The widow, Oliver, and Juliet removed to a provincial town in another shire. Juliet married an ensign in a marching regiment; and died of neglect after childbirth. Mrs. Leslie did not long survive her. Oliver added to his little fortune by marriage with the daughter of a retail tradesman, who had amassed a few thousand pounds. He set up a brewery, and contrived to live without debt, though a large family and his own constitutional inertness extracted from his business small profits and no savings. Nothing of Randal had been heard of for years after the sale of Rood, except that he had taken up his residence either in Australia or the United States; it was not known which, but presumed to be the latter. Still, Oliver had been brought up with so high a veneration of his brother’s talents, that he cherished the sanguine belief that Randal would some day appear, wealthy and potent, like the uncle in a comedy; lift rip the sunken family, and rear into graceful ladies and accomplished gentlemen the clumsy little boys and the vulgar little girls who now crowded round Oliver’s dinner-table, with appetites altogether disproportioned to the size of the joints.
One winter day, when from the said dinner-table wife and children had retired, and Oliver sat sipping his half-pint of bad port, and looking over unsatisfactory accounts, a thin terrier, lying on the threadbare rug by the niggard fire, sprang up and barked fiercely. Oliver lifted his dull blue eyes, and saw opposite to him, at the window, a human face. The face was pressed close to the panes, and was obscured by the haze which the breath of its lips drew forth from the frosty rime that had gathered on the glass.
Oliver, alarmed and indignant, supposing this intrusive spectator of his privacy to be some bold and lawless tramper, stepped out of the room, opened the front door, and bade the stranger go about his business; while the terrier still more inhospitably yelped and snapped at the stranger’s heels. Then a hoarse voice said, “Don’t you know me, Oliver? I am your brother Randal! Call away your dog and let me in.” Oliver stared aghast; he could not believe his slow senses, he could not recognize his brother in the gaunt grim apparition before him; but at length he came forward, gazed into Randal’s face, and, grasping his hand in amazed silence, led him into the little parlour. Not a trace of the well-bred refinement which had once characterized Randal’s air and person was visible. His dress bespoke the last stage of that terrible decay which is significantly called the “shabby genteel.” His mien was that of the skulking, timorous, famished vagabond. As he took off his greasy tattered hat, he exhibited, though still young in years, the signs of premature old age. His hair, once so fine and silken, was of a harsh iron-gray, bald in ragged patches; his forehead and visage were ploughed into furrows; intelligence was still in the aspect, but an intelligence that instinctively set you on your guard,—sinister, gloomy, menacing.
Randal stopped short all questioning. He seized the small modicum of wine on the table, and drained it at a draught. “Poole,” said he, “have you nothing that warms a man better than this?” Oliver, who felt as if under the influence of a frightful dream, went to a cupboard and took out a bottle of brandy three-parts full. Randal snatched at it eagerly, and put his lips to the mouth of the bottle. “Ah,” said he, after a short pause, “this comforts; now give me food.” Oliver hastened himself to serve his brother; in fact, he felt ashamed that even the slipshod maid-servant should see his visitor. When he returned with such provisions as he could extract from the larder, Randal was seated by the fire, spreading over the embers emaciated bony hands, like the talons of a vulture.
He devoured the cold meat set before him with terrible voracity, and nearly finished the spirits left in the bottle; but the last had no effect in dispersing his gloom. Oliver stared at him in fear; the terrier continued to utter a low suspicious growl.
“You would know my history?” at length said Randal, bluntly. “It is short. I have tried for fortune and failed, I am without a penny and without a hope. You seem poor,—
“I suppose you cannot much help me. Let me at least stay with you for a time,—I know not where else to look for bread and for shelter.”
Oliver burst into tears, and cordially bade his brother welcome. Randal remained some weeks at Oliver’s house, never stirring out of the doors, and not seeming to notice, though he did not scruple to use, the new habiliments, which Oliver procured ready-made, and placed, without remark, in his room. But his presence soon became intolerable to the mistress of the house, and oppressive even to its master. Randal, who had once been so abstemious that he had even regarded the most moderate use of wine as incompatible with clear judgment and vigilant observation, had contracted the habit of drinking spirits at all hours of the day; but though they sometimes intoxicated him into stupor, they never unlocked his heart nor enlivened his sullen mood. If he observed less acutely than of old, he could still conceal just as closely. Mrs. Oliver Leslie, at first rather awed and taciturn, grew cold and repelling, then pert and sarcastic, at last undisguisedly and vulgarly rude. Randal made no retort; but his sneer was so galling that the wife flew at once to her husband, and declared that either she or his brother must leave the house. Oliver tried to pacify and compromise, with partial success; and a few days afterwards, he came to Randal and said timidly, “You see, my wife brought me nearly all I possess, and you don’t condescend to make friends with her. Your residence here must be as painful to you as to me. But I wish to see you provided for; and I could offer you something, only it seems, at first glance, so beneath—”
“Beneath what?” interrupted Randal, witheringly. “What I was—or what I am? Speak out!”
“To be sure you are a scholar; and I have heard you say fine things about knowledge and so forth; and you’ll have plenty of books at your disposal, no doubt; and you are still young, and may rise—and—”