Chapter VI

Moments there are in life--alas! how few
When casting cold prudential doubts aside,
We take a generous impulse for our guide;
And following promptly what the heart thinks best,
Commit to Providence the rest;
Sure that no after reckoning will arise
Of shame or sorrow--for the heart is wise.
OLIVER NEWMAN.

The following day, Mrs. De Grey and Ernest set off for Berners-street. She said little as they went along, and that little was rather intended to damp than to excite his expectations. She herself scarcely knew what to hope or think; that he intended to do something for Ernest she could not but suppose, but the idea that presented itself, “India,” was a saddening one to her. Of Mr. Watts himself she had little remembrance, though with the once familiar name visions began to return of a little old man,--so her fancy pictured him,--who used to kiss and pinch her cheeks somewhat too heartily.

They reached the door, rang the bell, and were admitted by an old servant, who shut them into a room without a fire, and with both windows open.

Mrs. De Grey sat down; Ernest wandered restlessly about, gazed at some stuffed birds without seeing them; stared at the clock, and wondered what o’clock it was, without perceiving that the clock had stopped and the hands were off.

At last the door was opened, and the little wizened, paralytic old man was wheeled into the room. He took no notice till the door was shut, and the servant gone, then, quietly stretching out his hand, he said, “How d’ye do, Gertrude?”

Something of old familiarity, of former days and former friendship, stole over Mrs. De Grey at the sight of him.

There is so strange a freshness in the remembrance of the friends of our early years, that of them it may be truly said, “There is no such thing as forgetting possible.” The memory may seem to be effaced for a time, but when it does awake, it awakes perfect, as it was: there is nothing to be done; we meet as we parted. No after friendships have this peculiarity.

“The friendships of our youth are often seen
To share the freshness of those vernal years,
And spite of hardening trials, withering cares,
Deep in the heart to blossom ever green;
Needing but few soft breezes sweeping o’er,
To bid them lift their heads and bloom once more.”

“You see we have obeyed you,” she said with a smile, as she drew her chair nearer to him.

“Ah! Gertrude,” he said, looking at her and shaking his head; “I shouldn’t have known you. Where is the dirty pinafore and the long fair hair?”

She smiled, and then sighed. Her thoughts were flowing strangely back to the merry days of her childhood; and upon her ear there came the sound of a light laughing voice, long hushed in death.

The old man contemplated her, and his thoughts seemed to follow hers. He held out his shrivelled hand again; in the movement his head turned, and his eyes fell on Ernest, who had withdrawn himself to the window.

“Who’s that?” he said in a startled voice.

Mrs. De Grey roused herself, and looked up. The shrivelled hand was pointing at Ernest, and the small grey eyes were darting from under the pent and shaggy brows.

“That is Ernest, my son,” she said.

The head dropped, and the eyes closed, and he remarked mournfully, “The old dotard thought it was Harry.”

“He is like--very like--” said Mrs. De Grey, almost for the first time struck with the greatness of the likeness.

“Ah! Gertrude,” exclaimed the old man again; and he dashed his shrivelled hand across his eyes. “But this is behaving like an old doting fool. Come here, young man; let me look at you.”

Ernest approached, and stood before him, too much occupied in examining the strange old being to feel awkward beneath his scrutiny.

“What is your name, young man?” he began, like the Catechism.

“Ernest.”

“That’s a fool’s name; I’m ashamed of you, Gertrude.”

“It is my husband’s name,” she said with a smile.

“The more fool he! Why isn’t he Mark, or John, or Thomas? I hate your new-fangled names. How old are you, Mr. Ernest?”

“Sixteen.”

“It’s a bad age, now-a-days at least; all the boys think they are men; empty-headed coxcombs, I hate the sight of them! Look there!” he said, nodding his head out of window; “look at him! five-foot high, and a cigar in his mouth--addling his brains with smoke--thinks himself a king. Draw down the blinds, Mr. Ernest; I hate the sight of him!”

Ernest obeyed, laughing.

“Sit down, young man, I want to speak to you. What did you come here for?” and he fixed his penetrating eyes on the boy’s face.

Ernest coloured, and laughed again.

“Did you expect to get anything out of me? answer me that.”

Youth, it is said, is acute in perception. Mrs. De Grey might have been puzzled to answer this home question; but Ernest, without apparent thought or reflection upon what it would be _best_ to say, answered steadily, though with a colour mounting to his temples:--

“Not _expected_, but _hoped_.”

“You did, did you,” exclaimed the old man in extreme delight. “Well, young man, you shan’t be disappointed. I can’t do much, but I’ll do something. I know you think I’m rich; I’m not, I tell you; I’ve just enough, and that’s all. I hate your money making; I always did. I might have had more, if I pleased, but I didn’t want it; and if I had it I shouldn’t give it you. I tell you I shouldn’t! I like young men to work. Now listen to me, Mr. Ernest. There are but two professions in the world--so I think, at least. I hate your lawyers; they’re all rogues. I hate your physicians; they’re all quacks. Sailors are necessary evils; I hate their noise; I’ve had enough of them. There are but two, the army and the church: fight for your country, or take your countrymen to Heaven. Now, Mr. Ernest, listen to me. I give you your choice; I’ll buy you a commission, or I’ll send you to college, as you please; take your choice; but mind this, if I buy a commission, it will be in a good marching regiment: I’ll have none of your Guards, none of your swaggering puppies; you shall see the world--work your way. Now take your choice.”

Ernest sat with downcast eyes; he would not, dared not speak, but his heart was beating as if it would have leapt from the feeble bonds that withheld it. The object of his existence was attained: the loss of what he had so much loved had been then but to bring him to this, the gratification of the first and strongest passion of his nature.

There was a silence--a short one, but it seemed an age. It was broken by Mrs. De Grey. With her quiet smile, and soft voice, and with that steady, serene manner which is so often a covering to deep emotion and inward struggle, she said,

“We shall not be long in making a choice; Ernest is already in heart a soldier.”

“I didn’t speak to you, Gertrude,” cried the old man sharply; “let Mr. Ernest speak for himself.”

There are moments in life--single moments in duration,--yet in their consequences so weighty, in operation so wonderful, so full of thought, feeling, and action, that they seem to rise out of time, and to belong rather to that state of being when time shall be no more. Such a moment was that now passed by Ernest De Grey. In that moment he lived whole years of life; thought as he never had thought before; pondered upon life, and its meaning; weighed, conquered, armed himself; caught from his mother her quiet spirit of self-conquest; and calling into memory all her love for him, repaid it with a love and devotion which contained within itself the sacrifice of his existence. It was but a moment; he then looked up at the old man, and said,

“I choose the Church.”

“Ernest!” exclaimed his mother in a tone of warning, anxious, loving remonstrance. She saw his fading colour, his eye averted from herself; she read the sacrifice, and for the moment refused to suffer it to be made.

“My dear Gertrude, will you be still?” said the old man impatiently; “Mr. Ernest is old enough to decide for himself. Don’t you speak another word. Well, young man, is your mind made up; I ask once more, and once only. I’ll have no shifting and shuffling afterwards. Take your choice.”

“My mind is quite made up,” Ernest repeated. He got up, approached his mother and kissed her; and then looking at her with his clear, truthful eyes, said, “I know that you think I have made a great sacrifice; but, mother, it is no sacrifice since I feel that it pleases you.”

Mrs. De Grey raised her eyes to his face, but said nothing; not for worlds would she have further opposed his will; not for worlds would she have refused the offering he made to her love, not for worlds would she have deprived him of the blessing that rests upon the conquest of a selfish passion; and yet she felt at the moment a very certain truth, that there is often as much heroism in submitting to the fulfilment of our wishes as there is in conquering them.

The old man held out his hand; Ernest took it and thanked him.

“I won’t be thanked!” he cried, impatiently; “what are thanks good for? I hate them. Do your duty, young man, and I shall be thanked enough. But that wasn’t what I’d got to say; what I’d got to say was this.” He paused, and taking the young, healthful, vigorous hand between his trembling, shrivelled fingers, continued with a slow, reverent manner, “God bless you, Mr. Ernest! may the blessing of an old man rest upon you all your life long! It isn’t a light thing--don’t forget that you have had it. And now go away,” he dropped his hand; “go away both of you, and never come again. I don’t want to see you any more. Go away, Gertrude, and mind what I say; don’t come again. I tell you I won’t see you,” he said, raising his voice impatiently, as a few words of earnest remonstrance fell from Mrs. De Grey. “I know what I wish, and I will have my way. I will have no sweet, young, loving, innocent faces to tie me and bind me to the world I want to get free from. Go away--go away, and never come again. I won’t see you, I tell you,--I won’t. I turn away the first servant who lets you into the house.” He waved his hands impatiently, till alarmed at his excitement, they both left the room. He kept his word,--he saw them no more.