The Wizard's Son

. There was, he felt, an advantage in being angry, in the sensation of indignant resistance to a petty tyranny. For a lon

n the surface of his mind, put it forward and made a bulwark of it against his own conscience. He did so now as he hurried along, in all the heat that follows a personal encounter. If she would but let him alone! But he could not move a step anywhere, could not make an engagement, could not step into a friend’s rooms, as he was going to do now, without her interference. The relations of a parent to an only child are not the same as those that exist between a father and mother and the different members of a large family. It has been usual to consider them in one particular light as implying the closest union and mutual devotion. But there is another point of view in which to consider the question. They are so near to each other, and the relationship so close, that there is a possibility of opposition and contrariety more trying, more absorbing, than any other except that between husband and wife. A young son does not always see the necessity of devotion to a mother who is not very old, who has still many sources of pleasure apart from himself, and who is not capable, perhaps, on her side, of the undiscriminating worship which is grandmotherly, and implies a certain weakness and dimness of perception in the fond eyes that see everything in a rosy, ideal light. This fond delusion is often in its way a moral agent, obliging the object of it to fulfil what is expected of him, and reward the full and perfect trust which is given so unhesitatingly. But in this case it was not possible. The young man thought, or persuaded himself, that his mother’s vexatious watch over him, and what he called her constant suspicion and doubt of him, h

not care in the least for each other’s company, nor have anything to say to each other, yet are possibly less vacant in society than when alone, or find the murmur of many voices, the smoke of many cigars, exhilarating and agreeable. It was not every evening that the cards were produced. The captain was wary; he frightened nobody; he did not wish to give occasion to the tremors of the ladies, whom he would have conciliated even, if he had been able; but there are men against whom the instinct of all women rises, as there are women from whom all men turn. It was only now and then that he permitted play. He spoke indeed strongly against it on many occasions. “What do you want with cards?” he would say. “A good cigar and a friend to talk to ought to be enough for any man.” But twice or thrice in a week his scruples would give way. He was a tall, well-formed man, of an uncertain age, with burning hazel eyes, and a scar on his forehead got in that mysterious service to which now and then he made allusion, and which his friends concluded must have been in some foreign legion, or with Garibaldi, or some other irregular warfare. There were some who thought him a man, old for his age, of thirty-five, and some who, concluding him young for his age, and well preserved, credited him with twenty years m

tion. There had not been anything said for the course of two minutes at least. There was no play going on, and the solemn puff of smoke from one pair of lips after another would have been the height of monotony had it not been the wildest fun and gratification. Th

ger men, that he was not addicted to this familiarity), “in the odour of sanctity. It will do us all

Jove,” said the hunting man,

ith the old cats after

t himself step into a superior atmosphere, into the heat of a political discussion, or even into noisy amusement, or the passion of play—anything which would rouse the spirits and energies, and show the action of a larger life. But to feel his own arrival a sort of gods

look as if you had all been poisoned in your wine, like the men in the ope

sson,” said Captain Underwood. “Remember that we have

and give us

e him, he’s

s have been to

n with the rest, but to-night he was dissatisfied and miserable, not sure of any sensation in particular, but one of scorn and distaste for his surroundings. He would have felt this in almost any conceivable case, but in the midst of this poor jesting and would-be wit, the effect was doubled. Was it worth while for this to waste his time, to offend the opinion of all his friends? Such thoughts must always come in similar circumstances. Even in the most brilliant revelry there will be a pause, a survey of the position, a sense, however unwilling that the game is not worth the candle. But here! They were all as dull as ditch water, he said to himself. Separately there

he cried, with a little burst, “as if they wer

derwood. “They are good fellows enough when you are in

indeed, it was the genius of the place—but to hear all those dull dogs laughing at that, as if they were not a few degrees worse! Is there nothin

at him keenly wit

have you?” he said. “I thought

e an idiot,” Walter said. Perhaps he had a little hope o

ain Underwood only looked

especially after an evening at the rectory. You see

who scoff at respectability, and I begin to wonder whether it is not better to be dull and

e other carelessly. “I allow t

s even are better than nothing. I want

else that does it,” said the man of experience. He took a choice cigar leisurely from his case as he spoke. “A bit of a country town like this, what can you expect from it? There is no go in them. They risk a shilling, and go away frighten

I’m an ass,” he said. “I loaf about here doing nothing when I ought to be at work. I don’t know why I do it; but neither do I know how to get out of i

nderwood, good-humouredly

lter shook

n an office or doing something. I can’t go

by. You have tim

him a look

many things to me about seeing life? I have nothing. We’ve got no money

evour me with your eyes. I know nothing of your family affairs.

s conscience nearly tripped this young man up, running into his way so hurriedly that he caught his foot unawares.) Then he stopped and grew red, staring at his c

he other. “But it needn’t be that; t

ar enough on that subject—as if I were a tailor or a shoemaker that could find something to do at any corner. There is no reason in it,” the young man said, so ho

will turn up,” said U

ed Walter, scornfully; “when you have not a tooth left, nor a faculty perfect?” He was so young that the half-century appeared to him like the age of Methusaleh, an

s a long time to wait for your pleasure. However, let us hope something will turn up before then. Supposing, for the sake of argument, you w

which supplies excitement when other motives fail. The chairs standing about as their occupants had thrust them away from the table, the empty glasses upon it, the disorder of the room, struck him with a certain sense of disgust. It was a room intended by nature to be orderly and sober, with heav

od-humoured aspect. “If I don’t understand you, I should like to know

ible to imagine. He had gone to Underwood’s in the hot impulse of opposition, with the hope of getting rid temporarily, at least, of the struggle within him; but he had not got rid of it. The dull jokes of the assembled company had only made the raging of the inward storm more sensible, and the jaunty and presumptuous misconception with which his host received his involuntary confidences afterwards, had aggravated instead of soothing his mind. Indeed, Underwood’s pretence at knowing all about it, his guesses and attempts to sound his companion’s mind, and the blundering interpretation of it into which he stumbled, fi