“I have told you I do not mean to victimise you. If you have a distaste to it, there’s an end of it—I am quite ready.”
Tom gave a great sigh. “No,” he said, “if I must, I must; I don’t mind the part of it that you do. I only hate the name of it, and the being tied down to a country place like that, while you go out thousands of miles off to these savages; but if it is the only thing to content you, I wont stand in your way. I can’t bear your looking disconsolate.”
“Don’t think yourself bound, if you really dislike the profession.”
“I don’t,” said Tom. “It is my free choice. If it were not for horrid sick people, I should like it.”
Promising! it must be confessed!
Perhaps Tom had expected Norman to brighten at once, but it was a fallacious hope. The gaining his point involved no pleasant prospect, and his young brother’s moody devotion to him suggested scruples whether he ought to exact the sacrifice, though, in his own mind, convinced that it was Tom’s vocation; and knowing that would give him many of the advantages of an eldest son.
Eton fully justified Hector’s declaration that it would not regard the cut of Harry’s coat. The hero of a lost ship and savage isle was the object of universal admiration and curiosity, and inestimable were the favours conferred by Hector and Tom in giving introductions to him, till he had shaken hands with half the school, and departed amid deafening cheers.
In spite of Harry, the day had been long and heavy to Norman, and though he chid himself for his depression, he shrank from the sight of Meta and Sir Henry Walkinghame together, and was ready to plead an aching head as an excuse for not appearing at the evening party; but, besides that this might attract notice, he thought himself bound to take care of Harry in so new a world, where the boy must be at a great loss.
“I say, old June,” cried a voice at his door, “are you ready?”
“I have not begun dressing yet. Will you wait?”