“My dear, your father has ordered it so. For my part, I cannot see why there should be so much mystery about it. But he always knows better than we do, of course.”
“Surely, mamma,” suggested Cecil, “it would be a dreadful shock to the family to receive poor Hilary in such a condition, just after the appearance of that horrid water. They would put the two things together, and believe it the beginning of great calamities.”
“Now, my dear child,” answered Mrs. Hales, who loved to speak a word in season; “let not us, who are Christians, hearken to such superstitious vanities. Trust in the Lord, and all will be well. He holdeth in the hollow of his hands the earth and all that therein is; yea, and the waters that be under the earth. Now run up, and see whether your poor cousin has eaten that morsel of anchovy toast. And tell him that I am going to prepare his draught; but he must not take the pills until half-past eleven.”
“Oh, mamma dear, you’ll drive him out of the house. Poor fellow, how I do pity him!”
Now Hilary certainly deserved this pity—not for his bodily ailments only, and the cruel fate which had placed him at the mercy of the medicine-chest, but more especially for the low and feverish condition of his heart and mind. Brooding perpetually on his disgrace, and attributing to himself more blame than his folly and failure demanded, he lost the refreshment of dreamless sleep, which his jaded body called out for. No rest could he find in the comforting words of his uncle and aunt and cousins: he knew that they were meant for comfort, and such knowledge vexes; or at least it irritates a man, until the broader time of life, when things are taken as they are meant, and any good word is welcome.
He was not, however, so very far gone as to swallow his dear aunt’s boluses. He allowed his pillow to take his pills; and his good-natured cousins let him swallow them, as much as a juggler swallows swords. “I can’t take them while you are looking,” he said; “when you come in again you will find them gone.”
Now one of the girls—it was never known which, because all three denied it—stupidly let the sick cousin know that the master of the house was absent. Hilary paid no special heed at the moment when he heard it; but after a while he began to perceive (as behoved a blockaded soldier) that here was his chance for a sally. And he told them so, after his gravy-beef and a raw egg beaten up with sherry.
“How cunning you are now!” said Cecil, who liked and admired him very deeply. “But you are not quite equal, Master Captain, to female ingenuity. The Spanish ladies must have taught you that, if half that I hear is true of them. Now you need not look so wretched, because I know nothing about them. Only this I know, that out of this house you are not allowed to go, without—oh, what do you call it?—a pass, or a watchword, or a countersign, or something or other from papa himself. So you may just as well lie down—or mamma will come up with a powder for you.”
“The will of the Lord be done,” said Hilary; “but, Cecil, you are getting very pretty, and you need not take away my breeches.”