“How unworthy of him have I been!” thought he; “how shamefully unworthy and forgetful! Here should have been my place, for those hours which I have spent in noisy dissipation and debauch; and now I come for the first time, and probably the last! Oh, my poor father! How will you bear up against the shock that is preparing for you? for, with all my faults, I know how you have loved me!” A heavy tear dropped from him on the old man's cheek as he said this; and gently brushing it off with his hand, Sir Stafford opened his eyes and awoke. A mild and gentle smile broke over his features as he saw his son beside him, and he drew him towards him, and kissed him.
“Have you been long here, George?” said he, affectionately.
“But a few minutes. I am so sorry to have disturbed you,” muttered the other, in confusion,
“Have you seen Grounsell yet? Has he told you?” asked Sir Stafford.
“Grounsell? no, sir. I did not even hear of his arrival. What are his tidings?”
“The saddest, perhaps, one friend can bring another,” sighed Onslow, as he covered his eyes with his hand. “Nay, nay, I am wrong,” said he, rapidly. “So long as Sydney and yourself are spared to me I have no right to say this; still, George, it is a terrible blow that strikes a man down from affluence to poverty, and, in place of wealth and power, leaves him nothing but insignificance and ruin!”
“Good heavens, father! is your brain wandering? What fancies are these that are flitting across your mind?”
“Sad and stern truths, my poor boy,” replied the old man, grasping his son's hand in his fevered palm. “A few weeks more will see the great house of Onslow bankrupt. These things cannot be told too briefly, George,” said he, speaking with a tremulous and eager rapidity. “One should hear misfortune early, to gain more time for future measures. A great crash has fallen upon the moneyed interest of England. The vast speculations in railways have overreached themselves; failures of great houses abroad have added to the difficulty. The correspondents whose solvency we never doubted are tottering to ruin. Every post brings tidings of some new failure; and from Odessa, from Hamburg, and from the ports of the Baltic to the distant shores of the New World, there is nothing but bankruptcy.”
“But you have large estates, sir; you possess property of various kinds beyond the reach of these casualties.”
“I own nothing to which my creditors have not a just right; nor, if I did, could I exercise the privilege of retaining it, George,” said the old man. “From what Grounsell tells me, there will be sufficient to meet every claim, but no more. There will remain nothing after. Lady Hester's settlement will, of course, secure to her a moderate competence; and we—you and I must look about, and see how we can face this same world we have been feasting so long. My time in it will needs be brief; but you, who may look forward with hope to long years of life, must bethink you at once of the new path before you. Arouse yourself, then, to the task, and I do not know but I may be prouder of you yet, buffeting the wild waves of adversity, and fighting the manful part of a bold, courageous spirit, than I have ever been in seeing you in the brilliant circle of all your high and titled acquaintances. Ay, George, the English merchant never died out in my heart, for all the aristocratic leaven which accident mixed up with my fortunes. I never ceased to glory in the pride of wealth accumulated by generous enterprises and honorable toil. I loved the life of labor that disciplined the faculties, and exercised not alone intelligence, but turned to use the gentler charities of life, linking man to man, as brethren journeying the same road, with different burdens, perhaps, but with the same goal. For myself, therefore, I have few cares. It remains with you to make them even fewer.”