``Even so, please your Excellency,'' replied
Hartley; ``not, I think, to cure him of any complaint,
but to give him the opportunity of catching
one, which would silence all enquiries.''
``The matter shall be closely looked into. But
how miserably careless the young man's friends
must have been to let a raw lad go into the world
with such a companion and guide as Tom Hillarys
and such a sum as a thousand pounds in his pocket.
His parents had better have knocked him on the
head. It certainly was not done like canny Northumberland,
as my servant Winter calls it.''
``The youth must indeed have had strangely
hard-hearted, or careless parents,'' said Mrs Witherington,
in accents of pity.
``He never knew them, madam,'' said Hartley;
``there was a mystery on the score of his birth. A
cold, unwilling, and almost unknown hand, dealt
him out his portion when he came of lawful age,
and he was pushed into the world like a bark forced
from shore, without rudder, compass, or pilot.''
Here General Witherington involuntarily looked
to his lady, while, guided by a similar impulse, her
looks were turned upon him. They exchanged a
momentary glance of deep and peculiar meaning,
and then the eyes of both were fixed on the ground.
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