“To me!” said he, blushing, “and why to me?”
“Can you never be brought to see that you are a hero, Tom,—that all the world is talking of you just now, and people feel a pride in being even passingly mixed up with your name?”
“If they only knew how much I have to be ashamed of before I can begin to feel vain, they 'd not be so ready with their praise or their flattery.”
“I 'll talk over all that with your sister Polly,” said Hunter, gayly; for he saw the serious spirit that was gaining over the poor fellow.
“Do so, sir; and you'll soon see, if there's anything good or hopeful about me, where it comes from and who gave it.”
CHAPTER XIX. FROM GENERAL CONYERS TO HIS SON
Beddwys, N. Wales.
My dear Fred,—How happy I am that you are enjoying yourself; short of being with you, nothing could have given me greater pleasure than your letter. I like your portrait of the old lady, whose eccentricities are never inconsistent with some charming traits of disposition, and a nature eminently high-minded and honorable; but why not more about Josephine? She is surely oftener in your thoughts than your one brief paragraph would bespeak, and has her due share in making the cottage the delightful home you describe it to be. I entreat you to be more open and more explicit on this theme, for it may yet be many days before I can explore the matter for myself; since, instead of the brief absence I calculated on, we may, for aught I know, be detained here for some weeks.
It is clear to me, from your last, a note of mine from Liverpool to you must have miscarried. You ask me where you are to address me next, and what is the nature of the business which has called me away so suddenly? I gave you in that letter all the information that I was myself possessed of, and which, in three words, amounted to this: Old Barrington, having involved himself in a serious personal quarrel with Stapylton, felt, or believed, that he ought to give him a meeting. Seeing how useless all attempt at dissuasion proved, and greatly fearing what hands he might fall into, I agreed to be his friend on the occasion; trusting, besides, that by a little exercise of tact and temper, extreme measures might be avoided, and the affair arranged. You may well believe, without my insisting further upon it, that I felt very painfully how we should both figure before the world,—a man of eighty-three or four, accompanied to the ground by another of sixty-odd! I know well how, in the changed temper of the age, such acts are criticised, and acquiesce, besides, in the wiser spirit that now prevails. However, as I said before, if Barrington must go on, it were better he should do so under the guidance of a sincere friend than of one casually elevated to act as such, in a moment of emergency.