Amos Huntingdon | Page 8

in my line; and yet I don't want to be quite without moral courage as well,--so will you promise me just two things?"
"What are they, Walter?"
"Why, the first is to give me a bit of a hint whenever you see me--what I suppose I ought to call acting like a moral coward."
"Well, dear boy, I can do that. But how am I to give the hint if others are by? for you would not like me to speak out before your father or the servants."
"I'll tell you, auntie, what you shall do--that is to say, of course, if you don't mind. Whenever you see me showing moral cowardice, or want of moral courage, and I suppose that comes much to the same thing, and you would like to give me a hint without speaking, would you put one of your hands quietly on the table, and then the other across it--just so--and leave them crossed till I notice them?"
"Yes, Walter, I can do that, and I will do it; though I daresay you will sometimes think me hard and severe."
"Never mind that, auntie; it will do me good."
"Well, dear boy, and what is the other thing I am to promise?"
"Why, this,--I want you, the first opportunity after the hint, when you and I are alone together, to tell me some story--it must be a true one, mind--of some good man or woman, or boy or girl, who has shown moral courage just where I didn't show it. `Example is better than precept,' they say, and I am sure it is a great help to me; for I shan't forget Christopher Columbus and his steady moral courage in a hurry."
"I am very glad to hear what you say, Walter," replied his aunt; "and it will give me great pleasure to do what you wish. My dear, dear nephew, I do earnestly desire to see you grow up into a truly noble man, and I want to be, as far as God permits me, in the place of a mother to you."
As Miss Huntingdon uttered these words with deep emotion, Walter flung his arms passionately round her, and, sinking on his knees, buried his face in her lap, while tears and sobs, such as he was little accustomed to give vent to, burst from him.
"O auntie!" he said vehemently, when he had a little recovered himself, "I know I am not what I ought to be, with all my dash and courage, which pleases father so much. I'm quite sure that there's a deal of humbug in me after all. It's very nice to please him, and to hear him praise me and call me brave; but I should like to please you too. It would be worth more, in one way, to have your praise, though father is very kind."
"Well, my dear boy, I hope you will be able to please me too, and, better still, to please God." She spoke gently and almost sadly as she said these words, kissing at the same time Walter's fair brow.
"I'm afraid, auntie," was the boy's reply, "I don't think much about that. But Amos does, I know; and though I laugh at him sometimes, yet I respect him for all that, and I believe he will turn out the true hero after all."
CHAPTER FOUR.
THE CRIPPLED HORSE.
Nature and circumstances had produced widely differing characters in the two brothers. Walter, forward enough by natural temperament, and ready to assert himself on all occasions, was brought more forward still and encouraged in self-esteem and self-indulgence, by the injudicious fondness of both his parents. Handsome in person, with a merry smile and a ripple of joyousness rarely absent from his bright face, he was the favourite of all guests at his father's house, and a sharer in their field-sports and pastimes. That his father and mother loved him better than they loved Amos it was impossible for him not to see; and, as he grew to mature boyhood, a feeling of envy, when he heard both parents regret that himself was not their heir, drew his heart further and further from his elder brother, and led him to exhibit what he considered his superiority to him as ostentatiously as possible, that all men might see what a mistake Nature had made in the order of time in which she had introduced the two sons into the family. Not that Walter really hated his brother; he would have been shocked to admit to himself the faintest shadow of such a feeling, for he was naturally generous and of warm affections; but he clearly looked upon his elder brother as decidedly in his way and in the wrong place, and often made a butt of him, considering it quite fair to play off his sarcasms and jokes on one