"Because it's too late to cry out, when we are. What you say is true enough, my good Tommy. Those friends of yours are all honourable enough, individually, I dare say—though the less you have to do with them the better—but when they fall under the dominance of party, what becomes of all their scruples? They sink their own wills, they efface themselves—according to the expression now in vogue—they fall under one imperious mind; and no difference is left between black and white. My father kept hounds, as you have heard me say; and when I was a small boy, I rode my pony with them. There was one most obstinate old stager of the pack, who had a wonderful nose while he was young, and had taken the lead of all of them. But when he grew old he went all abroad; yet the rest had to follow him all the same, on a false scent, more often than a true one. At his dictation, all the younger ones, from habit, sank their own better perceptions, and loyally rushed after sheep, or donkeys, or anything he gave tongue to. But all these things we can talk of better, when you come down; as you must, next month. You have only been once to us, since you lost your father, more than five years ago. And my mother always says, when I go home, 'Have you brought Ariel with you, at last?'"
"How wonderfully kind she has always been to me!" I answered, liking soft thoughts, better than the hard flash of politics; "if she wishes to see me again, my duty is to go to her."
"Well, that is one way of putting it! A painful duty, my dear Tommy? We will try to make it a pleasant one. You can't shoot; though people shoot at you, when you take a flying fit. Come down in July, and stay three months, and I'll make you a first-rate shot, by the time the partridges are ready. You learn everything, like smoke, you see. I'll back you to beat Counterpagne on the first; though he has been at it all his life."
"You forget one important point," I answered, hoping that the objection might not prove fatal. "When a gun goes off, it kicks very hard, they tell me. And it seems too probable, that it would kick me over."
"Not a bit of it, if you lean forward. You are easy to take up, but you are not at all easy to put down, Master Tommy. You are as quick as lightning, to begin with. Nature has provided you with that, no doubt, to atone for your want of thunder. Don't be always running down yourself. There are very few fellows who can do what you can; even if you have altogether dropped your wings, through the gross feeding of these Oxford butteries. But I mean you to put on your wings again. I have a whole lot of things for you to do; and flying is a most essential part. Professor Megalow is coming down; now that I am of age, and all that sort of thing, he can stop at the Towers, as long as he likes. I am sorry to inform you, that he is a Rad. But a man of his size may be anything he likes, without being any the worse for it. I intend to consult him about you, Tommy, how we may launch you on the clouds again."
"I have not seen him for years," I said; "if he is going to be there, 'twill be enough to make me fly again."
CHAPTER XXIII. A COUNTY MEETING.
How easy it is, for a good-natured man to be taken for the opposite; and yet how hard for ill-natured people, to put on the guise of kindness! Not that the world is distinctly divided into those two classes; for the greater part of it have mixed natures, and are operated on by the mixture.