"I have not been paid the money due to me," replied Newton; "and, father, I'm afraid there's nothing."
Nicholas backed his chair from the table again, with an air of resignation, as Newton continued:
"Indeed, father, I think we must try our fortune elsewhere. What's the use of staying where we cannot get employment? Everything is now gone, except our wearing apparel. We might raise some money upon mine, it is true; but had we not better, before we spend it, try if fortune will be more favourable to us in some other place?"
"Why, yes, Newton, I've been thinking that if we were to go to London, my improvement on the duplex—"
"Is that our only chance there, sir?" replied Newton, half smiling.
"Why no; now I think of it, I've a brother there, John Forster, or Jack, as we used to call him. It's near thirty years since I heard of him; but somebody told me, when you were in the West Indies, that he had become a great lawyer, and was making a large fortune. I quite forgot the circumstance till just now."
Newton had before heard his father mention that he had two brothers, but whether dead or alive he could not tell. The present intelligence appeared to hold out some prospect of relief, for Newton could not for a moment doubt that if his uncle was in such flourishing circumstances, he would not refuse assistance to his brother. He therefore resolved not to wait until their means were totally exhausted: the next day he disposed of all his clothes except one suit, and found himself richer than he had imagined. Having paid his landlord the trifle due for rent, without any other incumbrance than the packet of articles picked up in the trunk at sea, three pounds sterling in his pocket, and the ring of Madame de Fontanges on his little finger, Newton, with his father, set off on foot for the metropolis.
Chapter XXIV
"I labour to diffuse the important good
Till this great truth by all be understood,
That all the pious duty which we owe
Our parents, friends, our country, and our God,
The seeds of every virtue here below,
From discipline and early culture grow."
WEST.
The different chapters of a novel remind me of a convoy of vessels. The incidents and dramatis personæ are so many respective freights, all under the charge of the inventor, who, like a man-of-war, must see them all safely, and together, into port. And as the commanding officer, when towing one vessel which has lagged behind up to the rest, finds that in the meantime another has dropped nearly out of sight, and is obliged to cast off the one in tow, to perform the same necessary duty towards the sternmost, so am I necessitated for the present to quit Nicholas and Newton, while I run down to Edward Forster and his protégée.