He met me with a smile; a really honest, almost a light-hearted smile. “It is come at last, Hawthorne; perhaps it would be wrong, or I feel as if I could say, thank God. There is but one point which touches me at all; what do they say about my father?” I told him—fortunately, my acquaintance lying but little among men of business, I could tell him so honestly—that I had heard nothing stated to his discredit.
“Well, well; but they will soon. Oh! Hawthorne; the utter misery, the curse that money-making brings with it! That joining house to house, and field to field, how it corrupts all the better part of a man’s nature! I vow to you, I believe my father would have been an honest man if he had but been a poor one! If he had never had anything to do with interest tables, and had but spent his capital, instead of trying to double and redouble it! One thing I have to thank him for; that he never would suffer me to imbibe any taste for business; he knew the evil and the pollution money-handling brings with it—I am sure he did; he encouraged me, I fear, in extravagance; but I bless him that he never encouraged me in covetousness.”
He grew a little calmer by degrees, and we sat down and took counsel as to his future plans. He was not, of course, without friends, and had already had many offers of assistance for himself and his sister; but his heart appeared, for the present, firmly bent upon independence. Much to my surprise, he decided on returning at once to Oxford, and reading for his degree. His sister had some little property settled upon her—some hundred and fifty pounds a-year; and this she had insisted on devoting to this purpose.
“I love her too well,” said Russell, “to refuse her: and trifling as this sum is,—I remember the time when I should have thought it little to keep me in gloves and handkerchiefs—yet, with management, it will be more than I shall spend in Oxford. Of course, I play the gentleman-commoner no longer; I shall descend to the plain stuff gown.”
“You’ll go to a hall, of course?” said I; for I concluded he would at least avoid the mortification of so palpable a confession of reduced circumstances as this degradation of rank in his old college would be.
“I can see no occasion for it; that is, if they will allow me to change; I have done nothing to be ashamed of, and shall be much happier than I was before. I only strike my false colours; and you know they were never carried willingly.”
I did not attempt to dissuade him, and soon after rose to take my leave.
“I cannot ask my sister to see you now,” he said, as we shook hands: “she is not equal to it. But some other time, I hope”——
“At any other time, I shall be most proud of the introduction. By the way, have you seen Ormiston? He met me this morning, and sent some kind messages, to offer any service in his power.”