She knew him less than any of the rest, and her first amusement was keeping silence to punish him for complaining of clack; but he explained that he did not mean quiet, sensible conversation--he only referred to those foolish women's raptures over the gabble they had been hearing at the Town Hall.
She exclaimed, whereupon he began to criticise the speakers with a good deal of acuteness, exposing the weak points, but magnanimously owning that it was tolerable for the style of thing, and might go down at Stoneborough.
"I wonder you did not stay away as Harry did."
"I thought it would be marked," observed the thread-paper Tom, as if he had been at least county member.
"You did quite right," said Meta, really thinking so.
"I wished to hear Dr. Spencer, too," said Tom. "There is a man who does know how to speak! He has seen something of the world, and knows what he is talking of."
"But he did not come near Norman."
"I hated listening to Norman," said Tom. "Why should he go and set his heart on those black savages?"
"They are not savages in New Zealand."
"They are all niggers together," said Tom vehemently. "I cannot think why Norman should care for them more than for his own brothers and sisters. All I know is, that if I were my father, I would never give my consent."
"It is lucky you are not," said Meta, smiling defiance, though a tear shone in her eye. "Dr. May makes the sacrifice with a free heart and willing mind."
"Everybody goes and sacrifices somebody else," grumbled Tom.
"Who are the victims now?"
"All of us. What are we to do without Norman? He is worth all of us put together; and I--" Meta was drawn to the boy as she had never been before, as he broke off short, his face full of emotion, that made him remind her of his father.
"You might go out and follow in his steps," said she, as the most consoling hope she could suggest.
"Not I. Don't you know what is to happen to me? Ah! Flora has not told you. I thought she would not think it grand enough. She talked about diplomacy--"
"But what?" asked Meta anxiously.
"Only that I am to stick to the old shop," said Tom. "Don't tell any one; I would not have the fellows know it."
"Do you mean your father's profession?"
"Ay!"
"Oh, Tom! you don't talk of that as if you despised it?"
"If it is good enough for him, it is good enough for me, I suppose," said Tom. "I hate everything when I think of my brothers going over the world, while I, do what I will, must be tied down to this slow place all the rest of my days."
"If you were away, you would be longing after it."
"Yes; but I can't get away."
"Surely, if the notion is so unpleasant to you, Dr. May would never insist?"
"It is my free choice, and that's the worst of it."
"I don't understand."
"Don't you see? Norman told me it would be a great relief to him if I would turn my mind that way--and I can't go against Norman. I found he thought he must if I did not; and, you know, he is fit for all sorts of things that-- Besides, he has a squeamishness about him, that makes him turn white, if one does but cut one's finger, and how he would ever go through the hospitals--"
Meta suspected that Tom was inclined to launch into horrors. "So you wanted to spare him," she said.
"Ay! and papa was so pleased by my offering that I can't say a word of the bore it is. If I were to back out, it would come upon Aubrey, and he is weakly, and so young, that he could not help my father for many years."
Meta was much struck at the motives that actuated the self-sacrifice, veiled by the sullen manner which she almost began to respect. "What is done for such reasons must make you happy," she said; "though there may be much that is disagreeable."
"Not the study," said Tom. "The science is famous work. I like what I see of it in my father's books, and there's a splendid skeleton at the hospital that I long to be at. If it were not for Stoneborough, it would be all very well; but, if I should get on ever so well at the examinations, it all ends there! I must come back, and go racing about this miserable circuit, just like your gold pheasant rampaging in his cage, seeing the same stupid people all my days."
"I think," said Meta, in a low, heartfelt voice, "it is a noble, beautiful thing to curb down your ambition for such causes. Tom, I like you for it."
The glance of those beautiful eyes was worth having. Tom coloured a little, but assumed his usual gruffness. "I can't bear sick people," he said.
"It has always seemed to me," said Meta, "that few lives could come up to Dr. May's. Think of going about, always watched for with hope, often bringing gladness and relief; if nothing else, comfort and kindness, his whole business doing good."
"One is paid for it," said Tom.
"Nothing could ever repay Dr. May," said Meta. "Can any one feel the fee anything but a mere form? Besides, think of the numbers and numbers that he takes nothing from; and oh! to how many he has brought the most real good, when they would have shut their doors against it in any other form! Oh, Tom, I think none of you guess how every one feels about your father. I recollect one poor woman saying, after he had attended her brother, 'He could not save his body, but, surely, ma'am, I think he was the saving of his soul.'"
"It is of no use to talk of my being like my father," said Tom.
Meta thought perhaps not, but she was full of admiration of his generosity, and said, "You will make it the same work of love, and charity is the true glory."
Any inroad on Tom's reserved and depressed nature was a benefit; and he was of an age to be susceptible of the sympathy of one so pretty and so engaging. He had never been so much gratified or encouraged, and, wishing to prolong the tete-a-tete, he chose to take the short cut through the fir-plantations, unfrequented on account of the perpendicular, spiked railings that divided it from the lane.
Meta was humming-bird enough to be undismayed. She put hand and foot wherever he desired, flattered him by letting him handily help her up, and bounded light as a feather down on the other side, congratulating herself on the change from the dusty lane to the whispering pine woods, between which wound the dark path, bestrewn with brown slippery needle-leaves, and edged with the delicate feathering ling and tufts of soft grass.
Tom had miscalculated the chances of interruption. Meta was lingering to track the royal highway of some giant ants to their fir- leaf hillock, when they were hailed from behind, and her squire felt ferocious at the sight of Norman and Harry closing the perspective of fir-trunks.
"Hallo! Tom, what a guide you are!" exclaimed Norman. "That fence which even Ethel and Mary avoid!"
"Mary climbs like a cow, and Ethel like a father-long-legs," said Tom. "Now Meta flies like a bird."
"And Tom helped me so cleverly," said Meta. "It was an excellent move, to get into the shade and this delicious pine tree fragrance."
"Halt!" said Norman--"this is too fast for Meta."
"I cannot," said Harry. "I must get there in time to set Dr. Spencer's tackle to rights. He is tolerably knowing about knots, but there is a dodge beyond him. Come on, Tom."
He drew on the reluctant Etonian, who looked repiningly back at the increasing distance between him and the other pair, till a turn in the path cut off his view.
"I am afraid you do not know what you have undertaken," said Norman.
"I am a capital walker. And I know, or do not know, how often Ethel takes the same walk."
"Ethel is no rule."
"She ought to be," said Meta. "To be like her has always been my ambition."
"Circumstances have formed Ethel."
"Circumstances! What an ambiguous word! Either Providence pointing to duty, or the world drawing us from it."
"Stepping-stones, or stumbling-blocks."