“Why,” said Fred, “you’re almost as young as I am!”
“I’m not particularly old: but no man’s life is secure, however young he may be; it’s not to be lippened to, as old Janet says. You ought to contemplate what your position would be if I were taken away. Think what happens to many a young fellow, Fred, whose father dies—perhaps just when he is where you are: and he has to stop all his pleasant ways and turn to, perhaps to work for his mother and the rest, perhaps only to look after them and take care of them—but at all events to be the head of the family instead of a careless boy.” Mr. Dalyell had stopped in his walk to enforce what he said, which was a way he had. “I’ve known a boy of your age,” he said, “that had to give up everything, and go into an office, and work like a slave: instead of your bump-suppers, Fred.”
“I’ve heard of such a thing myself,” said Fred; “though you don’t think much of my experience, father. It happened to Surtees of New, a fellow a little senior to me. It was awfully hard upon him. He would have been in the ‘eight’ if he had stayed another year. What he felt most was leaving the ‘Varsity without getting his blue. But,” added the lad, “if it matters about what people think, as you were saying, he was thought no end of for it. He went abroad, I think, to look after some business there.”
“And dropped, I suppose, never to be heard of more—among his old chums at least?”
“It was awfully hard upon him,” said Fred, regretfully.
“Well,” said Mr. Dalyell, “that’s what may happen to any one of you whose fathers are in business. You ought to remember that such a contingency is always on the cards.”
“Why, father——!” cried Fred. The boy was unwilling to make any application, to seem to think that there could be anything in their own circumstances to suggest this conversation: but he threw an involuntary glance at the house behind him with all its cheerful lights, and at the dark clouds of trees all round in the distance, which marked the great extent of the park and woods of Yalton. He did not add a word, and indeed the whole movement was involuntary—a sort of appeal from the lugubrious remarks on one side to all these unending signs of wealth on the other.
“You mean to say there’s Yalton; and though I’m in business, I’m not all in business,” said Mr. Dalyell with a laugh. “I was not speaking of ourselves, my boy; but of the vicissitudes of life. I hope there will be Dalyells of Yalton as long as Edinburgh Castle stands upon a rock; and one can’t say more than that. Still, there are wonderful changes in life, and I’d like to think—if you force me to an application—that you were up to anything that might happen. You’d have to take the command, you know, Fred,” he added after a moment, knocking the ash off his cigar against the balustrade of the terrace, with another curious laugh. “Your dear mother has never been used to anything but to be taken care of. You had better not bother her by asking advice from her if you should ever be in that position.”
“I wish you would not say such dreadful things,” said Fred petulantly. “Why should we talk of what I hope to heaven will never happen?—you make me quite uncomfortable, papa.”
“Well, my dear boy,” said Mr. Dalyell, “that’s the penalty, don’t you know, of being grown up—like shaving, and other disadvantages. You rather like the shaving—which implies an imaginary beard: but you don’t like to hear of the much more important responsibilities.”