Oswald Cray: A Novel

by Mrs. Henry Wood

He turned away, jumped into a cab that was passing, and ordered it to drive to Parliament Street. The two hundred pounds he must get somehow, and he knew nobody he could apply to at the pinch, save Oswald.

Mark was not the only visitor to Oswald Cray that night. He had been sitting alone, after his dinner, very deep in deliberation, when Benn came up showing in a gentleman. It proved to be Henry Oswald.

They had not met since the funeral of Lady Oswald twelve months before, and at the first moment Oswald scarcely knew him. Henry Oswald was a cordial-mannered man. He had not inherited the cold heart and the haughty bearing so characteristic of the Oswalds of Thorndyke, and he grasped Oswald's hand warmly.

"I have been out of England nearly ever since we met, Oswald--I am sure you will let me call you so, we are near relatives--or I should have sought to improve the acquaintance begun at that short meeting. I want you to be friendly with me. I know how wrong has been the estrangement, and what cause you have to hate us; but surely you and I can afford to do away with the prejudice that has kept you from Thorndyke, and Thorndyke from you."

Oswald saw how genuine were the words, how earnest the wish imparted in them; and from that moment his "prejudice" went out of him, as far as Henry Oswald was concerned, and his eye lighted up with an earnest of the future friendship. He had liked Henry Oswald at that first meeting; he liked him still.

They sat together, talking of the days gone by, when they two were unconscious children. Of Oswald's mother; of the conduct of her family towards her; of the insensate folly--it was his son called it so--that still estranged Sir Philip from Oswald Cray. They talked freely and fully as though they had been intimate for years--far more confidentially than Oswald had ever talked to his half-brother.

"I shall be proud of your friendship, Oswald," cried the young man, warmly; "if that's not an ominous word for one of us. But I fancy you inherit the family failing far more than I. You will be one of the world's great men yet, making yourself a name that the best might envy."

Oswald laughed. "If the world envies those who work hard, then it may envy me."

"I can tell you what, Oswald, if work's not envied in these days, it is honoured. In the old days of darkness--I'm sure I can call them so, in comparison with these--it was such as I who were envied. The man born with a silver spoon in his mouth, who need do nothing his whole life long but sit down in idleness and enjoy his title and fortune, and be clothed in purple and fine linen, and fare sumptuously every day--he got the honour then. Now the man of industry and talent is bowed down to, he who labours onwards and upwards to use and improve the good gifts bestowed upon him by God. It may be wrong to say it, but I do say it in all sincerity, that I, Henry Oswald, born to my baronetcy, envy you, Oswald Cray, born to work."

From one subject they went to another. In talking of the Cray family, they spoke of Mark, and from Mark the transition to the Great Wheal Bang Company was easy. Henry Oswald had heard and read of its promise, and he now asked Oswald's opinion of its stability. He had a few hundreds to spare for he had not been an extravagant man, and felt inclined to embark them in the Great Wheal Bang. Oswald advised his doing so. He himself had embarked all his saved cash in it, a thousand pounds, and he thought he had done well.