“Let him sit down,” said Ernest to the schoolmaster. The children silently made room for their companion. “Jack Lawless,” continued the peer, turning towards the boy, and speaking rapidly, whilst he could not raise his own eyes from the ground, “I regret that I unjustly called you a liar; I recall the word now before all who heard it.”
Nothing can describe the astonishment of the whole assembly as they listened to this apology from the young lord. “Brave boy, well done! He’s a soldier that will not flinch!” muttered old Mr. Searle, with cordial approbation.
“He must be wild,” exclaimed Mrs. Hope, “to expose himself so before a company like this! To acknowledge such a fact! Why, I would rather have died than have disgraced myself so before the world!” The lady, however experienced in the concerns of this life, in spiritual things was more ignorant than a child, or she would have known that disgrace is in the commission of a fault, but never in the frank avowal of it.
CHAPTER XXV.
THE LAKE AMONG THE ROCKS.
“Now I saw in my dream, that by this time the pilgrims were entering into the country of Beulah.”—Pilgrim’s Progress.
The painful incident recorded in the last chapter had been to Ernest one of the most instructive events of his life, and the young lord felt that it was so. He recognized the parental care of his heavenly Father, in openly rebuking his pride; and was now so well aware of the peculiar dangers that attended his position, and how much they were increased by the weak indulgence of his preceptor, that he heard almost without regret, on the following day, that having come into some property by the will of a relative, Mr. Sligo was about to resign his present charge.
Oh, how gladly would Fontonore have recalled his first friend, him whose love was too sincere for flattery! This, however, was a thing quite beyond his hopes, and the boys tried to content themselves with the thought that they might soon have the pleasure of seeing their late tutor. Mr. Searle had told Ernest, when he met him at the castle, that he expected Mr. Ewart on a visit; and though the young peer knew that the clergyman would not come to Fontonore, as such a step might be displeasing to his uncle, he determined to go over himself to Silvermere, as soon as he should hear that his friend had arrived there.