‘And where were you, Gilbert, you to whom I trusted him?’
‘I could not help it,’ said Gilbert; then as her lip curled with contempt, and her eye spoke disappointment, he cast himself on the ground, exclaiming, ‘Oh, if you knew how I have been mixed up with others, and what I have gone through, you would pity me. Oh, Maurice, don’t cry, when I would give worlds to be like you. Why do you let him cry? why don’t you tell him what a brave noble boy he is?’
‘I don’t know what to think or believe,’ said Albinia, coldly, but returning vehemently to her child, she continued, ‘Maurice, my dear, no one is angry with you! You, at least, I can depend on. Tell me where you have been, and what they have been doing to you.’
Even with Gilbert’s explanations, she could hardly understand Maurice’s narrative, but she gathered that on Thursday, the brothers had ridden out, and were about to turn homewards, when Archie Tritton, of whom to her vexation Maurice spoke familiarly, had told Gilbert that a friend was waiting for him at the inn connected with the training stables, three miles farther on. Gilbert had demurred, but was told the matter would brook no delay, and yielded on being pressed. He tried to suppress the friend’s name, but Maurice had called him Mr. Cavendish Dusautoy.
While Gilbert was engaged with him, Tritton had introduced Maurice to the horses and stable boys, whose trade had inspired him with such emulation, that he broke off in the midst of his confession to ask whether he could be a jockey and also a gentleman. All this had detained them till so late, that they had been drawn into staying to dinner. Maurice had gone on very happily, secure that he was right in Gilbert’s hands, and only laying up a few curious words for explanation; but when he was asked to drink wine, he stoutly answered that mamma did not allow it.
Idle mischief prompted Dusautoy and Tritton to set themselves to overpower his resistance. Gilbert’s feeble remonstrances were treated as a jest, and Algernon, who could brook no opposition, swore that he would conquer the little prig. Maurice found himself pinioned by strong arms, but determined and spirited, he made a vigorous struggle, and so judiciously aimed a furious kick, that Mr. Cavendish Dusautoy staggered back, stumbling against the table, and causing a general overthrow.
The victory was with Maurice, but warned as he had often been against using his natural weapons, he thought himself guilty of a great crime. The others, including, alas! Gilbert, strove to persuade him it was a joke, and, above all, to bind him to silence, for Tritton and Dusautoy would never have ventured so far, could they have imagined the possibility of such terms as those on which he lived with his parents. They attacked the poor child on the score of his manly aspirations, telling him it was babyish to tell mamma and sisters everything, a practice fit for girls, not for boys or men. These assurances extracted a pledge of secrecy, which was kept as long as his mother was absent, and only rendered him reckless by the sense that he had forfeited the prize of good conduct; but the sight of her renewed the instinct of confidence, and his father’s reliance on his truth so acted on his sense of honour, that he could not hold his peace.
‘May I tell papa? and will he let me have the cannon?’ he finished.
‘You shall certainly tell him, my dear, dear little boy, and we will see what he says about the cannon,’ she said, fervently kissing him. ‘It will be some comfort for him to hear how you have behaved, my precious little man. I thank God with all my heart that He has saved you from putting anything before truth. I little thought I was leaving you to a tempter!’
The child did not fully understand her. His was a very simple nature, and he was tired out by conflicting emotions. His breast was relieved, and his mother caressed him; he cared for nothing more, and drawing her hand so as to rest his cheek on it, he looked up in her face with soft weary happiness in his eyes, then let the lids sink over them, and fell peacefully asleep, while the others talked on. ‘At least you will do me the poor justice of believing it was not willingly,’ said Gilbert.