Vellenaux | Page 8

the partridges
have been so plump or in such numbers, but had hoped to have had
your company this morning, but perhaps to-morrow."
"So I have heard, but you must really excuse me, it used to be my chief
delight to shoot over the grounds and preserves on a fine autumn
morning like the present one, but it is too much for me now, and I have
given it up, but I like my friends to enjoy it. How long can you stay this

time?"
"Only three days; I cannot be absent from town more than that, but it is
well worth the journey to shoot over a friends property, even if only for
three days."
"Then you must make the most of your time; old Tom the game-keeper
will show you the best covers and general shooting ground. I wish you
could have remained for a week or two, the young fellows belonging to
the neighboring families will be home from school and college, and
there will be plenty of popping then, I promise you. Ah! that reminds
me that Arthur Carlton has finished his education, and is coming home,
and it is not my intention that he should again return to Oxford; and
now we are alone and not likely to be disturbed, I wish you would give
me your opinion as to what profession or occupation it would be best
for him to embark in. I should like to give the youngster a fair start in
life. I have given him the education of a gentleman, and I should like
him to retain that position."
This was the turn in the conversation the lawyer had been anxiously
waiting for, but he seemed in no hurry to take advantage of it; he
shifted his position so that the light might not fall on his features, took
a pinch of snuff and crossed one knee over the other before he ventured
an opinion on the subject.
"I know so very little of the young gentleman," he began, "as scarcely
to be able to advise you on a matter of such moment, and have hitherto
declined from so doing on that account, but as you so desire it, I will
give my opinion on the matter according to the best of my judgment."
"Thank you, thank you, that is all I ask. Then," resumed the lawyer,
"the road by which a young man of education can, by perseverance,
hope to earn for himself a competency and a good position in the social
scale, is that of the church, the navy or in the military service of his
country. As for the pulpit, unless the aspirant has a special tendency for
it, or some good friend who has a living to bestow, he will hardly
realize a sufficient income to support himself as a gentleman; and to
send him up to London to study law, or medicine for two or three years

would but expose him to the temptations and dissipations of that great
city, and it would take years of drudgery before he would be able to
obtain a competency. In my opinion the safest and most expeditious
way of proceeding is to put him into the army; his commission and
outfit is the only outlay, and can be done at once; his position is
established, and it only remains with himself to rise in his profession,
and you will be relieved from all care and responsibility on his account;
but understand me, I do not mean that he should enter one of the
regiments, now in England, to loiter his time away at some country
quarters or fashionable watering place, to fall into debt, difficulty, love,
or some other absurd scrape, but put him into some corps that is now
and will be for some years stationed somewhere abroad, India, for
instance, for I have been, by competent authorities, informed that there
an officer can live comfortably on the pay of his rank.
"If he is abstemious, and takes care of his health, his promotion must
ensue without purchase, and that, too, in a few years. It is a prospect
that thousands of youngsters would jump at, and one I think that is in
every way suitable for him; this Sir Jasper, is all I have to offer on this
subject."
This advice of Ralph Coleman's, although given to effect a
preconcerted scheme, was so in unison with the Baronet's views, that
he could but assent to what had been uttered by Ralph, and the lawyer
had the satisfaction of knowing, ere he left the breakfast room, that his
suggestions would be carried out to the letter; and prior to his return to
London he had another interview with the wily widow, at which he
informed her of the arrangement that