Thus appealed to, Amos no longer hesitated, but said calmly, and in a low distinct voice, heard by every one at the table, “I had rather not have given my opinion; but, when I am thus openly appealed to, I must not shrink from expressing it. I think it wrong, utterly wrong, to ridicule sin in any shape or form. To put sin in a funny light is not the way to make us hate it as we ought to do. Our Saviour never made light or a jest of sin; and I believe that the man who mimicked a drunkard and a hypocritical preacher had no love for either sobriety or holiness.”
The profoundest silence reigned while Amos uttered these words. At first his voice had trembled, but it immediately became perfectly firm, and a quiet peace rested on his sweet face as he finished. A sudden chill seemed to have fallen on most of the party. Some shrugged their shoulders, some smiled, others looked annoyed. Mrs Morse and her daughter exchanged looks of bewilderment behind Amos’s back. Walter, with feelings of mingled shame and vexation, glanced at the bright face of his aunt, whose eyes swam with grateful tears. Then he glanced down: her hands were crossed; yes, he knew that it would be so. And how felt Mr Huntingdon? To the surprise of all, and of none more than Amos himself, he exclaimed, “That’s right, Amos; you’ve spoken out like a man, and I believe you are right.”
For a while there was silence; then a gentleman near the squire’s end of the table asked his next neighbour, “What sort of a looking man was this same mimic? I believe you were at Lady Gambit’s.”
“Yes, I was there,” replied the other. “I can’t say much in his favour. He was not a bad-looking fellow,—black hair, if it was his own, black piercing eyes, and a black beard. I can’t imagine where her ladyship picked him up.”
“But I can,” said a gentleman opposite. “He is some strolling player. He got, it would seem, access to Lady Gambit’s ear in some underhand way; and he has done now what our young friend Walter suggested a little while ago that he might as well have done sooner. Having taken other people off, he has taken himself off also, and has contrived to carry some twenty pounds of her ladyship’s money with him, which he managed to swindle her out of; and the police are on the look-out for him. I heard that only this morning from the sergeant himself.”
Poor Amos! how terribly his heart sank within him when he heard these words! Yes; he could have little doubt about it. This mimic and swindler, he felt assured, was none other than his own brother-in-law. Happily, however, he was pretty sure to be now out of the neighbourhood, and was not likely to show himself soon again. But what of his unhappy wife? Alas! Amos dreaded to think what the unprincipled man might do with or against her.
Glad, heartily glad, were both the brothers when the dinner was over, and the rest of the evening, after “dragging its slow length along,” had at last come to an end. Walter, indeed, rattled away in the drawing-room to every one’s content but his own. Still, a chill had fallen on more than one of the party; and as for poor Mrs Morse and her daughter, after endeavouring to make themselves agreeable by gusts which were followed by portentous lulls, they were glad to order their carriage and take their departure at the earliest hour consistent with politeness.
And now, when all the guests had taken leave, and Miss Huntingdon had retired to her room, happy in the prospect of coming rest, she heard a sort of half scuffle at her door, followed by a knock. Then in came Walter, dragging in some one after him who was evidently reluctant to be thus introduced. “Can you, oh, can you, dear aunt, spare me—ay, spare us,—that means me and Amos, or, rather, it ought to be Amos and me,—just a few minutes? Amos doesn’t want to come, just like his unselfish self, but I do. No, I don’t want to tire you after all your fatigues, but I can’t go to sleep till I have had a word from you. If you don’t let me stop, if you don’t say that word, I shall lie awake all night, thinking of those hands—not cross, for their owner is never cross, but crossed—those crossed hands. Or if I do go to sleep, I shall do nothing but dream of them. So pray let me stop; and Amos must stop too.”
The permission to remain having been cheerfully granted, Walter hauled his brother into a chair, and then, stooping over him, kissed his forehead. Then he flung himself on his knees and looked up wistfully into Miss Huntingdon’s face. Oh, how entirely did she forget all weariness, as she marked the effect that Walter’s kiss had on his brother; how it brought tears from those eyes which had long known little of weeping except for sorrow.
“Well, dear boy,” she said, “and what would you have with me now?”