Amos Huntingdon | Page 5

his mother looked forward to his holidays with more of apprehension than rejoicing.
There was one, however, who felt for that desolate-hearted child, and loved him with a mother's tenderness. This was his aunt, Miss Huntingdon, his father's unmarried and only sister. Half his holidays would be spent at her house; and oh, what happy days they were for him! Happy, too, at last in the brightest and fullest sense; for that loving friend was privileged to lead her nephew gently to Him who says to the shy schoolboy, as much as to the mature man, in his sorrows, "Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy-laden, and I will give you rest."
In the meanwhile, when Amos was five years old, another son was born at Flixworth Manor. The baby was christened Walter, and nearly all the love that was the share of the elder brother was poured by both father and mother on the younger son. Years rolled on, and when our story opens Amos was twenty-two years of age. He had passed creditably through the university course at Oxford, but had not settled down to any profession. Walter was seventeen; his father's delight and constant companion in his holidays; full of life, energy, and fun, with an unlimited good opinion of himself, and a very limited good opinion of his brother; while all around who knew him only a little were loud in his praises, which were not, however, echoed by those who knew him more thoroughly. At present he was remaining at home, after completing his school education, neither his father nor himself being able to make up their minds as to the sphere in which his abilities would shine the best.
And where was his sister, the eldest of the three, who was now twenty- five years of age? Alas! she had grievously disappointed the hopes of both father and mother, having clandestinely married, when not yet arrived at womanhood, a man altogether beneath her in position. From the day of that marriage Mr Huntingdon's heart and house were closed against her. Not so the heart of her mother; but that mother pleaded with her husband in vain for a reconciliation, for permission even to have a single meeting with her erring child. And so the poor mother's mind came under partial eclipse, and herself had been some years away from home under private superintendence, when the accident above recorded occurred to her husband and his sister.
CHAPTER THREE.
A TALK AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE.
The morning after the accident, Miss Huntingdon, who was now keeping her brother's house, and had been returning with him the night before after a visit to a friend, appeared as usual at the breakfast-table, rather to Mr Huntingdon's surprise.
"My dear Kate," he said, "I hardly expected to see you at breakfast, after your fright, and shaking, and bruising. Most ladies would have spent the morning in bed; but I am delighted to see you, and take it for granted that you are not seriously the worse for the mishap."
"Thank you, dear Walter," was her reply; "I cannot say that I feel very brilliant this morning, but I thought it would be kinder in me to show myself, and so relieve you from all anxiety, as I have been mercifully preserved from anything worse than a severe shaking, the effects of which will wear off in a day or two, I have no doubt."
"Well, Kate, I must say it's just like yourself, never thinking of your own feelings when you can save other people's. Why, you are almost as brave as our hero Walter, who risked his own neck to get us out of our trouble last night.--Ah! here he comes, and Amos after him. Well, that's perhaps as it should be--honour to whom honour is due."
A cloud rested on Miss Huntingdon's face as she heard these last words, and it was deepened as she observed a smile of evident exultation on the countenance of her younger nephew, as he glanced at the flushed face of his elder brother. But now all seated themselves at the table, and the previous evening's disaster was the all-absorbing topic of conversation.
"Well," said the squire, "things might have been worse, no doubt, though it may be some time before the horses will get over their fright, and the carriage must go to the coachmaker's at once.--By-the-by, Harry," speaking to the butler, who was waiting at table, "just tell James, when you have cleared away breakfast, to see to that fence at once. It must be made a good substantial job of, or we shall have broken bones, and broken necks too, perhaps, one of these days."
"I hope, Walter," said his sister, "the horses were not seriously injured."
"No, I think not," was his reply; "nothing very much to speak of.