"You will go, Randal?" said Mrs. Leslie, after a pause.
"I am not sure."
"Yes, you can go; you have clothes like a gentleman; you can go any where, not like those children;" and Mrs. Leslie glanced almost spitefully on poor Oliver's coarse, threadbare jacket, and little Juliet's torn frock.
"What I have I owe at present to Mr. Egerton, and I should consult his wishes; he is not on good terms with these Hazeldeans." Then glancing toward his brother, who looked mortified, he added, with a strange sort of haughty kindness, "What I may have hereafter, Oliver, I shall owe to myself; and then, if I rise, I will raise my family."
"Dear Randal," said Mrs. Leslie, fondly kissing him on the forehead, "what a good heart you have!"
"No mother; my books don't tell me that it is a good heart that gets on in the world; it is a hard head," replied Randal, with a rude and scornful candor. "But I can read no more just now; come out, Oliver."
So saying, he slid from his mother's hand and left the room.
When Oliver joined him, Randal was already on the common; and, without seeming to notice his brother, he continued to walk quickly and with long strides in profound silence. At length he paused under the shade of an old oak, that, too old to be of value save for firewood, had escaped the ax. The tree stood on a knoll, and the spot commanded a view of the decayed house—the old dilapidated church—the dismal, dreary village.
"Oliver," said Randal, between his teeth, so that his voice had the sound of a hiss, "it was under this tree that I first resolved to—"
He paused.