“I am determined to tell his father of this,” said he; “I think his family are far too obedient to his tacit prohibition of all mention of Richard’s name.”

“Tacit prohibition?” inquired Mr. Benson.

“Oh!  I dare say I use the words in a wrong sense for the correctness of a scholar; but what I mean is, that he made a point of immediately leaving the room if Richard’s name was mentioned; and did it in so marked a manner, that by degrees they understood that it was their father’s desire that he should never be alluded to; which was all very well as long as there was nothing pleasant to be said about him; but to-night I am going there, and shall take good care he does not escape me before I have told him all I have heard and observed about Richard.  He will never be a hero of virtue, for his education has drained him of all moral courage; but with care, and the absence of all strong temptation for a time, he will do very well; nothing to gratify paternal pride, but certainly nothing to be ashamed of.”

It was on the Sunday after this that the little circumstance to which I have alluded took place.

During the afternoon service, Mr. Benson became aware that the large Bradshaw pew was no longer unoccupied.  In a dark corner Mr. Bradshaw’s white head was to be seen, bowed down low in prayer.  When last he had worshipped there, the hair on that head was iron-grey, and even in prayer he had stood erect, with an air of conscious righteousness sufficient for all his wants, and even some to spare with which to judge others.  Now, that white and hoary head was never uplifted; part of his unobtrusiveness might, it is true, be attributed to the uncomfortable feeling which was sure to attend any open withdrawal of the declaration he had once made, never to enter the chapel in which Mr. Benson was minister again; and as such a feeling was natural to all men, and especially to such a one as Mr. Bradshaw, Mr. Benson instinctively respected it, and passed out of the chapel with his household, without ever directing his regards to the obscure place where Mr. Bradshaw still remained immovable.

From this day Mr. Benson felt sure that the old friendly feeling existed once more between them, although some time might elapse before any circumstance gave the signal for a renewal of their intercourse.

CHAPTER XXXIII

A MOTHER TO BE PROUD OF

Old people tell of certain years when typhus fever swept over the country like a pestilence; years that bring back the remembrance of deep sorrow—­refusing to be comforted—­to many a household; and which those whose beloved passed through the fiery time unscathed, shrink from recalling for great and tremulous was the anxiety—­miserable the constant watching for evil symptoms; and beyond the threshold of home a dense cloud of depression hung over society at large.  It seemed as if the alarm was proportionate to the previous light-heartedness of fancied security—­and indeed it was so; for, since the days of King Belshazzar, the solemn decrees of Doom have ever seemed most terrible when they awe into silence the merry revellers of life.  So it was this year to which I come in the progress of my story.