“He is gone, William! My darling, self-willed, troublesome boy is gone, and I shall, perhaps, never see him more, till I am an old woman.”
“Who is gone?” returned Mr. Yorke.
“Roland. Never was a mother so tried as I. He will soon be on the sea, ploughing his way to Port Natal. I wish there was no sea!—no Port Natals! He went off without saying a word to me, and he is GONE!”
Mr. Yorke, bewildered, turned his eyes on Hamish for explanation. He had never heard of the Port Natal project. Hamish nodded in confirmation.
“The best place for him,” said Mr. Yorke. “He must work for his bread, there, before he eats it.”
Lady Augusta shrieked. “How cruelly hard you are, William!”
“Not hard, Lady Augusta—kind,” he gently said. “If your boys were brought up to depend upon their own exertions, they would make better men.”
“You said you had a message for him from Roland,” resumed Lady Augusta, looking at Hamish.
Hamish smiled significantly. “Not much of one,” he said, and his lips, as he bent towards William Yorke, assumed an expression of sarcastic severity. “He merely requested me, after he was in the train, to give his love to the Rev. William Yorke, as a parting legacy.”
Either the words or the tone, probably the latter, struck on the Rev. William Yorke’s self-esteem, and flushed his cheek crimson. Since the rupture with Constance, Hamish, though not interfering in the remotest degree, had maintained a tone of quiet sarcasm to Mr. Yorke. And though Mr. Yorke did not like it, he could not prevent it.