“Let us go back,” whispered Sybella, faintly, and her cheek was pale as death as she spoke.
“No, no,” cried Frederick, hurriedly; “we must cheer him up, what signifies the whole affair—a piece of mere boyish ambition, that he'll only laugh at one of these days.”
“Not so,” said Kate. “The augury of success or failure in the outset of life is no such trifle as you deem it. If he be faint-hearted, the game is up with him for ever—if he be made of sterner stuff, as one of his name and house ought to be, he'll revenge his present fall, by a great hereafter. Let me see him,” and at once disengaging her arm, she walked forward, and entered the chamber; while Frederick and his sister retired to the court to await her return.
When Kate O'Donoghue entered the room, Herbert was seated before a table, on which his head was leaning, with his hands pressed against his face. At his feet lay his cap, and the books he carried with him from the Hall. Unconscious of her presence, lost to every thing, save his overwhelming affliction, the sobs came with a convulsive shudder that shook his frame, and made the very table rattle, while at intervals there broke from him a faint moan of heart-rending sorrow.
“My dear brother,” said Kate, placing her arm around his neck. The boy started and looked up, and prepared as she was to see the traces of suffering there, she started at the ravages long days and nights of study and deep grief had left behind them: his eyes were sunk, and surrounded by dark circles, that made them seem quite buried beneath his brows; his forehead traversed by a net-work of blue veins, had that transparent thinness mental labour impresses, and his lips were thin and colourless; while on each cheek a burning spot of red looked like the mark of hectic. He made no answer; but the tears ran fast from his eyes, and his mouth quivered as he tried to say something.
She sat down beside him on the same chair, and bending her head, till the silken curls touched his very cheek, she spoke to him—not in words of encouragement or good cheer, for such her own instinct told her were inapplicable, but in the soft accents of affection, neither undervaluing the source of his grief, nor yet suffering him to be carried away by his own sense of his calamity. “Remember, my dear brother,” said she, “you are not less dear to our hearts for all this—remember that for the casualties of the world, and its chances, we can only do our utmost—that success is not for us to determine, but to strive for. Had you won to-day, some other must now have grieved like you, and who can tell if he could count as many fond and loving hearts to feel for and console him.”
“Oh, if you knew how I strived and longed—how I prayed for success,” said he, in a voice almost stifled by convulsive throbs.
“And it will come yet, Herbert. The tree is only the more fruitful when the knife has cut down to its very heart. Yours is not the nature to be deterred by one repulse, nor yours the name to be stamped with failure, because the contest is difficult. Ambitions are only noble when their path is steep. Who knows how indolent you might have become, had you found the prize too easily won. Come, come, Herbert, enough for the past; look forward now, and with good courage and hope. The next struggle will end differently; but, above all, wear a fair face before the world. I remember some French prisoners being brought into Courtray, who amused us so much by their gay and smiling air, and look of ease and satisfaction—their secret was, that defeat was never disgrace, save when it lowered the spirit, and made the heart droop. Theirs never failed, and I promise you we thought all the better of them.”