It sometimes happens that the evil example of a parent is so overruled for good that the son shrinks with horror from the sin which has brought about domestic shipwreck; that having no earthly father to look up to, no paternal arm to lean upon or hand to guide, children seek more earnestly, and with a greater sense of need, the love of the Heavenly Father, the support of the everlasting arms. It had been so with Arthur Glyn, and from his very boyhood his mother and two young sisters had looked to him as the staff and comfort of their home, rather than to its nominal head.
Those who knew Worsley Glyn the elder marvelled that he could have a son like Arthur. They saw the man fritter away a fortune by all sorts of reckless expenditure, waste golden opportunities for want of exercising his undoubted talents, and lose a position which might have proved the stepping-stone to another fortune, from sheer indolence and self-indulgence.
Thus Worsley Glyn lost his self-respect, and went rapidly on the downward course, despite the efforts of loving hands which strove to stay him as he descended the social scale. The wife might cling to the arm on which in bygone days she was so proud to lean. Her feeble grasp was easily shaken off; her voice, half-choked with sobs, which implored him to stay in his home, was drowned by the invitations of boon companions. Mother and children had to struggle as best they might, lest they too should be dragged down by the reckless hand which ought to have upheld them and shielded them from every shock.
Himself a highly educated man, Worsley Glyn had resolved that Arthur, his first-born, should have every advantage that money could procure for him. The work of teaching and training was well begun; but whilst the boy's education was in progress, so great a change took place in the circumstances of the family that it could no longer be carried on in the same expensive manner.
"Never mind," said Arthur. "The Grammar School is open to me. I have no fear of failing to win a free scholarship there. With brains, health, and the determination to turn them to account, I shall do well enough at very little cost, so far as money goes."
So the earnest young student soon took his place at the Grammar School, and went onward and upward, until he went thence to Cambridge, the winner of two scholarships, which rendered him almost independent of help from his father.
Had Arthur needed assistance, it would not have been long forthcoming. Hard work and rigid economy, however, placed him beyond such need, and, when the young man's name stood high on the list of Wranglers, and a Fellowship followed, he began to think that now he might look joyfully forward and hope for a bright future. But with the thankful, congratulatory letters from home came also sad tidings of his father.
Money was gone, character forfeited; friends were becoming weary of helping, seeing that no opportunity was seized and utilized; no amount of pecuniary aid produced any permanent benefit, either to Worsley Glyn or his family. They pitied the gently nurtured lady whose fate was bound up with that of the reckless spendthrift. But people said, as it is quite natural they should say, that a wife cannot be separated from her husband; that if she could be aided without the benefit being shared by the worthless partner, helping hands should be outstretched in all directions.
This, however, could not be, so one friend fell off after another, and Mrs. Glyn was driven to tell her troubles to her son.
"You have always been my true comforter, Arthur," she wrote, "and often of late, I have been tempted to let you know how things have gone from bad to worse. But when your hopeful letters came, and I felt how necessary it was for my dear boy's mind to be clear from harassing thoughts, in order to ensure success after all these years of mental labour, I refrained from seeking relief for my own overburdened heart by telling what must grieve and trouble you. Now that your success is an accomplished fact, and your position a more assured one, you can better bear the tidings which I can no longer withhold. There is only One who knows what a trial it is to me to damp your well-earned triumph by bad news from home."