The Trial [134]
his own Aubrey's the prone and leaning one. And of the low whispering murmurs that reached his would-be deafened ear, the gasping almost sobbing tones were Aubrey's. The first distinct words that he could not help hearing were, 'No such thing! There can't be slavery where one works with a will!' and again, in reply to something unheard, 'Yes, one can! Why, how did one do one's Greek?'- -'Very different!'--'How?'--'Oh!'--'Yes; but you are a clever chap, and had her to teach you, but I only liked it because I'd got it to do. Just the same with the desk-work down at the mill; so it may be the same now.' Then came fragments of what poor Aubrey had expressed more than once at home--that his interest in life, in study, in sport, was all gone with his friend. 'Come, Aubrey, that's stuff. You'd have had to go to Cambridge, you know, without me, after I doggedly put myself at that place. There's just as much for you to do as ever there was.' 'How you keep on with your _do_!' cried Ethel's spoilt child, with a touch of petulance. 'Why, what are we come here for--into this world, I mean--but to _do_!' returned Leonard; 'and I take it, if we do it right, it does not much matter what or where it is.' 'I shan't have any heart for it!' sighed Aubrey. 'Nonsense! Not with all your people at home? and though the voice fell again, the Doctor's ears distinguished the murmur, 'Why, just the little things she let drop are the greatest help to me here, and you always have her--' Then ensued much that was quite inaudible, and at last Leonard said, 'No, old fellow; as long as you don't get ashamed of me, thinking about you, and knowing what you are about, will be one of the best pleasures I shall have. And look here, Aubrey, if we only consider it right, you and I will be just as really working together, when you are at your books, and I am making mats, as if we were both at Cambridge side by side! It is quite true, is it not, Dr. May?' he added, since the Doctor, finding it time to depart, had turned round to close the interview. 'Quite true, my boy,' said the Doctor; 'and I hope Aubrey will try to take comfort and spirit from it.' 'As if I could!' said Aubrey, impatiently, 'when it only makes me more mad to see what a fellow they have shut up in here!' 'Not mad, I hope,' said Dr. May; 'but I'll tell you what it should do for both of us, Aubrey. It should make us very careful to be worthy to remain his friends.' '0, Dr. May!' broke in Leonard, distressed. 'Yes,' returned Dr. May, 'I mean what I say, however you break in, Master Leonard. As long as this boy of mine is doing his best for the right motives, he will care for you as he does now--not quite in the same despairing way, of course, for holes in one's daily life do close themselves up with time--but if he slacks off in his respect or affection for you, then I shall begin to have fears of him. Now come away, Aubrey, and remember for your comfort it is not the good-bye it might have been,' he added, as he watched the mute intensity of the boys' farewell clasp of the hands; but even then had some difficulty in getting Aubrey away from the friend so much stronger as the consoler than as the consoled, and unconsciously showing how in the last twenty-four hours his mind had acted on the topics presented to him by Mr. Wilmot. Changed as he was from the impetuous boyish lad of a few weeks since, a change even more noticeable when with his contemporary than in intercourse with elder men, yet the nature was the same. Obstinacy had softened into constancy, pride into resolution, generosity made pardon less difficult, and elevation of temper bore him through many a humiliation that, through him, bitterly galled his brother. Whatever he might feel, prison regulations were accepted by him as matters of course, not worth being treated as separate grievances. He never showed any shrinking from the assumption of the convict dress, whilst Henry was fretting and wincing over the very notion of his wearing it, and trying to arrange that the farewell interview should precede its adoption.
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