MR. MORTON'S STORY.—A CONFESSION.—A YOUNG PLEADER.—GENEROSITY NOT ALWAYS JUSTICE.
"Do you remember, Emmeline, a Mr. Morton, who officiated for Mr. Howard at Aveling, five or six weeks ago?" asked Mr. Hamilton of his wife, on the Saturday morning after Herbert's mysterious excursion. The family had not yet left the breakfast-table.
"Perfectly well," was the reply; "poor young man! his appearance and painful weakness of voice called for commiseration too deeply not to be remembered."
"Is he not deformed?" inquired Miss Harcourt; "there was something particularly painful about his manner as he stood in the pulpit."
"He is slightly deformed now; but not five years ago he had a graceful, almost elegant figure, though always apparently too delicate for the fatiguing mental duties in which he indulged. He was of good family, but his parents were suddenly much reduced, and compelled to undergo many privations to enable him to go to Oxford. There he allowed himself neither relaxation nor pleasure of the most trifling and most harmless kind; his only wish seemed to be to repay his parents in some degree the heavy debt of gratitude which he felt he owed them. His persevering study, great talent, and remarkable conduct, won him some valuable friends, one of whom, as soon as he was ordained, presented him with a rich living in the North. For nine months he enjoyed the most unalloyed happiness. His pretty vicarage presented a happy, comfortable home for his parents, and the comforts they now enjoyed, earned by the worth of their son, amply repaid them for former privations.—One cold snowy night he was summoned to a poor parishioner, living about ten miles distant. The road was rugged, and in some parts dangerous; but he was not a man to shrink from his duty for such reasons. He was detained eight hours, during which time the snow had fallen incessantly, and it was pitchy dark. Still believing he knew his road, he proceeded, and the next morning was found lying apparently dead at the foot of a precipice, and almost crushed under the mangled and distorted carcass of his horse."
An exclamation of horror burst from all the little group, except from Percy and Herbert; the face of the former was covered with his hands, and his brother seemed so watching and feeling for him, as to be unable to join the general sympathy. All, however, were so engrossed with Mr. Hamilton's tale, that neither was observed.
"He was so severely injured, that for months his very life was despaired of. Symptoms of decline followed, and the inability to resume his ministerial duties for years, if ever again, compelled him to resign his rich and beautiful living in Yorkshire; and he felt himself once more a burden on his parents, with scarcely any hope of supporting them again. Nor was this all; his figure, once so slight and supple, had become so shrunk and maimed, that at first he seemed actually to loathe the sight of his fellows. His voice, once so rich and almost thrilling, became wiry, and almost painfully monotonous; and for some months the conflict for submission to this inscrutable and most awful trial was so terrible that he nearly sunk beneath it. This was, of course, still more physical than mental, and gradually subsided, as, after eighteen months' residence in Madeira, where he was sent by a benevolent friend, some portion of health returned. The same benefactor established his father in some humble but most welcome business in London; and earnestly, on his return, did his parents persuade him to remain quietly with them, and not undertake the ministry again; but this he could not do, and gratefully accepted a poor and most miserable parish on the moor, not eight miles from here."
"But when did you become acquainted with him, papa?" asked Caroline; "you have never mentioned him before."
"No, my dear; I never saw him till the Sunday he officiated for Mr. Howard; but his appearance so deeply interested me, I did not rest till I had learned his whole history, which Mr. Howard had already discovered. He has been nearly a year in Devonshire, but so kept aloof from all but his own poor parishioners, dreading the ridicule and sneers of the more worldly and wealthy, that it was mere accident which made Mr. Howard acquainted with him. Our good minister's friendship and earnest exhortations have so far overcome his too great sensitiveness, as sometimes to prevail on him to visit the Vicarage, and I trust in time equally to succeed in bringing him here."
"But what is he so afraid of, dear papa?" innocently asked Emmeline. "Surely nobody could be so cruel as to ridicule him because he is deformed?"