“Thomas Lambert.”
This simple warm-hearted letter came to Mrs Cruden as the first gleam of better things on the troubled waters of her life. Things were just then at their worst. Reginald lost, Horace away in search of him, herself slowly recovering from a sad illness into a still more sad life, with little prospect either of happiness or competency, nothing to look forward to but a renewal of the old struggles, possibly single-handed. At such a time Major Lambert’s letter came to revive her drooping spirits and remind her of a Providence that never sleeps less than when we are ready to consider ourselves forgotten.
All she could do was to write a grateful reply back, and then await news from Horace, trusting meanwhile it would not be necessary to draw on the major’s offered help. A few days later Horace was home again, jubilant at having found his brother, but anxious both as to his immediate recovery and the state of mind in which restored health would find him.
“He told me lots about the past, mother,” said he. “No one can conceive what a terrible three months he has had since he left us, or how heroically he has borne it. He doesn’t think so himself, and is awfully depressed about his trial and the way in which the magistrate spoke to him—the brute!”
“Poor boy! he is the very last to bear that sort of thing well.”
“He’s got a sort of idea he’s a branded man, and is to be dragged down all his life by it. Perhaps when he hears that an old friend like Major Lambert believes in him, he may pick up. You know, mother, I believe his heart is in the grave where that little office-boy of his lies, and that he would have been thankful if—well, perhaps not so bad as that—but just at present he can’t speak or even think of the boy without breaking down.”
“According to the letter from Major Lambert’s brother-in-law, the post that is offered him is one he will like, I think,” said Mrs Cruden. “I do hope he will take it. To have nothing to do would be the worst thing that could happen to him.”
“To say nothing of the necessity of it for you, mother,” said Horace; “for there’s to be no more copying out manuscripts, mind, even if we all go to the workhouse.”
Mrs Cruden sighed. She knew her son was right, but the wolf was at the door, and she shrank from becoming a useless burden on her boys’ shoulders.
“I wonder, Horace,” said she, presently, “whether we could possibly find less expensive quarters than these. They are—”