CHAPTER V.

"WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT."

BEING Easter holidays, and the tutor who superintended studies at the Manor House having gone North to visit his friends, Hal and his brothers had things pretty much their own way from sunrise to bedtime. They walked; they played games; they followed their grandfather about; they rode the donkey about the field—or rather Will and Sigismund did, whilst Hal looked on and clapped his hands.

In short, they did all that boys in holiday-time try to do; they took every possible means to make the best of their freedom. All things considered, too, they were very good to Hal, who—hard as he tried to keep up with them—was rather a clog with his crutches and his irons.

On the morning after the Squire's interview with his bailiff, however, Hal evolved a scheme which relieved them of this clog.

One of the men had let loose a ferret in the granary, to hunt the rats, which of late had been committing great depredations in the henhouses. For some time the boys had been too excited to notice their brother's sudden disappearance. But presently, the hunt drifted upstairs into the loft overhead. This at once recalled Hal to mind, because he could not very well climb a ladder without assistance.

"Where can he have got to?" exclaimed Sigismund, who had been outside to look about for him.

Somehow Sigismund, being of a more unselfish disposition, was always the one to wait behind for Hal.

"Gone indoors, I expect," returned Will, already half-way up.

Hal had a way of "going indoors" when he found the game beyond him. "It's no fun when you ache," he would say; "and it doesn't make you a bit worth playing with." And he would be found afterwards, deep in a book—not always a story-book either.

Meanwhile, Hal, having slipped out through the stable-yard and gained the road, was on his way to the Manor Farm, meditating on the unaccustomed rôle which he had taken on himself.

About the same time, Dick Crozier, intending to hang about the farm, on the chance of catching Bill and hearing something of the hornets' nest, had chosen that direction for his morning's stroll. Recognising the wooden tap-tap of Hal's crutches on the gravel as he hurried down the hill, Dick determined first to renew acquaintance with the Squire's grandson; so he slackened pace, and the boys met at the lodge gate.

Hal at once nodded pleasantly; and Dick, returning the nod, joined him without further ceremony.

"You get along jolly fast, considering," remarked Dick pleasantly, as the conversation turned on walking. "That's hard work, though, I should say."

Hal nodded, and went a little faster, breathing short with the effort.

"Was it an accident?" inquired Dick; "or were you born so?"

"It came on when I began to walk," answered Hal; "at least, so I'm told. Of course, I don't remember being any different."

He didn't seem to mind talking about it, which Dick thought very sensible. "Where would be the use of minding?" said he to himself. "It wouldn't alter the fact." He little knew the effort it cost Hal to put his injured pride on one side.

"What are the irons for?" asked Dick next.

"To stretch this leg," answered Hal, nodding to the right. "That one was the worst; and the sinews shrank—just like a wet string. It's pulled out tight all the while, to try and stretch it longer."

"Don't it make it ache?" asked Dick.

"Sometimes," assented Hal.

He might with truth have said, "most of the time;" but Hal was a bit of a hero in his way. "I'm used to it, you see," he added patiently.

"I shouldn't like to be like that," said Dick.

"Nobody would, of course," returned Hal; "but when you are, you've got to make the best of it. You think of all the great men you've ever read about, and wonder how they'd have borne it; and that helps you."

Dick was so much struck by this way of looking at a misfortune, that for several minutes he was silent; and Hal's crutches went on tapping out their melancholy tale upon the road; step by step, step by step, patiently—the only way to rise superior to a misfortune of that kind.

"Who is the greatest man you ever read about?" asked Dick presently.

Hal assumed a thoughtful air. "That's rather hard to say," answered he; "because some are great for one thing, some for another. It's like that with plants, too, you know. There's corn, and there are potatoes; and we couldn't very well do without either. I shouldn't like to do without apples, nor green peas—we always have them sooner than other people; (forced, you know;) and I'll ask grandfather to send you some. Then again," he ran on, before Dick had time to thank him for this promise, "there are flowers—more beautiful than useful, as we count use. It's just like that with men, I think."

Dick could not jump quite the length of this argument. He suggested Robinson Crusoe.

But Hal's estimate of greatness differed from Dick's. "Crusoe was pretty well in some things, considering how he began," said he. "He was shifty, but he wasn't all round; besides, he was an awful coward, and he swore. And then, he's only in a book. Now Socrates—only he was a heathen—he died bravely when they made him choose between the dagger and the poison cup. And Napoleon—he made himself a king out of a common soldier, and he must have been a great man, or people wouldn't have given in to him; but then he did it all for the sake of power, and he wasn't good.

"A man's motives go for a great deal, you know. Then there were the martyrs; I like them. They had their bodies broken on the wheel because they wouldn't tell lies. I often think of that, because it was something like having my leg stretched, only thousand times worse. There was Shakespeare too. He wrote very fine plays. That was more like being a flower, I should say; and I don't know that he was particularly good, or that he did anything else worth doing. And there was Sir Isaac Newton, who discovered why apples fall done instead of up. He was very learned, of course. But I like men such as Wilberforce and Clarkson, who did so much to abolish slavery; or Moffat, the missionary; or Howard, who went into a lot of gaols, and made a fuss about having them kept cleaner, and the prisoners better treated. In my opinion," added Hal, "they were some of the greatest men that ever lived—except Jesus Christ."

Dick had not read about any of these heroes. He said that he should like to.

"Of course," continued Hal; "none of them come near Jesus Christ. You don't expect that. There was Buddha. A missionary once told me about him; and I've read since. He was a prince in India; and he gave up everything to try and find out how to make people happier, because one day when he went outside the palace, he discovered that everybody wasn't so well off as himself, and that people had to be ill and die. But he didn't end up the same as Jesus Christ," Hal concluded. "And then it's such an immense while ago that I don't think it's very easy to be sure whether it's all true."

Hal was fond of books, and had an original way of talking about what he read.

"I don't suppose that any of them went on crutches," suggested Dick.

Hal thought not. "One of them was lame," said he. "His name was Epictetus; he was an eminent philosopher. It was through his master's cruelty; and that was very hard to bear. But crutches don't matter to some sorts of greatness," added he. "You wouldn't get along very well on crutches if you wanted to fight; and fighting isn't always wrong either, though I don't like it. Where you do it to put down injustice, for instance, or to help the weaker side, it's noble and right."

"Or if you do it to defend your wife and children," put in Dick.

"There were some great men deformed," continued Hal. "There was Pope. He had to be laced up in a pair of tight stays to keep him from doubling up; he used to sit up in bed and write poetry. I've read some of it, and it's very fine. 'Whatever is, is right,' comes from Pope; and though you can't say that of everything, there is a sense in which it is very true. But Pope wasn't brave always. He used to be very disagreeable to his servant when he was in pain; and I think if any one was really great, they would rise superior to affliction, and not make other people feel it. You see," added Hal, in a tone of reflection, "it's bad enough for one person to go on crutches, without making all the rest miserable."

"You mean to be great, I suppose," observed Dick admiringly. "What shall you be?"

Hal reflected. "That's difficult to say exactly," said he. "Of course I've got to be the Lord of the Manor."

"You have?" interrupted Dick. "I thought it was your tallest brother."

"Will?—No; it's always the eldest son. I'm the eldest," added Hal, just a trifle proudly.

Dick was astonished. He had made up his mind from the very first, that Hal was the youngest of the three.

"You see, I'm short," said Hal simply. "It makes you grow slowly when you're like this."

"That's a pity," said Dick, knowing of nothing better to say.

"Yes; I suppose it is," said Hal; "only—'Whatever is, is right,' unless, of course, it is something contrary to God's will; and this can't be, as I was born so. I mean all the same to be like my grandfather."

"He isn't very big," put in Dick, cheerfully.

"Some people," continued Hal, "don't think you can be a proper Squire unless you can ride in the steeplechase and follow the hounds. My grandfather doesn't now; but he used to formerly. I've heard him say what a pity it was that I couldn't learn to sit a horse. But you see it isn't just the same as it used to be in the olden times when there were serfs, and the lord of the manor lived in a castle with a moat and drawbridge. He had to be a sort of petty king in those days. And if other lords stole his vassals' sheep or wives, he had to rally all his men and besiege their castles. I'm afraid I shouldn't be very well able to do that. But all that is changed nowadays, and there are no serfs—which ought to make the poor people much better off. What a good Squire has to do is to pull down all the badly built cottages on his estate, and have them properly drained, and damp courses put in, so that the walls don't rot."

Dick inquired whether that was the reason why some cottages near his father's house were being pulled down.

Hal nodded. "Why," said he, "the jam actually mildewed in the parlour cupboard! Think of that I saw it. And the old lady's wedding-dress went all spotty where it hung in the press upstairs. It was silk; and she had worn it every Christmas Day and Easter Sunday since she was married, and every time any of her sons and daughters had a wedding. It was very vexatious for her. You couldn't let such a house stand."

Hal spoke with such earnestness that Dick was quite convinced, and immediately thought of the preservation of old silk wedding-dresses as one of the chief duties of a good Squire.

"There's to be a proper slate course at the bottom of the walls this time," added Hal. "You'll see it will be quite dry."

"Then there's the drainage," continued he; "because if that's bad, the wells get poisoned, and people have fevers. And although it doesn't say anything in the Bible actually about drainage, it says a great deal which seems to me to mean that if you own an estate, you ought to look after the health and comfort of the tenants. Oh, there's a lot a Squire has to do that I think I could do! And perhaps," he added thoughtfully, "I should do it all the better for not riding in the steeplechase and following the hounds. You can't do everything; and if you come to think," concluded Hal, "perhaps that is why God let me be like this; because, you know, He could have made it different if He had chosen to."

"A Squire has to make a speech at the rent dinner, doesn't he?" suggested Dick, glad to show that he had some knowledge of a Squire's duties.

"Oh! I think I could manage that all right," returned Hal, "when I got to be of age. It wouldn't be noticed that I was like this when I stood up behind the table; so I shouldn't feel bashful about it. Besides, I don't think I should mind when once I was Squire, because people would respect me; and I should try to show them how great men bear such things."

Dick thought this a very plucky way of looking forward to such a terrible ordeal.

"Another thing you have to do," said Hal, as they arrived at the gate of the Manor Farm, "is to see that the bailiff and other people about the estate do their duty. And if they don't—through drink or laziness, you know—you have to turn them out, and hire somebody who does. But I'm going in here," added he, breaking off abruptly.

Dick was sorry, for he found Hal's company both instructive and entertaining; moreover, his vanity was rather flattered by this acquaintance with the future Squire. But fortunately Hal appreciated a good listener.

"Where shall you be when I come out?" asked he, resting on his crutches to open the gate; "because I like somebody to talk to."

Dick, having nothing particular in view, readily promised to wait about until Hal came out; and having watched him past Grip—who only rose to his feet in a respectful sort of way, and walked quietly forward the length of his chain—he sauntered slowly on.

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