Afghanistan and the Anglo-Russian Dispute | Page 7

little, accidentally, of the forms that had been gone
through in proving the instrument, and of obtaining its probate. Shortly
after my mother's death, however, Mr. Hardinge had a free
conversation with both me and Grace on the subject, when we learned,
for the first time, the disposition that had been made. My father had
bequeathed to me the farm, mill, landing, sloop, stock, utensils, crops,
&c. &c., in full property; subject, however, to my mother's use of the
whole until I attained my majority; after which I was to give her
complete possession of a comfortable wing of the house, which had
every convenience for a small family within itself, certain privileges in
the fields, dairy, styes, orchards, meadows, granaries, &c., and to pay
her three hundred pounds currency, per annum, in money. Grace had
four thousand pounds that were "at use," and I had all the remainder of
the personal property, which yielded about five hundred dollars a-year.
As the farm, sloop, mill, landing, &c., produced a net annual income of
rather more than a thousand dollars, besides all that was consumed in
housekeeping, I was very well off, in the way of temporal things, for
one who had been trained in habits as simple as those which reigned at
Clawbonny.
My father had left Mr. Hardinge the executor, and my mother an
executrix of his will, with survivorship. He had also made the same
provision as respected the guardians. Thus Grace and I became the
wards of the clergyman alone on the death of our last remaining parent.
This was grateful to us both, for we both truly loved this good man, and,
what was more, we loved his children. Of these there were two of ages

corresponding very nearly with our own; Rupert Hardinge being not
quite a year older than I was myself, and Lucy, his sister, about six
months younger than Grace. We were all four strongly attached to each
other, and had been so from infancy, Mr. Hardinge having had charge
of my education as soon as I was taken from a woman's school.
I cannot say, however, that Rupert Hardinge was ever a boy to give his
father the delight that a studious, well-conducted, considerate and
industrious child, has it so much in his power to yield to his parent. Of
the two, I was much the best scholar, and had been pronounced by Mr.
Hardinge fit to enter college, a twelvemonth before my mother died;
though she declined sending me to Yale, the institution selected by my
father, until my school-fellow was similarly prepared, it having been
her intention to give the clergyman's son a thorough education, in
furtherance of his father's views of bringing him up to the church. This
delay, so well and kindly meant, had the effect of changing the whole
course of my subsequent life.
My father, it seems, wished to make a lawyer of me, with the natural
desire of seeing me advanced to some honourable position in the State.
But I was averse to anything like serious mental labour, and was
greatly delighted when my mother determined to keep me out of
college a twelvemonth in order that my friend Rupert might be my
classmate. It is true I learned quick, and was fond of reading; but the
first I could not very well help, while the reading I liked was that which
amused, rather than that which instructed me. As for Rupert, though not
absolutely dull, but, on the other hand, absolutely clever in certain
things, he disliked mental labour even more than myself, while he liked
self-restraint of any sort far less. His father was sincerely pious, and
regarded his sacred office with too much reverence to think of bringing
up a "cosset-priest," though he prayed and hoped that his son's
inclinations, under the guidance of Providence, would take that
direction. He seldom spoke on the subject himself, but I ascertained his
wishes through my confidential dialogues with his children. Lucy
seemed delighted with the idea, looking forward to the time when her
brother would officiate in the same desk where her father and
grandfather had now conducted the worship of God for more than half

a century; a period of time that, to us young people, seemed to lead us
back to the dark ages of the country. And all this the dear girl wished
for her brother, in connection with his spiritual rather than his temporal
interests, inasmuch as the living was worth only a badly-paid salary of
one hundred and fifty pounds currency per annum, together with a
small but comfortable rectory, and a glebe of five-and-twenty acres of
very tolerable land, which it was thought no sin, in that day, for the
clergyman to work by means of two male slaves,