The servant accordingly retired, with a mortified and somewhat dogged air; but, although he had not been entirely without hopes that his master might indeed dispatch him for the money, yet his purpose was sufficiently answered, to prevent him feeling deeply the disappointment of expectations that had never been very sanguine.
The tidings Burrel had heard annoyed him considerably; for although a doubt never crossed his mind in regard to the payment of the money having been made by Lord Ashborough, it seemed so extraordinary that Mr. Tims had not made him acquainted with the day of payment, that a vague suspicion of something being wrong obtruded itself upon his imagination, and kept him for some time from sleep.
"Which is my nearest way to a house called Ryebury, my dear sir?" was one of Burrel's first questions to Dr. Wilton, at the breakfast-table, next morning. "It belongs to an old miserly money-lender, named Tims."
"The way to the money-lender's, like all those that lead to destruction, is wide enough," replied Dr. Wilton. "But I hope, my dear Harry, you are not going to borrow money?"
"No, no, my dear sir!" answered Burrel, laughing. "Heaven knows what I should do with it, if I did. Within the last six years, I am sorry and ashamed to say, I have accumulated nearly five-and-twenty thousand pounds."
"Fie, fie, that is almost as bad!" cried Dr. Wilton. "I would never advise any man to live quite up to his income; for if he set out with such a determination, he will most certainly live beyond it; but I would recommend every man who has enough for himself and for those who may come after him, to spend very nearly his whole income. We are but stewards, my dear Harry! we are but stewards! and we are bound to dispense the good things that are intrusted to us."
"And yet I have both heard you cry out against luxury," replied Burrel, "and declare that indiscriminate gifts of money did more harm than good."
"True, true!" replied Dr. Wilton. "I have done all that you say. But there are thousands of eligible ways in this world by which a man may discharge that duty to society imposed upon him by a large fortune, without injuring his own mind, or enervating his own body by luxury. How much may be done to promote the instruction of youth, to furnish employment for the poor and industrious, to encourage arts and sciences, to reward the manufacturer even for his toil and skill, and the merchant for his risk and enterprise, without being the least luxurious in one's own person. Ximenes walked through halls tapestried with purple and gold, and yet lay down upon a bed of straw. Fie, Harry, fie. It is a shame for any rich man to accumulate more wealth while there is a poor man in all the land."
Burrel smiled at the lecture of his old tutor; not, indeed, because he undervalued his precepts, but because he evidently saw that the lapse of ten years had been skipped over in the good doctor's mind, and that he himself stood there as much the pupil in the eyes of Dr. Wilton, as ever he had been in his days of boyhood.
"Well, well, my dear sir!" he answered; "as some compensation for my negligence hitherto, I think I shall find a means of spending this twenty-five thousand pounds in such a manner as even your severe philosophy will approve."