The World's Greatest Books [Volumes 1-15, 17-20]

"They are poor orphans," the school-mistress said, when Harley addressed her, "put under my care by the parish, and more promising children I never saw. Their father, sir, was a farmer here in the neighbourhood, and a sober, industrious man he was; but nobody can help misfortunes. What with bad crops and bad debts, his affairs went to wreck, and both he and his wife died of broken hearts. And a sweet couple they were, sir. There was not a properer man to look on in the county than John Edwards, and so, indeed, were all the Edwardses of South Hill."

"Edwards! South Hill!" said the old soldier, in a languid voice, and fell back in the arms of the astonished Harley.

He soon recovered, and folding his orphan grandchildren in his arms, cried, "My poor Jack, art thou gone--"

"My dear old man," said Harley, "Providence has sent you to relieve them. It will bless me if I can be the means of assisting you."

"Yes, indeed, sir," answered the boy. "Father, when he was a-dying, bade God bless us, and prayed that if grandfather lived he might send him to support us. I have told sister," said he, "that she should not take it so to heart. She can knit already, and I shall soon be able to dig. We shall not starve, sister, indeed we shall not, nor shall grandfather neither."

The little girl cried afresh. Harley kissed off her tears, and wept between every kiss.

V.--The Man of Feeling is Jealous

Shortly after Harley's return home his servant Peter came into his room one morning with a piece of news on his tongue.

"The morning is main cold, sir," began Peter.

"Is it?" said Harley.

"Yes, sir. I have been as far as Tom Dowson's to fetch some barberries. There was a rare junketting at Tom's last night among Sir Harry Benson's servants. And I hear as how Sir Harry is going to be married to Miss Walton. Tom's wife told it me, and, to be sure, the servants told her; but, of course, it mayn't be true, for all that."

"Have done with your idle information," said Harley. "Is my aunt come down into the parlour to breakfast?"

"Yes, sir."

"Tell her I'll be with her immediately."

His aunt, too, had been informed of the intended match between Sir Harry Benson and Miss Walton, Harley learnt.

"I have been thinking," said she, "that they are distant relations, for the great-grandfather of this Sir Harry, who was knight of the shire in the reign of Charles I., married a daughter of the Walton family."

Harley answered drily that it might be so, but that he never troubled himself about those matters.

"Indeed," said she, "you are to blame, nephew, for not knowing a little more of them; but nowadays it is money, not birth, that makes people respected--the more shame for the times."

Left alone, Harley went out and sat down on a little seat in the garden.

"Miss Walton married!" said he. "But what is that to me? May she be happy! Her virtues deserve it. I had romantic dreams. They are fled."

That night the curate dined with him, though his visits, indeed, were more properly to the aunt than the nephew. He had hardly said grace after dinner when he said he was very well informed that Sir Harry Benson was just going to be married to Miss Walton. Harley spilt the wine he was carrying to his mouth; he had time, however, to recollect himself before the curate had finished the particulars of his intelligence, and, summing up all the heroism he was master of, filled a bumper, and drank to Miss Walton.

"With all my heart," said the curate; "the bride that is to be!" Harley would have said "bride," too, but it stuck in his throat, and his confusion was manifest.

VI.--He Sees Miss Walton and is Happy

Miss Walton was not married to Sir Harry Benson, but Harley made no declaration of his own passion after that of the other had been unsuccessful. The state of his health appears to have been such as to forbid any thoughts of that kind. He had been seized with a very dangerous fever caught by attending old Edwards in one of an infectious kind. From this he had recovered but imperfectly, and though he had no formed complaint, his health was manifestly on the decline.

It appears that some friend had at length pointed out to his aunt a cause from which this decline of health might be supposed to proceed, to wit, his hopeless love for Miss Walton--for, according to the conceptions of the world, the love of a man of Harley's modest fortune for the heiress of £4,000 a year is indeed desperate.

Be that as it may, I was sitting with him one morning when the door opened and his aunt appeared, leading in Miss Walton. I could observe a transient glow upon his face as he rose from his seat. She begged him to resume his seat, and placed herself on the sofa beside him. I took my leave, and his aunt accompanied me to the door. Harley was left with Miss Walton alone. She inquired anxiously about his health.

"I believe," said he, "from the accounts which my physicians unwillingly give me, that they have no great hopes of my recovery."

She started as he spoke, and then endeavoured to flatter him into a belief that his apprehensions were groundless.