Mark Hurdlestone | Page 7

designing adventurer, who had served a longer apprenticeship to
the world, and had gained a more perfect knowledge of the fallibility of
its children.
His father groaned over his extravagant bills: yet not one-third of the
money remitted to Algernon was expended by him. His uncle was the
principal aggressor; for he felt no remorse while introducing his
nephew to scenes which, in his early days, had effected his own ruin.
Their immoral tendency, and the sorrow and trouble they were likely to
entail upon the young man, by arousing the anger of his father, never
gave him the least uneasiness. He had squandered such large sums of
money at the gambling-houses in Paris, that he dared not show his face
at the Hall until the storm was blown over; and to such a thoughtless,
extravagant being as Alfred Hurdlestone, "sufficient to the day was the
evil thereof."
Without any strikingly vicious propensities, it was impossible for
Algernon Hurdlestone to escape from the contaminating influence of
his uncle, to whom he was strongly attached, without pollution. He
imbibed from him a relish for trifling amusements and extravagant
expenditure, which clung to him through life. The sudden death of his
misjudging instructor recalled him to a painful sense of past
indiscretions. He determined to amend his ways, and make choice of
some profession, and employ his time in a more honorable manner for
the future. These serious impressions scarcely survived the funeral of
the thoughtless man whose death he sincerely lamented; but the many
debts his uncle had contracted, and the exhausted state of his purse,
urged upon him the imperative necessity of returning to England; and
the voyage was undertaken accordingly.
CHAPTER II.
The steel strikes fire from the unyielding flint: So love has struck from
out that flinty heart The electric spark, which all but deifies The human
clay.--S.M.

About two years after Algernon Hurdlestone left the Hall, a widow lady
and her daughter came to reside at Ashton, and hired a small cottage,
pleasantly situated at the back of the park.
Mrs. Wildegrave's husband had been engaged in the rebellion of 1745;
and his estates, in consequence, were confiscated, and he paid with his
life the forfeit of his rashness. His widow and child, after many years of
sorrow and destitution, and living as dependents upon the charity of
poor relatives, were enabled to break through this painful bondage, and
procure a home for themselves.
An uncle of Mrs. Wildegrave's, who had been more than suspected of
favoring the cause of the unhappy prince, died, and settled upon his
niece all the property he had to bestow, which barely afforded her an
income of fifty pounds a year. This was but a scanty pittance, it is true;
but it was better than the hard-earned bread of dependence, and
sufficient for the wants of two females.
Mrs. Wildegrave, whose health had been for some years in a declining
state, thought that the air of her native place might have a beneficial
effect upon her shattered constitution; and as years had fled away since
the wreck of all her hopes, she no longer felt the painful degradation of
returning to the place in which she had once held a distinguished
situation, and had been regarded as its chief ornament and pride.
Her people, save a younger brother of her husband's, who held a
lucrative situation in India, had all been gathered to their fathers. The
familiar faces that had smiled upon her in youth and prosperity, in
poverty and disgrace, remembered her no more. The mind of the poor
forsaken widow had risen superior to the praise or contempt of the
world, and she now valued its regard at the price which it deserved. But
she had an intense longing to behold once more the woods and fields
where she had rambled in her happy childhood; to wander by the
pleasant streams, and sit under the favorite trees; to see the primrose
and violet gemming the mossy banks of the dear hedge-rows, to hear
the birds sing among the hawthorn blossoms; and, surrounded by the
fondly-remembered sights and sounds of beauty, to recall the sweet
dreams of youth.

Did no warning voice whisper to her that she had made a rash
choice?--that the bitterness of party hatred outlives all other hate?--that
the man who had persecuted her young enthusiastic husband to the
death was not likely to prove a kind neighbor to his widow? Mrs.
Wildegrave forgot all this, and only hoped that Squire Hurdlestone had
outlived his hostility to her family. Sixteen years had elapsed since
Captain Wildegrave had perished on the scaffold. The world had
forgotten his name, and the nature of his offence. It was not possible for
a mere political opponent to retain his animosity to the dead.