, your respectable letter.
"As all direct communication between Mrs. James Little and myself is at an end, oblige me with your address in Birmingham, that I may remit to you, half-yearly, as her agent, the small sum that has escaped bricks and mortar.
"When her son comes of age, she will probably forgive me for declining to defraud him of his patrimony.
"But it will be too late; for I shall never forgive her, alive or dead.
"I am, sir, your obedient servant,
"GUY RABY."
When he had posted this letter he turned Edith's picture to the wall, and wrote on the canvas--
"GONE INTO TRADE."
He sent for his attorney, made a new will, and bequeathed his land, houses, goods, and chattels, to Dissolute Dick and his heirs forever.
CHAPTER III.
The sorrowful widow was so fond of her little Henry, and the uncertainty of life was so burnt into her now, that she could hardly bear him out of her sight. Yet her love was of the true maternal stamp; not childish and self-indulgent. She kept him from school, for fear he should be brought home dead to her; but she gave her own mind with zeal to educate him. Nor was she unqualified. If she had less learning than school-masters, she knew better how to communicate what she did know to a budding mind. She taught him to read fluently, and to write beautifully; and she coaxed him, as only a woman can, over the dry elements of music and arithmetic. She also taught him dancing and deportment, and to sew on a button. He was a quick boy at nearly everything, but, when he was fourteen, his true genius went ahead of his mere talents; he showed a heaven-born gift for--carving in wood. This pleased Joseph Little hugely, and he fostered it judiciously.
The boy worked, and thought, and in time arrived at such delicacies of execution, he became discontented with the humdrum tools then current. "Then learn to make your own, boy," cried Joseph Little, joyfully; and so initiated him into the whole mystery of hardening, forging, grinding, handle-making, and cutlery: and Henry, young and enthusiastic, took his turn at them all in right down earnest.
At twenty, he had sold many a piece of delicate carving, and could make graving-tools incomparably superior to any he could buy; and, for his age, was an accomplished mechanic.
Joseph Little went the way of all flesh.
They mourned and missed
The heart-broken widow sent back a reply, in a handwriting scarcely recognizable as hers. Instead of her usual precise and delicate hand, the letters were large, tremulous, and straggling, and the lines slanted downward.
"Write to me, speak to me, no more. For pity's sake let me forget there is a man in the world who is my brother and his murderer.
"EDITH."
Guy opened this letter with a hopeful face, and turned pale as ashes at the contents.
But his conscience was clear, and his spirit high. "Unjust idiot!" he muttered, and locked her letter up in his desk.
Next morning he received a letter from Joseph Little, in a clear, stiff, perpendicular writing:
"SIR,--I find my sister-in-law wrote you, yesterday, a harsh letter, which I do not approve; and have told her as much. Deceased's affairs were irretrievable, and I blame no other man for his rash act, which may God forgive! As to your kind and generous invitation, it deserves her gratitude; but Mrs. Little and myself have mingled our tears together over my poor brother's grave, and now we do not care to part. Before your esteemed favor came to hand, it had been settled she should leave this sad neighborhood and keep my house at Birmingham, where she will meet with due respect. I am only a small tradesman; but I can pay my debts, and keep the pot boiling. Will teach the boy some good trade, and make him a useful member of society, if I am spared.
"I am, sir, yours respectfully,
"JOSEPH LITTLE."
"Sir,--I beg to acknowledge, with thanks, your respectable letter.
"As all direct communication between Mrs. James Little and myself is at an end, oblige me with your address in Birmingham, that I may remit to you, half-yearly, as her agent, the small sum that has escaped bricks and mortar.
"When her son comes of age, she will probably forgive me for declining to defraud him of his patrimony.
"But it will be too late; for I shall never forgive her, alive or dead.
"I am, sir, your obedient servant,
"GUY RABY."
When he had posted this letter he turned Edith's picture to the wall, and wrote on the canvas--
"GONE INTO TRADE."
He sent for his attorney, made a new will, and bequeathed his land, houses, goods, and chattels, to Dissolute Dick and his heirs forever.
CHAPTER III.
The sorrowful widow was so fond of her little Henry, and the uncertainty of life was so burnt into her now, that she could hardly bear him out of her sight. Yet her love was of the true maternal stamp; not childish and self-indulgent. She kept him from school, for fear he should be brought home dead to her; but she gave her own mind with zeal to educate him. Nor was she unqualified. If she had less learning than school-masters, she knew better how to communicate what she did know to a budding mind. She taught him to read fluently, and to write beautifully; and she coaxed him, as only a woman can, over the dry elements of music and arithmetic. She also taught him dancing and deportment, and to sew on a button. He was a quick boy at nearly everything, but, when he was fourteen, his true genius went ahead of his mere talents; he showed a heaven-born gift for--carving in wood. This pleased Joseph Little hugely, and he fostered it judiciously.
The boy worked, and thought, and in time arrived at such delicacies of execution, he became discontented with the humdrum tools then current. "Then learn to make your own, boy," cried Joseph Little, joyfully; and so initiated him into the whole mystery of hardening, forging, grinding, handle-making, and cutlery: and Henry, young and enthusiastic, took his turn at them all in right down earnest.
At twenty, he had sold many a piece of delicate carving, and could make graving-tools incomparably superior to any he could buy; and, for his age, was an accomplished mechanic.
Joseph Little went the way of all flesh.
They mourned and missed