“I’m afraid, auntie,” was the boy’s reply, “I don’t think much about that. But Amos does, I know; and though I laugh at him sometimes, yet I respect him for all that, and I believe he will turn out the true hero after all.”
Chapter Four.
The Crippled Horse.
Nature and circumstances had produced widely differing characters in the two brothers. Walter, forward enough by natural temperament, and ready to assert himself on all occasions, was brought more forward still and encouraged in self-esteem and self-indulgence, by the injudicious fondness of both his parents. Handsome in person, with a merry smile and a ripple of joyousness rarely absent from his bright face, he was the favourite of all guests at his father’s house, and a sharer in their field-sports and pastimes. That his father and mother loved him better than they loved Amos it was impossible for him not to see; and, as he grew to mature boyhood, a feeling of envy, when he heard both parents regret that himself was not their heir, drew his heart further and further from his elder brother, and led him to exhibit what he considered his superiority to him as ostentatiously as possible, that all men might see what a mistake Nature had made in the order of time in which she had introduced the two sons into the family. Not that Walter really hated his brother; he would have been shocked to admit to himself the faintest shadow of such a feeling, for he was naturally generous and of warm affections; but he clearly looked upon his elder brother as decidedly in his way and in the wrong place, and often made a butt of him, considering it quite fair to play off his sarcasms and jokes on one who had stolen a march upon him by coming into the world before him as heir of the family estate. And now that their mother—who had made no secret of her preference of Walter to her elder son—was removed from them, the cords of Mr Huntingdon’s affections were wound tighter than ever round his younger son, in whom he could scarce see a fault, however glaringly visible it might be to others; while poor Amos’s shortcomings received the severest censure, and his weaknesses were visited on him as sins. No wonder, then, that, spite of the difference in their ages and order of birth, Walter Huntingdon looked upon himself as a colossal figure in the household, and on his poor brother as a cipher.
On the other hand, Amos, if he had been of a similar temperament to his brother, would have been inevitably more or less cowed and driven into himself by the circumstances which surrounded him, and the treatment which he undeservedly received at the hands of his parents and younger brother. Being, however, naturally of a shy and nervous disposition, he would have been completely crushed under the burden of heartless neglect, and his heart frozen up by the withholding of a father’s and mother’s love, had it not been for the gentle and deep affection of his aunt, Miss Huntingdon, who was privileged to lead that poor, desolate, craving heart to Him whose special office it is to pour a heavenly balm into the wounded spirit. In herself, too, he found a source of comfort from her pitying love, which in a measure took the place of that which his nearest ought to have given him, but did not. And so, as boy and young man, Amos Huntingdon learned, under the severe discipline of his earthly home, lessons which were moulding his character to a nobility which few suspected, who, gazing on that timid, shrinking youth, went on their way with a glance or shrug of pity. But so it was.
Amos had formed a mighty purpose; it was to be the one object of his earthly life, to which everything was to bend till he had accomplished it. But who would have thought of such an iron resolution of will in a breast like that poor boy’s? For to him an ordinary conversation was a trial, and to speak in company an effort, though it was but to answer a simple question. If a stranger asked his opinion, a nervous blush covered his face as he forced out a reply. The solitude which others found irksome had special charms for him. With one person only in his own home did he feel really at ease,—that person was his aunt, for he believed that she in a measure really understood and sympathised with him. And yet that shy, nervous, retiring young man, down-trodden and repulsed as he was, was possessed by one grand and all-absorbing purpose: it was this, to bring back his sister to her father’s home forgiven, and his mother to that same home with the cloud removed from her mind and spirit.
That both these objects might be accomplished he was firmly persuaded. At the same time, he was fully aware that to every one else who knew his father and the circumstances which had led to the sad estrangement of the daughter and removal of the mother, such a restoration as he contemplated bringing about would appear absolutely hopeless. Yet he himself had no doubts on the subject. The conviction that his purpose might and would be accomplished was stamped into his soul as by an indelible brand. He was perfectly sure that every hindrance could be removed, though how he could not tell. But there stood up this conviction ever facing him, ever beckoning him on, as though a messenger from an unseen world. Not that he was ignorant of nor underrated the magnitude of the obstacles in his way. He knew and felt most oppressively that everything almost was against him. The very thought of speaking to his father on the subject made a chill shudder creep over him. To move a single step in the direction of the attainment of his object required an effort from which his retiring nature shrank as if stung by a spark of white heat. The opposition, direct or indirect, of those nearest to him was terrible even to contemplate, and was magnified while yet at a distance through the haze of his morbid sensitiveness. Yet his conviction and purpose remained unshaken. He was, moreover, fully aware that neither mother nor sister had any deep affection for him, and that, should he gain the end he had set before him, he might get no nearer to their hearts than the place he now occupied. It mattered not; he had devoted himself to his great object as to a work of holy self-denial and labour of love, and from the pursuit of that object nothing should move him, but onward he would struggle towards its attainment, with the steady determination which would crush through hindrances and obstacles by the weight of its tremendous earnestness.
This purpose had hovered before his thoughts in dim outline while he was yet a boy, and had at length assumed its full and clear proportions while he was at Oxford. There it was that he became acquainted with a Christian young man who, pitying his loneliness and appreciating his character, had sought and by degrees obtained his friendship, and, in a measure, his confidence, as far as he was able to give it. To his surprise Amos discovered that his new friend’s father was the physician under whose charge and in whose house his own mother, Mrs Huntingdon, had been placed. Mr Huntingdon had kept the matter a profound secret from his own children, and no member of his household ever ventured to allude to the poor lady or to her place of retirement, and it was only by an inadvertence on his young friend’s part that Amos became aware of his mother’s present abode. But this knowledge, after the first excitement of surprise had passed away, only strengthened the purpose which had gradually taken its settled hold upon his heart. It was to him a new and important link in the chain of events which would lead, he knew, finally to the accomplishment of his one great resolve. And so he determined to communicate with his friend’s father, the physician, and ascertain from him in confidence his opinion of his mother’s mental condition, and whether there was any possibility of her restoration to sanity. The reply to his inquiries was that his mother’s case was far from hopeless; and with this he was satisfied. Then he took the letter which conveyed the opinion of the physician to him, and, spreading it out before God in his chamber, solemnly and earnestly dedicated himself to the work of restoration, asking guidance and strength from on high.