was needless to explain why, for every body saw the intended joke, and Gabriel returned instantly from the study saying that the handkerchief was not there.
“No matter,” said Mr. Gray. “Are you all ready, boys. Now, then—one, two, three!”
As the word left Mr. Gray’s lips, Gabriel, candid, full of spirit, jumped up from his seat with the energy of his effort, and shouted out at the top of his voice,
“Hope Wayne!”
—It was cruel. That name alone broke the silence, ringing out in enthusiastic music.
Gabriel’s face instantly changed. Still standing erect and dismayed, he looked rapidly around the room from boy to boy, and at Mr. Gray. There was just a moment of utter silence, and then a loud peal of laughter.
Gabriel’s color came and went. His heart winced, but not his eye. Young hearts are tender, and a joke like this cuts deeply. But just as he was about to yield, and drop the tell-tale tear of a sensitive, mortified boy, he caught the eye of Abel Newt. It was calmly studying him as a Roman surgeon may have watched the gladiator in the arena, while his life-blood ebbed away. Gabriel remembered Abel’s words in the play-ground—“There’s more than one kind of fagging.”
When the laugh was over, Gabriel’s had been loudest of all.
CHAPTER VII. — CASTLE DANGEROUS.
The next day when school was dismissed, Abel asked leave to stroll out of bounds. He pushed along the road, whistling cheerily, whipping the road-side grass and weeds with his little ratan, and all the while approaching the foot of the hill up which the road wound through the estate of Pinewood. As he turned up the hill he walked more slowly, and presently stopped and leaned upon a pair of bars which guarded the entrance of one of Mr. Burt’s pastures. He gazed for some time down into the rich green field that sloped away from the road toward a little bowery stream, but still whistled, as if he were looking into his mind rather than at the landscape.
After leaning and musing and vaguely whistling, he turned up the hill again and continued his walk.
At length he reached the entrance of Pinewood—a high iron gate, between huge stone posts, on the tops of which were urns overflowing with vines, that hung down and partly tapestried the columns. Immediately upon entering the grounds the carriage avenue wound away from the gate, so that the passer-by could see nothing as he looked through but the hedge which skirted and concealed the lawn. The fence upon the road was a high, solid stone wall, along whose top clustered a dense shrubbery, so that, although the land rose from the road toward the house, the lawn was entirely sequestered; and you might sit upon it and enjoy the pleasant rural prospect of fields, woods, and hills, without being seen from the road. The house itself was a stately, formal mansion. Its light color contrasted well with the lofty pine-trees around it. But they, in turn, invested it with an air of secrecy and gloom, unrelieved by flowers or blossoming shrubs, of which there were no traces near the house, although in the rear there was a garden so formally regular that it looked like a penitentiary for flowers.
These were the pine-trees that Hope Wayne had heard sing all her life—but sing like the ocean, not like birds or human voices. In the black autumn midnights they struggled with the north winds that smote them fiercely and filled the night with uproar, while the child cowering in her bed thought of wrecks on pitiless shores—of drowning mothers and hapless children. Through the summer nights they sighed. But it was not a lullaby—it was not a serenade. It was the croning of a Norland enchantress, and young Hope sat at her open window, looking out into the moonlight, and listening.
Abel Newt opened the gate and passed in. He walked along the avenue, from which the lawn was still hidden by the skirting hedge, went up the steps, and rang the bell.
“Is Mr. Burt at home?” he asked, quietly.
“This way, Sir,” said the nimble Hiram, going before, but half turning and studying the visitor as he spoke, and quite unable to comprehend him at a glance. “I will speak to him.”
Abel Newt was shown into a large drawing-room. The furniture was draped for the season in cool-colored chintz. There was a straw matting upon the floor. The chandeliers and candelabras were covered with muslin, and heavy muslin curtains hung over the windows. The tables and chairs were of a clumsy old-fashioned pattern, with feet in the form of claws clasping balls, and a generally stiff, stately, and uncomfortable air. The fire-place was covered by a heavy painted fire-board. The polished brass andirons, which seemed to feel the whole weight of responsibility in supporting the family dignity, stood across the hearth, belligerently bright, and there were sprays of asparagus in a china vase in front of them. A few pictures hung upon the wall—family portraits, Abel thought; at least old Christopher was there, painted at the age of ten, standing, in very clean attire, holding a book in one hand and a hoop in the other. The picture was amusing, and looked to Abel symbolical, representing the model boy, equally devoted to study and play. That singular sneering smile flitted over his face as he muttered, “The Reverend Gabriel Bennet!”
There were a few books upon the centre-table, carefully placed and balanced as if they had been porcelain ornaments. The bindings and the edges of the leaves had a fresh, unworn look. The outer window-blinds were closed, and the whole room had a chilly formality and dimness which was not hospitable nor by any means inspiring.
Abel seated himself in an easy-chair, and was still smiling at the portrait of Master Christopher Burt at the age of ten, when that gentleman, at the age of seventy-three, was heard in the hall. Hiram had left the door open, so that Abel had full notice of his approach, and rose just before the old gentleman entered, and stood with his cap in his hand and his head slightly bent.
Old Burt came into the room, and said, a little fiercely, as he saw the visitor,
“Well, Sir!”
Abel bowed.
“Well, Sir!” he repeated, more blandly, apparently mollified by something in the appearance of the youth.
“Mr. Burt,” said Abel, “I am sure you will excuse me when you understand the object of my call; although I am fully aware of the liberty I am taking in intruding upon your valuable time and the many important cares which must occupy the attention of a gentleman so universally known, honored, and loved in the community as you are, Sir.”
“Did you come here to compliment me, Sir?” asked Mr. Burt. “You’ve got some kind of subscription paper, I suppose.” The old gentleman began to warm up as he thought of it. “But I can’t give any thing. I never do—I never will. It’s an infernal swindle. Some deuced Missionary Society, or Tract Society, or Bible Society, some damnable doing-good society, that bleeds the entire community, has sent you up here, Sir, to suck money out of me with your smooth face. They’re always at it. They’re always sending boys, and ministers in the milk, by Jove! and women that talk in a way to turn the milk sour in the cellar, Sir, and who have already turned themselves sour in the face, Sir, and whom a man can’t turn out of doors, Sir, to swindle money out of innocent people! I tell you, young man, ‘twon’t work! I’ll, be whipped if I give you a solitary red cent!” And Christopher Burt, in a fine wrath, seated himself by the table, and wiped his forehead.
Abel stood patiently and meekly under this gust of fury, and when it was ended, and Mr. Burt was a little composed,
