Part 24 (1/2)

He was annoyed at Bates's open regret, just as we are constantly more annoyed at fresh evidence of a spirit we know to be in a man than with the demonstration of some unexpected fault, because we realise the trait we have fathomed and see how poor it is.

”How did your brother come to be a minister?”

”He's a _clergyman_ of the Church of England”--with loftiness.

”Well, that's more of a thing than a minister; how did he come by it?”

”He was clever, and father was able to send him to Oxford. He was a good deal older than I was. I suppose he took to the Church because he thought it his duty.”

”And now that he's out here he wants to sink the shop?”

”Oh, as to that”--coldly--”when he was quite young, in England, he got in with swells. He's tremendously clever. There were men in England that thought no end of him.”

”Did he lie low about the shop there?”

”I don't know”--shortly--”I was at school then.”

Bates, perceiving that his questions were considered vastly offensive, desisted, but not with that respectfulness of mind that he would have had had Alec's father been a clergyman as well as his brother. Bates's feeling in this matter was what it was by inheritance, exactly as was the shape of his nose or the length of his limbs; it required no exercise of thought on his part to relegate Alec Trenholme to a place of less consequence.

Trenholme a.s.suaged his own ill-temper by going to take out his pink and grey grosbeaks and give them exercise. He was debating in his mind whether they were suffering from confinement or not--a question which the deportment of the birds never enabled him to solve completely--when Bates wandered round beside him again, and betrayed that his mind was still upon the subject of their conversation.

”Ye know,” he began, with the deliberate interest of a Scotchman in an argument, ”I've been thinking on it, and I'm thinking your brother's in the right of it.”

”You do!” The words had thunderous suggestion of rising wrath.

”Well,” said the other again, ”ye're hard to please; ye were vexed a while since because ye thought I was criticising him for lying low.”

The answer to this consisted in threats thrown out at any man who took upon himself to criticise his brother.

”And now, when I tell ye I'm thinking he's in the right of it, ye're vexed again. Now, I'll tell ye: ye don't like to think the Rev. Mr.

Trenholme's in the right, for that puts ye in the wrong; but ye don't like me to think he's in the wrong, because he's your brother. Well, it's natural! but just let us discuss the matter. Now, ye'll agree with me it's a man's duty to rise in the world if he can.”

Upon which he was told, in a paraphrase, to mind his own business.

CHAPTER V.

It was a delightful proof of the blessed elasticity of inconsistency in human lives, a proof also that there was in these two men more of good than of evil, that that same evening, when the lamp was lit, they discussed the problem that had been mooted in the afternoon with a fair amount of good temper. As they sat elbowing the deal table, sheets of old newspapers under their inspection, Trenholme told his story more soberly. He told it roughly, emphasising detail, slighting important matter, as men tell stories who see them too near to get the just proportion; but out of his words Bates had wit to glean the truth. It seemed that his father had been a warmhearted man, with something superior in his mental qualities and acquirements. Having made a moderate fortune, he had liberally educated his sons. There is nothing in which families differ more by nature than in the qualities of heart which bind them together or easily release them from the bonds of kins.h.i.+p. The members of this small family had that in them which held them together in spite of the pulling of circ.u.mstance; for although the elder son had come on the stage of manhood ten years before the younger, although he had had talents that advanced him among scholarly men, and had been quickly taken from his first curacy to fill a superior position in a colony, he had never abated an affectionate correspondence with Alec, and had remained the hero of his young brother's imagination. This younger son, not having the same literary tastes, and having possibly a softer heart, gratified his father by going into business with him; but at that good man's death he had had sufficient enterprise, sufficient distaste, possibly, for his English position, to sell the business that was left in his hands, and affection drew him, as a loadstone a magnet, to his brother's neighbourhood. He brought with him securities of the small fortune they were to divide between them, and expected nothing but happiness in the meeting and prosperity in his future career.

Unfortunately, a cause of dispute between the two brothers arose instantly on Alec's arrival: there was an exceptionally good opening in Ch.e.l.laston for one of Alec's calling; the brothers took different views concerning that calling; they had quarrelled with all the fire of warm natures, and were parted almost as soon as met.

”And did ye think it would be pleasing to your brother to have a tradesman of the same name and blood as himself in the same place?”

asked Bates with lack of toleration in his tone.

”That's all very fine!”--scornfully. ”You know as well as I do that my lord and my gentleman come out to this country to do what farm-hands and cattle-men would hardly be paid to do at home--”

”When they've ruined themselves first, but not till then,” Bates put in.

”And besides, old Robert sets up to be a saint. I didn't suppose he'd look upon things in the _vulgar_ way.” This reflection was cast on Bates as one of a cla.s.s. ”Was I likely to suppose he'd think that to kick one's heels on an office stool was finer than honest labour, or that my particular kind of labour had something more objectionable about it than any other? In old times it was the most honourable office there was.