Through the Fray: A Tale of the Luddite Riots by G. A. Henty (best novels to read for beginners .TXT) 📗

as from his stepfather. She treated him as if he only were to blame for the quarrel which had arisen. They had never understood each other, and while she was never weary of making excuses for her husband, she could make none for her son. In the knowledge that the former had much to vex him she made excuses for him even in his worst moods. His new machinery was standing idle, his business was getting worse and worse, he was greatly pressed and worried, and it was monstrous, she told herself, that at such a time he should be troubled with Ned's defiant behavior.

A short time before the school Christmas holidays Ned knocked at the door of Mr. Porson's study. Since the conversation which they had had when first Ned heard of his mother's engagement Mr. Porson had seen in the lad's altered manner, his gloomy looks, and a hardness of expression which became more and more marked every week, that things were going on badly. Ned no longer evinced the same interest in his work, and frequently neglected it altogether; the master, however, had kept silence, preferring to wait until Ned should himself broach the subject.

“Well, Sankey, what is it?” he asked kindly as the boy entered.

“I don't think it's any use my going on any longer, Mr. Porson.”

“Well, Sankey, you have not been doing yourself much good this half, certainly. I have not said much to you about it, for it is entirely your own business: you know more than nineteen out of twenty of the young fellows who get commissions, so that if you choose to give up work it is your own affair.”

“I have made up my mind not to go into the army,” Ned said quietly.

Mr. Porson was silent a minute.

“I hope, my dear lad,” he said, “you will do nothing hastily about this. Here is a profession open to you which is your own choice and that of your father, and it should need some very strong and good reason for you to abandon it. Come let us talk the matter over together, my boy, not as a master and his pupil, but as two friends.

“You know, my boy, how thoroughly I have your interest at heart. If you had other friends whom you could consult I would rather have given you no advice, for there is no more serious matter than to say anything which might influence the career of a young fellow just starting in life. Terrible harm often results from well intentioned advice or opinions carelessly expressed to young men by their elders; it is a matter which few men are sufficiently careful about; but as I know that you have no friends to consult, Ned, and as I regard you with more than interest, I may say with affection, I think it would be well for you to tell me all that there is in your mind before you take a step which may wreck your whole life.

“I have been waiting for some months in hopes that you would open your mind to me, for I have seen that you were unhappy; but it was not for me to force your confidence.”

“I don't know that there's much to tell,” Ned said wearily. “Everything has happened just as it was certain it would do. Mulready is a brute; he ill treats my mother, he ill treats Charlie and Lucy, and he would ill treat me if he dared.”

“All this is bad, Ned,” Mr. Porson said gravely; “but of course much depends upon the amount of his ill treatment. I assume that he does not actively ill treat your mother.”

“No,” Ned said with an angry look in his face; “and he'd better not.”

“Yes, Ned, he had better not, no doubt,” Mr. Porson said soothingly; “but what I want to know, what it is essential I should know if I am to give you any advice worth having, is what you mean by ill treatment—is he rough and violent in his way with her? does he threaten her with violence? is he coarse and brutal?”

“No,” Ned said somewhat reluctantly; “he is not that, sir; he is always snapping and snarling and finding fault.”

“That is bad, Ned, but it does not amount to ill treatment. When a man is put out in business and things go wrong with him it is unhappily too often his custom to vent his ill temper upon innocent persons; and I fancy from what I hear—you know in a little place like this every one's business is more or less known—Mr. Mulready has a good deal to put him out. He has erected new machinery and dare not put it to work, owing as I hear—for he has lain the documents before the magistrates—for his having received threatening letters warning him against doing so. This is very trying to the man. Then, Ned, you will excuse my saying that perhaps he is somewhat tried at home. It is no pleasant thing for a man to have a young fellow like yourself in the house taking up an attitude of constant hostility. I do not say that his conduct may or may not justify it; but you will not deny that from the first you were prepared to receive him as an enemy rather than as a friend. I heard a story some weeks ago in the town, which emanated no doubt from the servants, that you had actually struck him.”

“He hit Charlie, sir,” Ned exclaimed.

“That may be,” Mr. Porson went on gravely; “and I have no doubt, Ned, that you considered then, and that you consider now, that you were acting rightly in interfering on behalf of your brother. But I should question much whether in such a matter you are the best judge. You unfortunately began with a very strong prejudice against this man; you took up the strongest attitude of hostility to him; you were prepared to find fault with everything he said and did; you put yourself in the position of the champion of your mother, brother, and sister against him. Under such circumstances it was hardly possible that things could go on well. Now I suppose, Ned, that the idea which you have in your mind in deciding to give up the profession you have chosen, is that you may remain as their champion and protector here.”

“Yes, sir,” Ned said. “Father told me to be kind to mother, whatever happened.”

“Quite so, my boy; but the question is, Are you being kind?”

Ned looked surprised.

“That you intend to be so, Ned, I am sure. The question is, Are you going the right way to work? Is this championship that you have taken upon yourself increasing her happiness, or is it not?”

Ned was silent.

“I do not think that it is, Ned. Your mother must be really fond of this man or she would not have married him. Do you think that it conduces to the comfort of her home to see the constant antagonism which prevails between you and him? Is it not the fact that this ill temper under which she suffers is the result of the irritation caused to him by your attitude? Do you not add to her burden rather than relieve it?”

Ned was still silent. He had so thoroughly persuaded himself that he was protecting his mother, his brother, and sister from Mr. Mulready that he had never considered the matter in this light.