The Monctons Part 7

"Most gladly would I do so, had not Robert Moncton put the finishing stroke to his tyranny, by tearing my indentures, and by this malicious act destroyed the labour of seven years."

"The scoundrel! the mean, cowardly scoundrel!" cried Sir Alexander, striking the table with such violence with his clenched hand, that kings, queens, knights, bishops and commoners made a general movement to the other side of the chess-board. "Never mind, Geoffrey, my boy, give me your hand--I will be your friend. I will restore you to your rights, if it costs me the last shilling in my purse--ay, or the last drop in my veins. Let the future for a short time take care of itself.

Make this your home; look upon me as your father, and we shall yet live to see this villain reap the reward of his evil deeds."

"Generous, n.o.ble man!" I cried, while tears of joy and grat.i.tude rolled down my cheeks: "how can I ever hope to repay you for such disinterested goodness?"

"By never alluding to the subject, Geoffrey. Give me back the love your father once felt for me, and I shall be more than repaid.

Besides, my lad, I am neither so good nor so disinterested as you give me credit for. I detest, despise that uncle of yours, and I know the best way to annoy him is to befriend you, and get you safe out of his villainous clutches. This is hardly doing as I would be done by, but I can't help it. No one blames another for taking a fly out of a spider's web, when the poor devil is shrieking for help, although he be the spider's lawful prey; but who does not applaud a man for rescuing his fellow man from the grasp of a scoundrel! By-the-by, Geoffrey," added he, "have you dined?"

"At the last inn we stopped at on the road."

"The Hart; a place not very famous for good cheer. Their beef is generally as hard as their deer's horns. Let me order up refreshments."

"By no means. You forget, Sir Alexander, that of late I have not been much used to good living. The friend on whose charity I have been boarding is a poor fellow like myself."

"Well, we must have our chat over a gla.s.s of old wine."

He rang the bell. The wine was soon placed upon the table, and most excellent wine it proved. I was weak from my long confinement to a sick chamber, and tired with my long journey; I never enjoyed a gla.s.s of wine so much in my life.

"What do you think of Moncton, Geoffrey?"

"It is a glorious old place."

"Wish it were yours--don't you? Confess the truth, now."

"Some fifty years hence," said I, laughing.

"You would then be too old to enjoy it, Geoffrey; but wait patiently G.o.d's good time, and it may be yours yet. There was a period in my life," and he sighed a long, deep, regretful sigh, "when I hoped that a son of mine would be master here, but as that cannot be, I am doomed to leave no male heir to my name and t.i.tle, I know no one whom I would rather see in the old place than my cousin Edward's son."

"Your attachment to my father must have been great, when, after so many years, you extend it to his son."

"Yes, Geoffrey, I loved that wild, mad-cap father of yours better than I ever loved any man; but I suffered one rash action to separate hearts formed by nature to understand and appreciate each other. You are not acquainted with this portion of the family history. Pa.s.s the bottle this way, and I will enlighten your ignorance."

"When your grandfather, in the plenitude of his worldly wisdom (for he had a deal of the fox in his character), left the guardianship of his sons to his aged father, it was out of no respect for the old gentleman, whom had cast him off rather unceremoniously, when his plebeian tastes led him to prefer being a rich citizen, rather than a poor gentleman; but he found, that though he ama.s.sed riches, he had lost caste, and he hoped by this act to restore his sons, for whom he had acquired wealth, to their proper position in society.

"My grandfather, Sir Robert, grumbled a good deal at being troubled with the guardianship of the lads in his old age. But when he saw those youthful scions of his old house, he was so struck with their beauty and talents, that from that hour they held an equal place in his affections with myself, the only child of his eldest son, and heir to his estates.

"I was an extravagant, reckless young fellow of eighteen, when my cousins first came to live at Moncton; and I hailed their advent with delight. Edward, I told you before, had been an old chum of mine at school; and when Robert was placed in a lawyer's office, he accompanied me to college to finish my education. He was intended to fill his father's place in the mercantile world, but he had little talent or inclination for such a life. All his tastes were decidedly aristocratic, and I fear that my expensive and dissipated habits operated unfavourably on his open, generous, social disposition.

"With a thousand good qualities, and possessing excellent qualities, Edward Moncton was easily led astray by the bad example of others. He was a fine musician, had an admirable voice, a brilliant wit, and great fluency of speech, which can scarcely be called advantageous gifts, to those who don't know how to make a proper use of them. He was the life of the society in which we moved, courted and admired wherever he went, and a jolly time we had of it, I can tell you, in those cla.s.sical abodes of learning, and frequently of sin.

"Edward gave me his whole heart, and I loved him with the most entire affection. But, though I saw that my example acted most perniciously on his easy disposition, I wanted the moral courage to give up a course of gaiety, in order to save him from ruin.

"Poor Edward!--I would give worlds to recall the past. But the bad seed was sown, and in time we reaped the bitter fruits.

"With all my faults, I was never a gambler; women, wine, and extravagant living, were my chief derelictions from the paths of rect.i.tude. But even while yielding to these temptations, I was neither an habitual drunkard nor a profligate, though I frequented haunts, where both characters were constantly found, and ranked many such men among my chosen friends and a.s.sociates. My moral guilt, was perhaps as great as theirs; for it is vain for a man to boast of his not being intemperate, because nature has furnished him with nerves which enable him to drink, in defiance to reason, quant.i.ties which would deprive the larger portion of men of their senses.

"Your father thought, boy like (for he was full three years my junior), to prove his t.i.tle to manhood by following closely in my steps, and too soon felt the evil effects of such a leader. He wasted his health in debauchery, and wine maddened him. The gaming-table held out its allurements, he wanted fort.i.tude to resist its temptation, and was the loser to a considerable amount. He kept this a secret from me.

He was a minor, and he feared that it might reach my grandfather's ears, and that Sir Robert would stop the supplies, until his debts were paid. I heard of it through a mutual friend, and very consistently imagined the crime far greater than any that I had committed.

"The night before we left college, I followed him to his favourite rendezvous, held in the rooms of a certain young n.o.bleman, unknown to the authorities, where students who were known to belong to wealthy parents, met to play hazard and ecarte, and lose more money at a sitting, than could be replaced by the economy of years.

"I was not one of Lord ----'s clique, and I sent my card to Edward by a friend, requesting to speak to him on a matter of importance. After some delay, he came out to me. He was not pleased at being disturbed, and was much flushed with wine.

"'What do you want, Alick?' said he, in no very gentle tones.

"'I want you to come and help me prepare for our journey to-morrow.'

"'There will be plenty of time for that, by-and-by. I am engaged, and don't choose to be dictated to like a school-boy.'

"'You are mad,' said I, taking hold of his arm, 'to go there at all.

Those fellows will cheat you out of every penny you have.'

"'That's my own look-out. I tell you once for all, Alick, I don't choose you to ride rough-shod over me, because you fancy yourself superior. I will do as I please. I have lost a deal of money to-night, and I mean to play on until I win it back.'

"You will only lose more. You are not in a fit state to deal with sharpers. You are so tipsy now, you can hardly stand.'

"As I said this, I put my arm around him to lead him away, when he, maddened I suppose by drink and his recent losses, burst from me, and turning sharp round, struck me a violent blow on the face. 'Let that satisfy you, whether I am drunk or sober,' he exclaimed, and with a bitter laugh, returned to the party he had quitted.

"Geoffrey, I felt that blow in my heart. The disgrace was little in comparison to the consciousness that it came from his hand--the hand of the friend I loved. I could have returned the injury with ten-fold interest; but I did nothing of the sort. I stood looking after him with dim eyes and a swelling heart, repeating to myself--

"'Is it possible that Edward struck me?'

"That blow, however, achieved a great moral reformation. It led me to think--to examine my past life, and to renounce for ever those follies, which I now felt were debasing to both soul and body, and unworthy the pursuit of any rational creature.

"The world expected me, as a gentleman, to ask satisfaction of Edward for the insult I had received.

"I set the, world and its false laws at defiance.

"I returned to my lodgings and wrote him a brief note, telling him that I forgave him, and gently remonstrating with him on the violence of his conduct.

"Instead of answering, or apologizing for what he had done, he listened to the advice of a pack of senseless idiots, who denounced me as a coward, and lauded his rash act to the skies.

"To seek a reconciliation, would be to lose his independence, they said, and prove to the world that he had been in the wrong. I, on my part, was too proud to solicit his friendship, and left London before the effort of mutual friends had effected a change in his feelings.

"Perhaps, as the injurer, he never forgave me for being the originator of the quarrel: be that as it may, we never met again. My grandfather died shortly after. I formed an unfortunate attachment to a person far beneath me in rank, and but for the horror of entailing upon myself her worthless mother, would certainly have made her my wife. To avoid falling into this snare, I went abroad for several years, and ultimately married a virtuous and lovely woman, and became a happy husband and father, and I hope a better man."

The Baronet ceased speaking for a few minutes, then said with a half smile.

"Geoffrey, men are sad fools. After losing that angel, I came very near marrying my old flame, who was a widow at the time, and as handsome as ever. She died most opportunely, I am now convinced, for my comfort and respectability, and I gave up all idea of taking a second wife."

This account tallied exactly with Harrison's story, which had given me a key to the Baronet's history. I inquired, rather anxiously, if he and my father remained unreconciled up to the period of his death.

"'I wrote to him frequently, Geoffrey,' he replied, 'when time had healed the wound he inflicted on my heart, but he never condescended to reply to any of my communications. I have since thought that he _did_ write, and that his brother Robert, who was always jealous of our friendship, destroyed the letters. I a.s.sure you, that this unnatural estrangement formed one of the saddest events in my life; and for the love I still bear his memory, I will never desert his orphan son.'"

I thanked the worthy Baronet again and again, for the generous treatment I had received from him, and we parted at a late hour, mutually pleased with each other.