There must at least be kindred principles strong enough to overcome, or even utilize the many minor points of difference which may exist, without proving any bar to a real friendship, or the closer union of which marriage should be the precursor.
Alas, that so close a union should not always mean true unity of hearts, aims, hopes, and lives!
Of Captain Torrance's character something has already been told. Of Aylmer Matheson's only good can be written.
An only son and idolized by his father, he repaid this affection by filial devotion. A man of scholarly attainments and refined tastes, whose society was much sought after, Aylmer was content to share the country pursuits in which his father delighted, and to live almost wholly at Westhill after leaving Oxford. Whilst at college he had been the generous friend and helper of young men who needed such aid. In society he was self-possessed, but modest; in manners as courteous and considerate to the lowly as to those who filled high places.
In one respect Aylmer and his father closely resembled each other. Unlike too many young men, Aylmer was not ashamed to confess Christ before the world, but gladly acknowledged that his chief desire was to be numbered amongst His true soldiers and servants, and to spend and be spent in doing His will.
It will be easily imagined that friendship between Captain Jack Torrance and Aylmer Matheson could hardly exist.
[CHAPTER V]
UNDER WATCH AND WARD
IT seemed strange that the huge building which was the country residence of the Honourable Edmund Arthur Holwynd, Earl of Waybridge, should be simply Hollingsby, whilst the smaller, but far prettier home of the Mountfords, should be styled Hollingsby Hall. But so it was, and though ignorant strangers would sometimes call the latter Little Hollingsby by way of distinction, such were always sternly rebuked by the older dwellers in the neighbourhood.
Everybody knew that the earl was only the representative of a very modern peerage, and that his rambling house, red brick with white stone facings, was no old family-seat, but the outcome of a large expenditure of money with the minimum of taste on the part of his father, the first peer.