[CHAPTER XXXI.]
YOUNG TOM GRIGSON.
THE record of every man's life is necessarily mixed up and interwoven with that of many other lives; and to discourse on the one with any degree of interest, not to say intelligibly and coherently, it is absolutely necessary to include some portions of those other histories. For instance, how could my readers have known anything worth knowing of John Tincroft, apart from his friend Tom Grigson?
And our introduction to Tom led us in the most natural way to the bachelor brother at the Manor House. Then we could not have followed out our friend's matrimonial adventures unless we had accompanied him to High Beech Farm, and seen how he became engulfed or influxed, so to speak, in the vortex of that great maelstrom of which I have elsewhere spoken. High Beech led us to Low Beech, just as the Manor House and its surroundings conducted us to the Mumbles.
Then, without intending it in the first instance, a needs-be gradually forced itself upon the present chronicler to lightly sketch certain other characters and scenes, so as to make, as far as lay in his power, a harmonious and congruous whole, of which, as a matter of course, John Tincroft should be the central point of interest, but without which other characters and scenes the picture would have presented an unpleasant confusion of impalpable shadows.
Above all, it has been the writer's design and study and earnest labour to give the colouring of truth to every subordinate as well as principal character in this picture of life, so that, in the end, at least one useful lesson may have been presented to each reader of this story, who, without intending it, or even expecting to be instructed, has taken up these pages to pass away an idle day or to amuse a leisure hour.
Not many more chapters remain to be written; and this immediate one must be given up to one or more of those subordinate actors to whom I have referred.
A few days after that which witnessed the funeral of Walter Wilson, and also the reading of his will, Tom Grigson and his son took their departure homewards, John Tincroft and Sarah and the young Helen accompanying them—Mr. Fawley, the lawyer, having already taken his leave of the hospitable master of the Manor House, and the woodland glades of which he had become enamoured.
Tincroft and his following passed a day or two at their friend's villa on the banks of the Thames, and then returned to their home near Trotbury, where he and his Sarah devoted themselves to comforting their darling ward, and to puzzling themselves in laying plans for her unknown future. Thus occupied we must at present leave them, our business being, in the first place, with Tom Grigson the younger.
It was not, after all, an uncongenial life on which he was about to enter. It may be thought, at first sight, perhaps, that an active, enterprising lad of sixteen could find little interest in the monotonous and wearying details of a London house of business, especially if he should be the possessor of what is called a correct and classical taste, improved by education. I take leave to say, however, to those who argue thus, that they are very little acquainted with the subject on which they think themselves competent to pass a judgment.