So Fulbert's farewells were made in the utmost haste, and mixed up with Wilmet's solicitous directions for his proper use of all her preparations for his comfort on the voyage; and Lance could only be seen for the brief moments of halt at the Minsterham Station, during which neither spoke three words, but Lance hung on the step till the train was in motion, and then was snatched back, and well shaken and reprimanded, by a guard; while Fulbert leant out after him at even greater peril of his life, long after the last wave of the trencher cap had ceased to be visible.
Felix believed that this parting was more felt than that with all the other eleven; and while Fulbert subsided into his corner, the elder brother felt much oppressed by the sense that it was his duty to give some good advice, together with great perplexity what it should be, how it should be expressed, and whether it would be endured. He would have been thankful for some of Clement's propensity for preaching when he found himself tête-à-tête with Fulbert in a cab; but while he was still considering of the right end by which to take this difficult subject, he was startled by his beginning, 'Felix, I say, I'm glad you are going to get shut of me.'
'I believe it is for your good,' said Felix.
'You'll get on better without me,' repeated Fulbert; then, with an effort, 'Look here. It isn't that I don't know you're a brick and all that, but somehow nothing riles me like your meddling with me.'
'I know it,' answered Felix. 'I wish I could have helped it; but what could be done, when there was nobody else?'
'Ay,' responded Fulbert, 'I know I have been a sulky, nasty brute to you, and I should do it again; and yet I wish I hadn't.'
'I should be as bad myself if I were a junior,' was the moral reflection Felix produced for his brother's benefit. 'Only, Ful, if you try that on with Mr. Audley out there, you'll come to grief.'
'I don't mean to,' said Fulbert.
'And you'll keep in mind what my father meant us to be, Ful—that we have got to live so as to meet him again.'
Fulbert nodded his head emphatically.