He was not. Nature seemed mercifully to have forgotten to perpetuate that type of character which had given Mr. Menteith formerly, and others since, such a justifiable dread of the Bruce family, and such a righteous determination to escape them. Lord Cairnforth still paid the annuity, but on condition that no one of his father's kindred should ever interfere, in the smallest degree, with Helen's child.
This done, both he and she trusted to the strong safeguards of habit and education, and all other influences which so strongly modify character, to make the boy all that they desired him to be, and to counteract those tendencies which, as Lord Cairnforth plainly perceived, were Helen's daily dread. It was a struggle, mysterious as that which visible human free-will is forever opposing (apparently) to invisible fate, the end of which it is impossible to see, and yet we struggle on.
Thus laboring together with one hope, one aim, and one affection, all centered in this boy, Lord Cairnforth and Mrs. Bruce passed many a placid year. And when the mother's courage failed her—when her heart shrank in apprehension from real terrors or from chimeras of her own creating, her friend taught her to fold patiently her trembling hands, and say, as she herself and the minister had first taught him in his forlorn boyhood, the one only prayer which calms fear and comforts sorrow—the lesson of the earl's whole life—"Thy will be done!"
Chapter 15
"Helen, that boy of yours ought to be sent to college."
"Oh no! Surely you do not think it necessary?" said Helen, visibly shrinking.
She and Lord Cairnforth were sitting together in the Castle library. Young Cardross had been sitting beside them, holding a long argument with his mother, as he often did, for he was of a decidedly argumentative turn of mind, until, getting the worst of the battle, and being rather "put down"—a position rarely agreeable to the self-esteem of eighteen—he had flushed up angrily, made no reply, but opened one of the low windows and leaped out on the terrace. There, pacing to and fro along the countess's garden, they saw the boy, or rather young man, for he looked like one now. He moved with a rapid step, the wind tossing his fair curls—Helen's curls over again— and cooling his cheeks as he tried to recover his temper, which he did not often lose, especially in the earl's presence.
Experience had not effaced the first mysterious impression made on the little child's mind by the wheeled chair and its occupant. If there was one person in the world who had power to guide and control this high-spirited lad, it was Lord Cairnforth. And as the latter moved his chair a little round, so that he could more easily look out into the garden and see the graceful figure sauntering among the flower-beds, it was evident by his expression that the earl loved Helen's boy very dearly.
"He is a fine fellow, and a good fellow as ever was born, that young man of yours. Still, as I have told you many a time, he would be all the better if he were sent to college."
"For his education?" I thought Duncan was fully competent to complete that."