The only thing which he did not understand was a blurred and hasty postscript, to the effect that the enclosed was her own, and that her dear boy need have no hesitation in using it. This Musgrave explained to him by holding up, as he received back the letter, a twenty-pound note.
“And my mother enclosed this, sir,” he said, looking up with an honest eagerness which twenty twenty-pound notes could not have produced—the poor lad was so proud to be able to show this evidence of his mother’s concern for him. “I know she must have saved it up—spared it from her own necessities for me; I know she must, for she knows very well I would never receive an alms from him,” cried poor Roger. “I—I daresay you think it’s not very much to talk about, Colonel, but I could not rest till you had seen that I was wrong. To think I should have done her such injustice!—and you perceive, sir, that I can indeed take a week or two’s leisure before I decide upon my future now.”
“I am very glad of it,” said the Colonel; “and still more glad that you have your mother’s letter to comfort you. Take a lesson by it my boy, and never think you’re forsaken. If we could know exactly our neighbour’s circumstances, and see into their hearts, we would be slow to judge them, let alone dear friends. ‘Can a mother forget her child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb?’ Ah! my young friend, God knows better than we do the nature he has made. Here are two things come at once—your heart is comforted, and you are content to wait?”
Roger hung his head for a moment at the last proposition; he felt a little ashamed of giving in to the dawn of expectation which his last interview with Colonel Sutherland had excited in him in spite of himself; but the Colonel’s unlooked-for kindness, and the affection of his mother, had warmed the young man’s heart, and put him once more on good terms with the world. He began to believe in friendship and kindness, and to think that, after all, matters were not hopeless with him; but still his high spirit revolted from the idea of waiting till an application for aid had been made on his behalf, and doing nothing on his own account till that had been granted or refused.
“I can wait, and think it all over again for a few days,” he said, with a little hesitation, “though indeed there is little to think of; for the case is not at all changed; but because you wish it, Colonel—you who have been so kind to me. I would be a poor fellow indeed, if I could not wait for a time for your pleasure.”
“Very well,” said Colonel Sutherland, with a smile; “we will let it stand on these grounds—it will please me. I have made a discovery also to-day. I find that your Sir John Armitage is an old friend of mine. I shall be very glad to seek him up for my own sake; they tell me he is invalid, and unsettled; but that should not make him less cordial to his fellow-creatures. We have been under fire together, and under canvas. He is an older acquaintance of mine than of yours. It will be odd if two old soldiers, when they lay their heads together, can do nothing to help on a young one. I have a little influence myself, and my own boy is secure. Some day you two may stand by each other when we old fellows are gone. I daresay, if you were together, you would not be long of making friends with my Ned. He is an honest fellow, though his father says it, and I think never gave me an hour’s pain.”
“But what can I say? I who have no claim whatever on your kindness, why are you so good to me?” cried Roger, astonished; “thanking you is folly; I have no words for it; it is beyond thanks; why are you so generous to me?”
“Tut, boy, nonsense!—I have sons of my own,” said Colonel Sutherland; “and what is the good of an old man in this world? By-the-bye, tell me—have you ever sought or admitted the friendship of your neighbours since your grief? There are various families hereabout, I understand; your Rector for example—I am afraid you must have repulsed that good man in your first trouble—eh?—remember I am hard of hearing; you were too melancholy, too miserable for sympathy, and you have taken it into your head since that they had ceased to care for you?”
“I was thankful for all the sympathy I got; I trusted everybody then,” said Roger, simply; “but—it does not matter,” he said, after a little hesitation; “I found out the difference afterwards; no—it was not me.”
“But the Rector—he has children, a son—was not he very friendly?” asked the Colonel, with persistence; he wanted to ascertain, as closely as he could, what was the real state of the case.