So in this case. His brother advised a temporizing course,—to mortgage the estate, for instance, and pay a moiety of the debts. It was surely all that could be expected from a man who had not actually incurred them. And then he might still be the nominal owner of Hazlewood,—he might still marry Rosa.
"While, if you do as you propose," argued the Captain, "(and you know, of course, old fellow, I fully appreciate your noble and honorable feeling in the matter,) you ruin your own hopes; and I can't see that a fellow is called upon to do that, as a point of filial duty. What are you to do? that's the thing. It isn't as though you had anything to fall back upon, by Jove! It's a case of beggaring yourself"——
"Instead of beggaring other people," Everett said. "No, Richard,—I cannot see either the justice or the wisdom of what you propose. I will not cast the burden on other shoulders. As my father's representative, I must abide the penalty of his mistake,—and I only. I cannot rest while our name is as the catchword of ruin and misery to thousands around us, less able to bear both, perhaps, than I, who am young and strong,—able to work both with head and hands."
"But think of Rosa!" said his brother. "How do you get over that? Isn't her happiness worth some consideration?"
"It has been my thought, night and day, ever since," Everett said, in a low voice. "It has come between me and what I felt to be the Right, more than once. You don't know what that thought has been, or you would not challenge it against me now."
"Well, well,—I only want you to look on all sides of what you are about to do, and to count the cost beforehand."
Everett smiled quietly. As if "the cost" were not already counted, felt, and suffered in that deep heart of his! But he said nothing.
"In the next place, what do you propose to do?" pursued his brother. "Will you enter a profession? Can't say you're much adapted for a lawyer; and perhaps you're too tender-hearted for a doctor, either. But I remember, as a boy, you always said you should like to be a clergyman. And, by Jove! when one comes to think of it, you've a good deal of the cut of the village priest about you. What do you say to that?"
"Nothing. I have other plans." And Everett proceeded briefly to tell him these. He had heard from Charles Barclay, now high in the confidence of one of the leading mercantile firms of Montreal; and through him, he had obtained the offer of an appointment in the same house.
Richard Gray listened to all this, with ill-concealed amusement twitching the corners of his mouth. He thought the idea of his brother's turning man-of-business one of the "richest" he had ever heard.