The Vast Abyss Part 4

"What is the meaning of this?" he cried. "How dare you, sir!"

"Why, he began at me, uncle, while I was asleep, and--"

"Silence, sir! I will not have the calm and repose of my house disturbed by such disgraceful conduct. Past twelve o'clock, you ought to be asleep, and here is a regular riot in the place."

"There, I told you how it would be," said Sam in an ill-used, remonstrative tone.

"Oh!" exclaimed Tom, but no more, for a hot feeling of indignation forced him to be silent, stung as he was by the injustice of the disturbance being laid at his door.

"_Oh_! indeed!" cried his uncle. "It is scandalous, sir. Out of charity and compa.s.sion for your forlorn state, I give you a home and brilliant prospects, and you set yourself to work in every way possible to make me repent my kindness. It is abominable. You make friends with the servants; you are idle and stupid and careless beyond belief; and when you come back at night to my peaceful quiet home, you must introduce your low, blackguardly habits, and begin quarrelling and fighting with your cousin."

"I can't speak--I won't speak," said Tom to himself, as he set his teeth hard. "And as for Sam, I'll--"

He had not time to say to himself what he would do to his cousin, for his uncle had worked himself up now to deliver a sounding tirade upon his base, disgraceful conduct, finding plenty of epithets suitable as he considered for the occasion, and making the poor lad writhe as he lay there, hot and panting beneath the undeserved reproaches till he was quite out of breath; while, to make matters worse, Sam put in a word or two in a murmuring tone--"He knew how it would be," and "It was of no use for him to speak," and the like. And all the time Tom's indignation made him feel more stubbornly determined to hold his peace.

"It's of no use for me to complain," he thought. "Uncle hates me, and he will not believe, and it's too hard to bear."

"Once for all, sir," cried his uncle, "remember this--if you stay here there must be a marked improvement in your conduct, both as to your work at the office and your behaviour in my house. I won't have it--do you hear? I won't have it. That sulky way too won't go down with me. Here you, Sam, undress and get to bed, and if he interferes with you again, call me at once; but if I do come up, unwilling as I should be, I shall feel called upon, out of my duty to his mother, to read him a very severe lesson, such as his schoolmaster should have read him years ago.

Now silence, both of you; and as for you, sir, bear in mind what I have said, for, as you ought to know by this time, I am a man of my word."

The door was shut loudly, and the resounding steps were heard, followed by the banging of the bedroom door on the next floor.

"There, now you know, b.u.mpkin," said Sam, with a sneering laugh.

Tom sat up in bed as if a spring had been touched.

"You sneak!" he cried.

"What?"

"I say you sneak--you miserable, cowardly sneak!"

"Look here," cried Sam, "you say another word and I'll call the guv'nor, and you know what he meant; he'll give you a good licking, and serve you right."

"Oh!" muttered Tom between his teeth, while his cousin went on quietly undressing.

"That would soon bring you to your senses. I wanted to be friendly with you, and have just a bit of a game, but you must turn nasty, and it just serves you right."

"Oh!" muttered Tom again.

"I thought that would quiet you, my lad. He'd bring up his old rattan, and loosen that stiff hide of yours. There, go to sleep, b.u.mpkin, and think yourself lucky you got off so well."

A minute later the candle was extinguished, and Sam jumped into bed, to fall asleep directly, but Tom lay with his head throbbing till the pale dawn began to creep into the room; and then only did he fall into a troubled doze, full of unpleasant dreams one after the other, till it was time to rise, get his breakfast alone, and hurry off to the office.

For breakfast was late, and aunt, uncle, and cousin did not put in an appearance till long after Tom had climbed upon his stool in Gray's Inn.

CHAPTER FOUR.

That day and many following Tom sat over his books or copying, musing upon the injustice of the treatment he was receiving, and feeling more and more the misery of his new life. He looked with envy at nearly every boy he met, and thought of the happy, independent life they seemed to lead. But he worked hard all the same.

"I won't give up," he would say through his set teeth. "Uncle shall see that if I'm not clever I can persevere, and master what I have to learn."

But in spite of his determination he did not progress very fast, for the simple reason that he expected to learn in a few months the work of many years.

The weeks did not pa.s.s without plenty of unpleasant encounters with his cousin, while pretty well every day there was a snubbing or downright bullying from his uncle.

"But never you mind, Mr Tom," Pringle would say; "things always come right in the end."

One of Tom's greatest troubles was his home life, and the evident aversion shown to him by his aunt. She had received him coldly and distantly at the first, and her manner did not become warmer as the months wore on. Possibly she had once been a sweet, amiable woman, but troubles with her husband and son had produced an acidity of temper and habit of complaining which were not pleasant for those with whom she lived. Her husband escaped, from the fact that she held him in fear, while Sam was too much idolised to receive anything but the fondest attentions.

Tom's perceptions were keen enough, and he soon saw for himself that his uncle repented his generosity in taking him into his home; while his aunt's feeling for him was evidently one of jealousy, as if his presence was likely to interfere with her darling's prospects.

She resented his being there more and more; and though Tom tried hard to win her love and esteem, he found at the end of six months that he was as far from his object as ever.

"I'm only in the way there," he often said to himself; "I wish I could live always here at the office."

But as he thought this he looked round with a slight s.h.i.+ver, and thought of how dreary it would be shut up there with the law-books, tin boxes, and dusty papers, and he gave up the idea.

Often of a night it was like a temptation to him--that intense longing to be free; and he would sit with a book before him, but his mind wandering far away, following the adventures of boys of his own age who had gone away to seek their fortunes, and if they had not found all they sought, had at least achieved some kind of success.

And how grand it would be, he thought, with his cheeks flus.h.i.+ng, to be independent, and work his own way without encountering day by day his uncle's sour sneers and reproaches, his aunt's cold looks, and his cousin's tyranny.

"I could make my way, I know I could," he thought, and the outlook grew day by day more rosy. Those were pleasant paths, he told himself, that he wanted to tread, and it never occurred to him that if he went among strangers they might be harder than his uncle.

But the outcome of these musings was always the same: there was the stern figure of Duty rising before him to remind him of his promise to his mother, and with his brow knitting, his hands would clench beneath table or desk as he softly muttered to himself--

"I'm going to be a lawyer, and I will succeed."

But it has been written by a wise man, "There's a divinity that shapes our ends, rough-hew them how we will," and Tom Blount was soon to find out its truth.

Matters had been going very badly at Mornington Crescent, and the boy's life was harder than ever to bear, for, presuming upon his patience, Sam Brandon was more tyrannical than ever. Words failing to sting sufficiently, he had often had recourse to blows, and these Tom had borne patiently, till, to his cousin's way of thinking, he was about as contemptible a coward as ever existed.

One morning at the office Sam was seated opposite to his cousin writing, Pringle was busily employed in the other room, and Tom was putting stamps on some letters, when his eye lit upon one standing edgewise against a gum-bottle between him and his cousin.

Just then Mr Brandon bustled in looking very stern and angry, and he gave a sharp look round the office. Then his eyes lit upon Tom and his task.

"What letters are those?" he said.

"The t.i.the notices, sir, you told me to fill up and direct from the book," replied Tom.

"Humph! yes, quite right. Oh, by the way, Samuel, did you post that letter to Mr Wilc.o.x yesterday afternoon?"

"Yes, father," said Sam promptly; and as he raised his eyes he saw his cousin's gazing at the letter standing on edge between them.

Sam turned pale as he now met Tom's keen look.

It was all momentary, in the interval of Mr Brandon's first words and his next question. "Then how is it that Mr Wilc.o.x has not received it, and been on to me at home full of anxiety about not having my answer to an important question?"