He would often come to me in those days, and say:
"Mr. Calthorpe, I don't think I can stand it any longer, sir—at least, without telling father; and then, if I do that, I don't know what might be the consequences. He would certainly be so angry that he would send all my brothers away, which I should never wish to be done. Or, if he did not, they would persecute me still worse than they are doing. So between the two things I don't know what to do."
I strove as hard as I could to exhort the boy to patience, giving him what comfort I could, and I even offered to intercede between him and his brothers; but this proposal he would not listen to, and finally he decided that he would bear all in silence and would not tell his father. So that matters were at a deadlock, and remained so, until a new development began in the persecution of Arthur Brownlow by his brothers—which consisted in the deliberate attempt on their part to poison his father's mind against him by all sorts of stories and fabrications, and so get rid of him.
The diabolical attempt was made with greater and more elaborate cunning than I should have imagined such stupid young men as the Brownlows to be capable of. They not only carried on the plot themselves but got their neighbours—the young Spencers of Bray—to assist them, and from all sides Farmer Brownlow kept continually hearing of the precocious vices and bad manners of his darling son, which were at first discredited by him, but afterwards believed, and then greedily sought after.
"It is all this incense that comes to the boy along of his singing that is spoiling him," he said to me one day. "And you, Mr. Calthorpe, are partly to blame for encouraging it. What good can all that howling and caterwauling do the lad? Not a bit, that I can see, except that it takes him into company from which he would be better away. It stuffs the boy's head with nonsense, sir, and it will never bring him to any good."
It was in vain that I pointed out that there was practically no foundation for any of these charges against his son, who was one of the model boys of the parish. The farmer regarded me as a biased witness, and kept his own opinion of the matter, which was more and more inimical to poor Arthur every day. Do what I could in the way of mediation, it was all no good. The ball once set rolling, continued to roll in the same direction, until one day I heard, to my unspeakable concern, that Arthur Brownlow had broken into his father's bureau and extracted five pounds from it, that the money had been found in his possession, and that he was now in the custody of the police.
"I disown him, sir."
I remember what a sensation the trial made at the assizes in the neighbouring town of C——. I appeared as a witness in the boy's behalf, and spoke up for him right gallantly; but all intercession and testimony were of no avail—the evidence was held to be quite conclusive. Although the father did not appear against him, the brothers did, and their testimony was sufficient to convict the boy, who was found guilty and sent to a reformatory for two years.
I saw him before he went, and he said to me—