Idle mischief prompted Dusautoy and Tritton to set themselves to overpower his resistance.  Gilbert’s feeble remonstrances were treated as a jest, and Algernon, who could brook no opposition, swore that he would conquer the little prig.  Maurice found himself pinioned by strong arms, but determined and spirited, he made a vigorous struggle, and so judiciously aimed a furious kick, that Mr. Cavendish Dusautoy staggered back, stumbling against the table, and causing a general overthrow.

The victory was with Maurice, but warned as he had often been against using his natural weapons, he thought himself guilty of a great crime.  The others, including, alas!  Gilbert, strove to persuade him it was a joke, and, above all, to bind him to silence, for Tritton and Dusautoy would never have ventured so far, could they have imagined the possibility of such terms as those on which he lived with his parents.  They attacked the poor child on the score of his manly aspirations, telling him it was babyish to tell mamma and sisters everything, a practice fit for girls, not for boys or men.  These assurances extracted a pledge of secrecy, which was kept as long as his mother was absent, and only rendered him reckless by the sense that he had forfeited the prize of good conduct; but the sight of her renewed the instinct of confidence, and his father’s reliance on his truth so acted on his sense of honour, that he could not hold his peace.

‘May I tell papa? and will he let me have the cannon?’ he finished.

’You shall certainly tell him, my dear, dear little boy, and we will see what he says about the cannon,’ she said, fervently kissing him.  ’It will be some comfort for him to hear how you have behaved, my precious little man.  I thank God with all my heart that He has saved you from putting anything before truth.  I little thought I was leaving you to a tempter!’

The child did not fully understand her.  His was a very simple nature, and he was tired out by conflicting emotions.  His breast was relieved, and his mother caressed him; he cared for nothing more, and drawing her hand so as to rest his cheek on it, he looked up in her face with soft weary happiness in his eyes, then let the lids sink over them, and fell peacefully asleep, while the others talked on.  ’At least you will do me the poor justice of believing it was not willingly,’ said Gilbert.

‘I wish you would not talk to me,’ she answered, averting her face and speaking low as if to cut the heart; ’I don’t want to reproach you, and I can’t speak to you properly.’

’If you would only hear me, my only friend and helper!  But it was all that was wanting!  I have forfeited even your toleration!  I wonder why I was born!’

He was taking up his light to depart, but Albinia’s fear of her own temper made her suspect that she had spoken vindictively, and she said, ’What can I do, Gilbert?  Here is this poor child, whom I trusted to you, who can never again be ignorant of the sound of evil words, and only owes it to God’s mercy on his brave spirit that this has not been the beginning of destruction.  I feel as if you had been trying to snatch away his soul!’