Before Tom Dill had set out on his errand he had learned all about his father and sister's dinner engagement; nor did the contrast with the way in which his own time was to be passed at all improve his temper. Indeed, he took the opportunity of intimating to his mother how few favors fell to her share or his own,—a piece of information she very philosophically received, all her sympathies being far more interested for the sorrows of “Clarissa Harlowe” than for any incident that occurred around her. Poor old lady! she had read that story over and over again, till it might seem that every word and every comma in it had become her own; but she was blessed with a memory that retained nothing, and she could cry over the sorrowful bits, and pant with eagerness at the critical ones, just as passionately, just as fervently, as she had done for years and years before. Dim, vague perceptions she might have retained of the personages, but these only gave them a stronger truthfulness, and made them more like the people of the real world, whom she had seen, passingly, once, and was now to learn more about. I doubt if Mezzofanti ever derived one tenth of the pleasure from all his marvellous memory that she did from the want of one.

Blessed with that one book, she was proof against all the common accidents of life. It was her sanctuary against duns, and difficulties, and the doctor's temper. As the miser feels a sort of ecstasy in the secret of his hoarded wealth, so had she an intense enjoyment in thinking that all dear Clarissa's trials and sufferings were only known to her. Neither the doctor, nor Polly, nor Tom, so much as suspected them. It was like a confidence between Mr. Richardson and herself, and for nothing on earth would she have betrayed it.

Tom had no such resources, and he set out on his mission with no very remarkable good feeling towards the world at large. Still, Polly had pressed into his hand a gold half-guinea,—some very long-treasured keepsake, the birthday gift of a godmother in times remote, and now to be converted into tobacco and beer, and some articles of fishing-gear which he greatly needed.

Seated in one of those light canoe-shaped skiffs,—“cots,” as they are called on these rivers,—he suffered himself to be carried lazily along by the stream, while he tied his flies and adjusted his tackle. There is, sometimes, a stronger sense of unhappiness attached to what is called being “hardly used” by the world, than to a direct palpable misfortune; for though the sufferer may not be able, even to his own heart, to set out, with clearness, one single count in the indictment, yet a general sense of hard treatment, unfairness, and so forth, brings with it great depression, and a feeling of desolation.

Like all young fellows of his stamp, Tom only saw his inflictions, not one of his transgressions. He knew that his father made a common drudge of him, employed him in all that was wearisome and even menial in his craft, admitted him to no confidences, gave him no counsels, and treated him in every way like one who was never destined to rise above the meanest cares and lowest duties. Even those little fleeting glances at a brighter future which Polly would now and then open to his ambition, never came from his father, who would actually ridicule the notion of his obtaining a degree, and make the thought of a commission in the service a subject for mockery.

He was low in heart as he thought over these things. “If it were not for Polly,” so he said to himself, “he 'd go and enlist;” or, as his boat slowly floated into a dark angle of the stream where the water was still and the shadow deep, he even felt he could do worse. “Poor Polly!” said he, as he moved his hand to and fro in the cold clear water, “you 'd be very, very sorry for me. You, at least, knew that I was not all bad, and that I wanted to be better. It was no fault of mine to have a head that could n't learn. I 'd be clever if I could, and do everything as well as she does; but when they see that I have no talents, that if they put the task before me I cannot master it, sure they ought to pity me, not blame me.” And then he bent over the boat and looked down eagerly into the water, till, by long dint of gazing, he saw, or he thought he saw, the gravelly bed beneath; and again he swept his hand through it,—it was cold, and caused a slight shudder. Then, suddenly, with some fresh impulse, he threw off his cap, and kicked his shoes from him. His trembling hands buttoned and unbuttoned his coat with some infirm, uncertain purpose. He stopped and listened; he heard a sound; there was some one near,—quite near. He bent down and peered under the branches that hung over the stream, and there he saw a very old and infirm man, so old and infirm that he could barely creep. He had been carrying a little bundle of fagots for firewood, and the cord had given way, and his burden fallen, scattered, to the ground. This was the noise Tom had heard. For a few minutes the old man seemed overwhelmed with his disaster, and stood motionless, contemplating it; then, as it were, taking courage, he laid down his staff, and bending on his knees, set slowly to work to gather up his fagots.

There are minutes in the lives of all of us when some simple incident will speak to our hearts with a force that human words never carried,—when the most trivial event will teach a lesson that all our wisdom never gave us. “Poor old fellow,” said Tom, “he has a stout heart left to him still, and he 'll not leave his load behind him!” And then his own craven spirit flashed across him, and he hid his face in his hand and cried bitterly.

Suddenly rousing himself with a sort of convulsive shake, he sent the skiff with a strong shove in shore, and gave the old fellow what remained to him of Polly's present; and then, with a lighter spirit than he had known for many a day, rowed manfully on his way.

The evening—a soft, mellow, summer evening—was just falling as Tom reached the little boat quay at the “Fisherman's Home,”—a spot it was seldom his fortune to visit, but one for whose woodland beauty and trim comfort he had a deep admiration. He would have liked to have lingered a little to inspect the boat-house, and the little aviary over it, and the small cottage on the island, and the little terrace made to fish from; but Darby had caught sight of him as he landed, and came hurriedly down to say that the young gentleman was growing very impatient for his coming, and was even hinting at sending for another doctor if he should not soon appear.

If Conyers was as impatient as Darby represented, he had, at least, surrounded himself with every appliance to allay the fervor of that spirit He had dined under a spreading sycamore-tree, and now sat with a table richly covered before him. Fruit, flowers, and wine abounded, with a profusion that might have satisfied several guests; for, as he understood that he was to consider himself at an inn, he resolved, by ordering the most costly things, to give the house all the advantage of his presence. The most delicious hothouse fruit had been procured from the gardener of an absent proprietor in the neighborhood, and several kinds of wine figured on the table, over which, and half shadowed by the leaves, a lamp had been suspended, throwing a fitful light over all, that imparted a most picturesque effect to the scene.

And yet, amidst all these luxuries and delights, Bal-shazzar was discontented; his ankle pained him; he had been hobbling about on it all day, and increased the inflammation considerably; and, besides this, he was lonely; he had no one but Darby to talk to, and had grown to feel for that sapient functionary a perfect abhorrence,—his everlasting compliance, his eternal coincidence with everything, being a torment infinitely worse than the most dogged and mulish opposition. When, therefore, he heard at last the doctor's son had come with the leeches, he hailed him as a welcome guest.

“What a time you have kept me waiting!” said he, as the loutish young man came forward, so astounded by the scene before him that he lost all presence of mind. “I have been looking out for you since three o'clock, and pottering down the river and back so often, that I have made the leg twice as thick again.”

“Why didn't you sit quiet?” said Tom, in a hoarse, husky tone.

“Sit quiet!” replied Conyers, staring half angrily at him; and then as quickly perceiving that no impertinence had been intended, which the other's changing color and evident confusion attested, he begged him to take a chair and fill his glass. “That next you is some sort of Rhine wine: this is sherry; and here is the very best claret I ever tasted.”

“Well, I 'll take that,” said Tom, who, accepting the recommendation amidst luxuries all new and strange to him, proceeded to fill his glass, but so tremblingly that he spilled the wine all about the table, and then hurriedly wiped it up with his handkerchief.

Conyers did his utmost to set his guest at his ease. He passed his cigar-case across the table, and led him on, as well as he might, to talk. But Tom was awestruck, not alone by the splendors around him, but by the condescension of his host; and he could not divest himself of the notion that he must have been mistaken for somebody else, to whom all these blandishments might be rightfully due.

“Are you fond of shooting?” asked Conyers, trying to engage a conversation.

“Yes,” was the curt reply.

“There must be good sport hereabouts, I should say. Is the game well preserved?”

“Too well for such as me. I never get a shot without the risk of a jail, and it would be cheaper for me to kill a cow than a woodcock!” There was a stern gravity in the way he said this that made it irresistibly comic, and Conyers laughed out in spite of himself.

“Have n't you a game license?” asked he.

“Haven't I a coach-and-six? Where would I get four pounds seven and ten to pay for it?”

The appeal was awkward, and for a moment Conyers was silent At last he said, “You fish, I suppose?”

“Yes; I kill a salmon whenever I get a quiet spot that nobody sees me, and I draw the river now and then with a net at night.”

“That's poaching, I take it.”

“It 's not the worse for that!” said Tom, whose pluck was by this time considerably assisted by the claret.

“Well, it's an unfair way, at all events, and destroys real sport”

“Real sport is filling your basket.”

“No, no; there's no real sport in doing anything that's unfair,—anything that's un——” He stopped short, and swallowed off a glass of wine to cover his confusion.

“That's all mighty fine for you, who can not only pay for a license, but you 're just as sure to be invited here, there, and everywhere there's game to be killed. But think of me, that never snaps a cap, never throws a line, but he knows it's worse than robbing a hen-roost, and often, maybe, just as fond of it as yourself!”

Whether it was that, coming after Darby's mawkish and servile agreement with everything, this rugged nature seemed more palatable, I cannot say; but so it was, Con-yers felt pleasure in talking to this rough unpolished creature, and hearing his opinions in turn. Had there been in Tom Dill's manner the slightest shade of any pretence, was there any element of that which, for want of a better word, we call “snobbery,” Conyers would not have endured him for a moment, but Tom was perfectly devoid of this vulgarity. He was often coarse in his remarks, his expressions were rarely measured by any rule of good manners; but it was easy to see that he never intended offence, nor did he so much as suspect that he could give that weight to any opinion which he uttered to make it of moment.

Besides these points in Tom's favor, there was another, which also led Conyers to converse with him. There is some very subtle self-flattery in the condescension of one well to do in all the gifts of fortune associating, in an assumed equality, with some poor fellow to whom fate has assigned the shady side of the highway. Scarcely a subject can be touched without suggesting something for self-gratulation; every comparison, every contrast is in his favor, and Conyers, without being more of a puppy than the majority of his order, constantly felt how immeasurably above all his guest's views of his life and the world were his own,—not alone that he was more moderate in language and less prone to attribute evil, but with a finer sense of honor and a wider feeling of liberality.

When Tom at last, with some shame, remembered that he had forgotten all about the real object of his mission, and had never so much as alluded to the leeches, Conyers only laughed and said, “Never mind them to-night. Come back to-morrow and put them on; and mind,—come to breakfast at ten or eleven o'clock.”

“What am I to say to my father?”

“Say it was a whim of mine, which it is. You are quite ready to do this matter now. I see it; but I say no. Is n't that enough?”

“I suppose so!” muttered Tom, with a sort of dogged misgiving.

“It strikes me that you have a very respectable fear of your governor. Am I right?”

“Ain't you afraid of yours?” bluntly asked the other.

“Afraid of mine!” cried Conyers, with a loud laugh; “I should think not. Why, my father and myself are as thick as two thieves. I never was in a scrape that I did n't tell him. I 'd sit down this minute and write to him just as I would to any fellow in the regiment.”

“Well, there 's only one in all the world I 'd tell a secret to, and it is n't My father!”

“Who is it, then?”

“My sister Polly!” It was impossible to have uttered these words with a stronger sense of pride. He dwelt slowly upon each of them, and, when he had finished, looked as though he had said something utterly undeniable.

“Here's her health,—in a bumper too!” cried Conyers.

“Hurray, hurray!” shouted out Tom, as he tossed off his full glass, and set it on the table with a bang that smashed it. “Oh, I beg pardon! I didn't mean to break the tumbler.”

“Never mind it, Dill; it's a trifle. I half hoped you had done it on purpose, so that the glass should never be drained to a less honored toast. Is she like you?”

“Like me,—like me?” asked he, coloring deeply. “Polly like me?”

“I mean is there a family resemblance? Could you be easily known as brother and sister?”

“Not a bit of it. Polly is the prettiest girl in this county, and she 's better than she 's handsome. There's nothing she can't do. I taught her to tie flies, and she can put wings on a green-drake now that would take in any salmon that ever swam. Martin Keene sent her a pound-note for a book of 'brown hackles,' and, by the way, she gave it to me. And if you saw her on the back of a horse!—Ambrose Bushe's gray mare, the wickedest devil that ever was bridled, one buck jump after another the length of a field, and the mare trying to get her head between her fore-legs, and Polly handling her so quiet, never out of temper, never hot, but always saying, 'Ain't you ashamed of yourself, Dido? Don't you see them all laughing at us?'”

“I am quite curious to see her. Will you present me one of these days?”

Tom mumbled out something perfectly unintelligible.

“I hope that I may be permitted to make her acquaintance,” repeated he, not feeling very certain that his former speech was quite understood.

“Maybe so,” grumbled he out at last, and sank back in his chair with a look of sulky ill-humor; for so it was that poor Tom, in his ignorance of life and its ways, deemed the proposal one of those free-and-easy suggestions which might be made to persons of very inferior station, and to whom the fact of acquaintanceship should be accounted as a great honor.

Conyers was provoked at the little willingness shown to meet his offer,—an offer he felt to be a very courteous piece of condescension on his part,—and now both sat in silence. At last Tom Dill, long struggling with some secret impulse, gave way, and in a tone far more decided and firm than heretofore, said, “Maybe you think, from seeing what sort of a fellow I am, that my sister ought to be like me; and because I have neither manners nor education, that she 's the same? But listen to me now; she 's just as little like me as you are yourself. You 're not more of a gentleman than she's a lady!”

“I never imagined anything else.”

“And what made you talk of bringing her up here to present her to you, as you called it? Was she to be trotted out in a cavasin, like a filly?”

“My dear fellow,” said Conyers, good-humoredly, “you never made a greater mistake. I begged that you would present me to your sister. I asked the sort of favor which is very common in the world, and in the language usually employed to convey such a request. I observed the recognized etiquette—”

“What do I know about etiquette? If you'd have said, 'Tom Dill, I want to be introduced to your sister,' I 'd have guessed what you were at, and I 'd have said, 'Come back in the boat with me to-morrow, and so you shall.'”

“It's a bargain, then, Dill. I want two or three things in the village, and I accept your offer gladly.”

Not only was peace now ratified between them, but a closer feeling of intimacy established; for poor Tom, not much spoiled by any excess of the world's sympathy, was so delighted by the kindly interest shown him, that he launched out freely to tell all about himself and his fortunes, how hardly treated he was at home, and how ill usage had made him despondent, and despondency made him dissolute. “It's all very well to rate a fellow about his taste for low pleasures and low companions; but what if he's not rich enough for better? He takes them just as he smokes cheap tobacco, because he can afford no other. And do you know,” continued he, “you are the first real gentleman that ever said a kind word to me, or asked me to sit down in his company. It's even so strange to me yet, that maybe when I 'm rowing home to-night I 'll think it's all a dream,—that it was the wine got into my head.”

“Is not some of this your own fault?” broke in Conyers. “What if you had held your head higher—”

“Hold my head higher!” interrupted Tom. “With this on it, eh?” And he took up his ragged and worn cap from the ground, and showed it. “Pride is a very fine thing when you can live up to it; but if you can't it's only ridiculous. I don't say,” added he, after a few minutes of silence, “but if I was far away from this, where nobody knew me, where I did n't owe little debts on every side, and was n't obliged to be intimate with every idle vagabond about—I don't say but I'd try to be something better. If, for instance, I could get into the navy—”

“Why not the army? You 'd like it better.”

“Ay! but it 's far harder to get into. There's many a rough fellow like myself aboard ship that they would n't take in a regiment. Besides, how could I get in without interest?”

“My father is a Lieutenant-General. I don't know whether he could be of service to you.”

“A Lieutenant-General!” repeated Tom, with the reverential awe of one alluding to an actual potentate.

“Yes. He has a command out in India, where I feel full sure he could give you something. Suppose you were to go out there? I 'd write a letter to my father and ask him to befriend you.”

“It would take a fortune to pay the journey,” said Tom, despondingly.

“Not if you went out on service; the Government would send you free of cost. And even if you were not, I think we might manage it. Speak to your father about it.”

“No,” said he, slowly. “No; but I 'll talk it over with Polly. Not but I know well she'll say, 'There you are, castle-building and romancing. It's all moonshine! Nobody ever took notice of you,—nobody said he 'd interest himself about you.'”

“That's easily remedied. If you like it, I 'll tell your sister all about it myself. I 'll tell her it's my plan, and I 'll show her what I think are good reasons to believe it will be successful.”

“Oh! would you—would you!” cried he, with a choking sensation in the throat; for his gratitude had made him almost hysterical.

“Yes,” resumed Conyers. “When you come up here tomorrow, we 'll arrange it all. I 'll turn the matter all over in my mind, too, and I have little doubt of our being able to carry it through.”

“You 'll not tell my father, though?”

“Not a word, if you forbid it. At the same time, you must see that he'll have to hear it all later on.”

“I suppose so,” muttered Tom, moodily, and leaned his head thoughtfully on his hand. But one half-hour back and he would have told Conyers why he desired this concealment; he would have declared that his father, caring more for his services than his future good, would have thrown every obstacle to his promotion, and would even, if need were, have so represented him to Conyers that he would have appeared utterly unworthy of his interest and kindness; but now not one word of all this escaped him. He never hinted another reproach against his father, for already a purer spring had opened in his nature, the rocky heart had been smitten by words of gentleness, and he would have revolted against that which should degrade him in his own esteem.

“Good night,” said Conyers, with a hearty shake of the hand, “and don't forget your breakfast engagement tomorrow.”

“What 's this?” said Tom, blushing deeply, as he found a crumpled bank-note in his palm.

“It's your fee, my good fellow, that's all,” said the other, laughingly.

“But I can't take a fee. I have never done so. I have no right to one. I am not a doctor yet.”

“The very first lesson in your profession is not to anger your patient; and if you would not provoke me, say no more on this matter.” There was a half-semblance of haughtiness in these words that perhaps the speaker never intended; at all events, he was quick enough to remedy the effect, for he laid his hand good-naturedly on the other's shoulder and said, “For my sake, Dill,—for my sake.”

“I wish I knew what I ought to do,” said Tom, whose pale cheek actually trembled with agitation. “I mean,” said he, in a shaken voice, “I wish I knew what would make you think best of me.”

“Do you attach so much value to my good opinion, then?”

“Don't you think I might? When did I ever meet any one that treated me this way before?”

The agitation in which he uttered these few words imparted such a semblance of weakness to him that Conyers pressed him down into a chair, and filled up his glass with wine.

“Take that off, and you 'll be all right presently,” said he, in a kind tone.

Tom tried to carry the glass to his lips, but his hand trembled so that he had to set it down on the table.

“I don't know how to say it,” began he, “and I don't know whether I ought to say it, but somehow I feel as if I could give my heart's blood if everybody would behave to me the way you do. I don't mean, mind you, so generously, but treating me as if—as if—as if—” gulped he out at last, “as if I was a gentleman.”

“And why not? As there is nothing in your station that should deny that claim, why should any presume to treat you otherwise?”

“Because I'm not one!” blurted he out; and covering his face with his hands, he sobbed bitterly.

“Come, come, my poor fellow, don't be down-hearted. I 'm not much older than yourself, but I 've seen a good deal of life; and, mark my words, the price a man puts on himself is the very highest penny the world will ever bid for him; he 'll not always get that, but he 'll never—no, never, get a farthing beyond it!”

Tom stared vacantly at the speaker, not very sure whether he understood the speech, or that it had any special application to him.

“When you come to know life as well as I do,” continued Conyers, who had now launched into a very favorite theme, “you'll learn the truth of what I say. Hold your head high; and if the world desires to see you, it must at least look up!”

“Ay, but it might laugh too!” said Tom, with a bitter gravity, which considerably disconcerted the moralist, who pitched away his cigar impatiently, and set about selecting another.

“I suspect I understand your nature. For,” said he, after a moment or two, “I have rather a knack in reading people. Just answer me frankly a few questions.”

“Whatever you like,” said the other, in a half-sulky sort of manner.

“Mind,” said Conyers, eagerly, “as there can be no offence intended, you'll not feel any by whatever I may say.”

“Go on,” said Tom, in the same dry tone.

“Ain't you obstinate?”

“I am.”

“I knew it. We had not talked half an hour together when I detected it, and I said to myself, 'That fellow is one so rooted in his own convictions, it is scarcely possible to shake him.'”

“What next?” asked Tom.

“You can't readily forgive an injury; you find it very hard to pardon the man who has wronged you.”

“I do not; if he did n't go on persecuting me, I would n't think of him at all.”

“Ah, that's a mistake. Well, I know you better than you know yourself; you do keep up the memory of an old grudge,—you can't help it.”

“Maybe so, but I never knew it.”

“You have, however, just as strong a sentiment of gratitude.”

“I never knew that, either,” muttered he; “perhaps because it has had so little provocation!”

“Bear in mind,” said Conyers, who was rather disconcerted by the want of concurrence he had met with, “that I am in a great measure referring to latent qualities,—things which probably require time and circumstances to develop.”

“Oh, if that's it,” said Dili, “I can no more object than I could if you talked to me about what is down a dozen fathoms in the earth under our feet. It may be granite or it may be gold, for what I know; the only thing that I see is the gravel before me.”

“I 'll tell you a trait of your character you can't gainsay,” said Conyers, who was growing more irritated by the opposition so unexpectedly met with, “and it's one you need not dig a dozen fathoms down to discover,—you are very reckless.”

“Reckless—reckless,—you call a fellow reckless that throws away his chance, I suppose?”

“Just so.”

“But what if he never had one?”

“Every man has a destiny; every man has that in his fate which he may help to make or to mar as he inclines to. I suppose you admit that?”

“I don't know,” was the sullen reply.

“Not know? Surely you needn't be told such a fact to recognize it!”

“All I know is this,” said Tom, resolutely, “that I scarcely ever did anything in my life that it was n't found out to be wrong, so that at last I 've come to be pretty careless what I do; and if it was n't for Polly,—if it was n't for Polly—” He stopped, drew his sleeve across his eyes, and turned away, unable to finish.

“Come, then,” said Conyers, laying his hand affectionately on the other's shoulder, “add my friendship to her love for you, and see if the two will not give you encouragement; for I mean to be your friend, Dill.”

“Do you?” said Tom, with the tears in his eyes.

“There 's my hand on it.”