CHAPTER XIV.
Blest order, which in power dost so excel,
* * * * *
Fain would I draw nigh,
Fain put thee on; exchanging my lay sword
For that of th' Holy Word.
HERBERT.
About a year from this time an uncle of Mrs. Trevor's died, leaving twenty thousand pounds to his niece's second son, Eustace, his god-son; and the persecuted young man thus found himself, by this unexpected behest, placed in a position which rendered him to a degree independent of the tyranny and bondage to which he had been hitherto subjected by his father, and at liberty, if so had been his pleasure, to relinquish the profession which had in such an arbitrary manner been forced upon him. But it was not thus to be. Very different now was the nature of the case. He stood a free man—free to choose or to reject the path of life before him, and the spirit which had struggled so fiercely in the ignoble chains which bound it to that course, now disenthralled, turned as naturally as the eagle to the sun, to that high and holy service for which he had been prepared.
The proud and restless spirit, soothed and tranquillized, yielded itself as a little child to the scarcely-breathed wishes of his mother, that the struggles he had so long and nobly endured in bringing down his rebellious thoughts and contrary inclinations—the hard studies to which he had devoted himself to fit him according to his own high standard for the important vocation, might not be thrown away; but that before she left this world of sin and sorrow, she might have the happiness of seeing her beloved son wedded to that profession, which in her eyes offered the only fold of security and protection from the snares and temptations which beset the path of manhood—"the bosom of the Church."
Eustace was fully persuaded that his father would now withdraw the living he had before so pertinaciously awarded him; for he plainly perceived the increasing enmity the bestowal of his uncle's little fortune, had raised against him in the breast of his unnatural parent, an act purposely, no doubt, made by the testator, to secure it from the well-known cupidity of his niece's husband. But what if this were the case? The forfeiture of this benefice would but the more fully satisfy his own mind, as to the disinterestedness of the change affected in his feelings with respect to that profession.
Therefore from this period did Eustace Trevor set himself with heart and soul more fully to prepare for the sacred office, and having shone with increased brilliancy in the path of learning, covered with honours and distinctions, stood ready for the ceremony of ordination.
But this event was retarded; first, by the severe attack of brain-fever, the result probably of the course of hard and long-sustained study, which nearly brought him to the brink of the grave, and prostrated his strength for many an after day; and by the time he had sufficiently recovered, another event had occurred, the nature of which seemed likely to effect a most important change in the aspect of his future career.