Mark Hurdlestone | Page 6

had received from the world, he panted to mingle once more in its busy

scenes, which he described to his attentive pupil, in the most glowing
terms.
Eager to secure for her darling Algernon those advantages which his
brother Mark had so uncourteously declined, Mrs. Hurdlestone laid
close siege to the heart of the old Squire, over whom she possessed an
influence only second to that of her eldest son. In this daring assault
upon the old man's purse and prejudices, she was vigorously assisted by
Uncle Alfred, who had a double object to attain in carrying his point.
Many were the desperate battles they had to fight with the old Squire's
love of money, and his misanthropic disposition, before their object
was accomplished, or he would deign to pay the least attention to their
proposition. Defeated a thousand times, they returned with unwearied
perseverance to the charge, often laughing in secret over their defeat, or
exulting in the least advantage they fancied that they had gained.
Time, which levels mountains and overthrows man's proudest
structures, at length sapped the resolutions of the old man, although
they appeared at first to have been written upon his heart in adamant.
The truth is, that he was a man of few words, and, next to talking
himself, he hated to be talked to, and still more to be talked at; and Mrs.
Hurdlestone and brother Alfred had never ceased to talk to him, and at
him, for the last three months, and always upon the one eternal
theme--Algernon's removal to college, and his travels abroad.
His patience was exhausted; human endurance could stand it no longer;
and he felt that if Ear-gate was to be stormed much longer on the same
subject, he should go mad, and be driven from the field. A magic word
had been whispered in his ear by his eldest son. "Father, let him go:
think how happy and quiet we shall be at home, when this hopeful
uncle and nephew are away."
This hint was enough: the old man capitulated without another
opposing argument, and consented to what he termed the ruin of his
youngest son. How Mrs. Hurdlestone and Uncle Alfred triumphed in
the victory they thought they had obtained!--yet it was all owing to that
one sentence from the crafty lips of Mark, muttered into the ear of the
old man. Algernon was to go to Oxford, and after the completion of his

studies there, make the tour of the Continent, accompanied by his uncle.
This was the extent of Mrs. Hurdlestone's ambition; and many were her
private instructions to her gay, thoughtless son, to be merry and wise,
and not draw too frequently upon his father's purse. The poor lady
might as well have lectured to the winds, as preached on prudence to
Uncle Alfred's accomplished pupil; for both had determined to fling off
all restraint the moment they left the shade of the Oak Hall groves
behind them.
Algernon was so elated with his unexpected emancipation from the
tyrannical control of his father and brother, that he left the stately old
house with as little regret as a prisoner would do who had been
confined for years in some magnificent castle, which had been
converted into a county jail, and, from the force of melancholy
associations, had lost all its original beauty in his eyes. The world was
now within his grasp--its busy scenes all before him: these he expected
to find replete with happiness and decked with flowers.
We will not follow our young adventurer to the academic halls, or trace
his path through foreign lands. It is enough for our purpose that he
acquired little knowledge at college, save the knowledge of evil; and
that he met with many misadventures, and suffered much
inconvenience and mortification, during his journey through the
Continent. He soon discovered that the world was not a paradise; that
his uncle was not a wise man; and that human nature, with some trifling
variations, which were generally more the result of circumstances and
education than of any peculiar virtue in the individual, was much the
same at home and abroad; that men, in order to conform to the usages
of society, were often obliged to appear what they were not, and
sacrifice their best feelings to secure the approbation of persons whom
in secret they despised; that he who would fight the battle of life and
come off victorious, must do it with other weapons than those with
which fashion and pleasure supply their champions.
Years of reckless folly fled away, before these wholesome lessons of
experience were forced upon Algernon's unguarded heart. Fearful of
falling into his brother's error, he ran into the contrary extreme, and

never suspected himself a dupe, until he found himself the victim of
some