Captain Brocklehurst and his wife were childless, and supposed to be well off. They had lost two children as infants; and now, though still comparatively young, lived their lives without the constant consolation which the presence of children affords in a household.
When old Dan walked across to Weston and interviewed the captain, Brocklehurst summoned his wife to the conference, and though she said but little more than that it would be impossible to say one thing or the other without first seeing the children, it was plain, from her flushed face and agitated manner after Dan had departed, that the idea of adopting these little ones was more than interesting to her. Her husband had been more inclined to reject the old trawler's proposal with a laugh and a jest, but his wife's more serious attitude sobered him, and he quickly agreed that the children might at least be brought for inspection.
But when Dan brought them, the little things laughed deliciously up in Mrs. Brocklehurst's face, and played with her gold chain when she bent to kiss them. Her husband saw that there were tears of joy in his wife's eyes, and that the matter of their adoption was as good as settled already.
Not that he ever regretted afterwards that this had come about. On the contrary, the boys grew up fine little fellows, likely to do their adopted parents credit in the world. And many a time, when Mrs. Brocklehurst reminded him that God had been very good to them in this matter, he cordially and sincerely agreed.
Brocklehurst had retired from the Royal Navy as commander, receiving a step in rank upon his retirement, and he was never in two minds as to the profession that the boys should enter when they were old enough to do so.
"They shall serve the Queen, as I did," he would say, "and one day there shall be two ships in the navy list commanded each by a Brocklehurst."
"Good lads," he would say when pleased with them for any reason; "you shall die admirals, both of you."
Though the boys were alike in many ways, they were dissimilar in this, that Granby early betrayed an obstinacy of disposition which was most marked, and which punishment only seemed to intensify. Noel did not share this peculiarity. Both were kindly and affectionate, and accustomed to stand by one another through thick and thin.
At the age of thirteen, just before their admission to the Britannia, the twins had a misunderstanding. It was as foolish and ridiculous a matter as could well be imagined to found a standing quarrel upon; yet a breach was made, and Granby's constitutional obstinacy stood in the way of its healing.
It happened at school—a naval preparatory school of long standing at Cubberly-on-Sea, to which the captain sent his boys because he had been there himself, and would have considered no naval education complete unless founded and continued at this establishment.