“I believe about £2000 would cover them,” returned Leicester.
“Then I’ll clear you, old fellow,” replied Lord Bellefield, clapping him on the shoulder, “and you shall marry your rich bride a free man.”
“My dear Bellefield, I can’t allow it--you are too kind--I--I really don’t know how to thank you--I can’t think what’s come to everybody this morning,” cried poor Charley, as, fairly overpowered by his good fortune, he seized Lord Bellefield’s hand and wrung it warmly. At that moment those two men, each warped and hardened differently, as their dispositions differed, by the world’s evil influence, felt more as brothers should feel towards each other than they had done since they played together years ago as little children at their mother’s knee. With one the kindly feeling thus revived was never again entirely forgotten; with the other--but we will not anticipate.
CHAPTER XXVIII.--BEGINS ABRUPTLY AND ENDS UNCOMFORTABLY.
“Well, what is it? for I can see by your eyes that you have something you wish to ask me, Walter,” observed Lewis, as his pupil stood before him nervously moving his feet and twisting the lash of a dog-whip round his hands.
“Only Millar wanted--that is, he didn’t want, but he said he would take me out with him to see him shoot those great pretty birds.”
“Yes, to see him shoot pheasants,” continued Walter, “if you would let me go. Millar says,” he added, seeing that Lewis appeared doubtful, “Millar says all real gentlemen like shooting, and that I’m quite old enough to learn.”
One great change wrought in Walter since he had been under Lewis’s direction--a change from which his tutor augured the most favourable results--was the almost total disappearance of those fits of morbid despondency and indifference to external objects, at times almost amounting to unconscious imbecility, to which he had formerly been subject; it was therefore a part of Lewis’s system to encourage him to follow up vigorously any pursuit for which he evinced the slightest predilection; indeed, so effectual a means did he consider this of arousing his faculties, that he often sacrificed to it the daily routine of mechanical teaching. Having, therefore, run over in his mind the pros and cons, and decided that if he accompanied his pupil no danger could accrue, he graciously gave his consent, and having encased his feet in a stout pair of boots, and seen that Walter followed his example, both master and pupil hastened to the stable-yard to join the worthy individual with whom the expedition had originated.