“If you would allow me a small outfit, I should like to go to the colonies and work on the land there.” Rex thought the vagueness of the phrase prudential; “the colonies” necessarily embracing more advantages, and being less capable of being rebutted on a single ground than any particular settlement.
“Oh, and with me, papa,” said Anna, not bearing to be left out from the proposal even temporarily. “Rex would want some one to take care of him, you know—some one to keep house. And we shall never, either of us, be married. And I should cost nothing, and I should be so happy. I know it would be hard to leave you and mamma; but there are all the others to bring up, and we two should be no trouble to you any more.”
Anna had risen from her seat, and used the feminine argument of going closer to her papa as she spoke. He did not smile, but he drew her on his knee and held her there, as if to put her gently out of the question while he spoke to Rex.
“You will admit that my experience gives me some power of judging for you, and that I can probably guide you in practical matters better than you can guide yourself?”
Rex was obliged to say, “Yes, sir.”
“And perhaps you will admit—though I don’t wish to press that point—that you are bound in duty to consider my judgment and wishes?”
“I have never yet placed myself in opposition to you, sir.” Rex in his secret soul could not feel that he was bound not to go to the colonies, but to go to Oxford again—which was the point in question.
“But you will do so if you persist in setting your mind toward a rash and foolish procedure, and deafening yourself to considerations which my experience of life assures me of. You think, I suppose, that you have had a shock which has changed all your inclinations, stupefied your brains, unfitted you for anything but manual labor, and given you a dislike to society? Is that what you believe?”
“Something like that. I shall never be up to the sort of work I must do to live in this part of the world. I have not the spirit for it. I shall never be the same again. And without any disrespect to you, father, I think a young fellow should be allowed to choose his way of life, if he does nobody any harm. There are plenty to stay at home, and those who like might be allowed to go where there are empty places.”
“But suppose I am convinced on good evidence—as I am—that this state of mind of yours is transient, and that if you went off as you propose, you would by-and-by repent, and feel that you had let yourself slip back from the point you have been gaining by your education till now? Have you not strength of mind enough to see that you had better act on my assurance for a time, and test it? In my opinion, so far from agreeing with you that you should be free to turn yourself into a colonist and work in your shirt-sleeves with spade and hatchet—in my opinion you have no right whatever to expatriate yourself until you have honestly endeavored to turn to account the education you have received here. I say nothing of the grief to your mother and me.”