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Page 5
"Did he hurt you much, Harry?" asked Mr. Lowington as they entered the
house.
"Not much, sir, though he gave me a pretty hard crack," answered Harry.
"Did you see them when they came into the garden?"
"No, sir? I was fixing my water-wheel in the brook, when I heard them at
the tree. I went up, and tried to prevent Shuffles from taking the
peaches. I caught hold of him, and pulled him away. He said he couldn't
stop to lick me then, but he'd do it within twenty-four hours. Then he
hit me when I called for help."
"The young scoundrel! That boy is worse than a pestilence in any
neighborhood. Mr. Baird seems to have no control over him."
Suddenly, and without any apparent reason, Mr. Lowington's compressed
lips and contracted brow relaxed, and his face wore its usual expression
of dignified serenity. Harry could not understand the cause of this
sudden change; but his uncle's anger had passed away. The fact was, that
Mr. Lowington happened to think, while his indignation prompted him to
resort to the severest punishment for Shuffles, that he himself had been
just such a boy as the plunderer of his cherished fruit. At the age of
fifteen he had been the pest of the town in which he resided. His father
was a very wealthy man, and resorted to many expedients to cure the boy
of his vicious propensities.
Young Lowington had a taste for the sea, and his father finally procured
a midshipman's warrant for him to enter the navy. The strict discipline
of a ship of war proved to be the "one thing needful" for the
reformation of the wild youth; and he not only became a steady young
man, but a hard student and an accomplished officer. The navy made a man
of him, as it has of hundreds of the sons of rich men, demoralized by
idleness and the absence of a reasonable ambition.
When Mr. Lowington was thirty years old, his father died, leaving to
each of his three children a quarter of a million; and he had resigned
his position in the navy, in order to take care of his property, and to
lead a more domestic life with his wife and daughter than the discipline
of the service would permit.
He had taken up his residence in Brockway, the early home of his wife.
It was a large town on the sea shore, only a few miles from the
metropolis of New England, thus combining all the advantages of a home
in the city and in the country. For several years he had been happy in
his peaceful retirement. But not wealth, nor even integrity and piety,
can bar the door of the lofty mansion against the Destroyer of the race.
His wife died of an hereditary disease, which gave no indication of its
presence till she had passed her thirtieth year. Two years later, his
daughter, just blooming into maturity, followed her mother down to the
silent tomb, stricken in her freshness and beauty by the same insidious
malady.
The husband and father was left desolate. His purest and fondest hopes
were blighted; but, while he was submissive to the will of the Father,
who doeth all things well, he became gloomy and sad. He was not seen to
smile for a year after the death of his daughter, and it was three years
before he had recovered even the outward semblance of his former
cheerfulness. He was rich, but alone in the world. He continued to
reside in the home which was endeared to him by the memories of his
loved and lost ones.
When his wife's sister died in poverty, leaving two children, he had
taken them to his home, and had become a father to them. Harry Martyn
was a good boy, and Josephine Martyn was a good girl; but they were not
his own children. There was something wanting--an aching void which they
could not fill, though Mr. Lowington was to them all that could be asked
or expected of a parent.
Mr. Lowington busied himself in various studies and experiments; but
life had ceased to be what it was before the death of his wife and
daughter. He wanted more mental occupation; he felt the need of greater
activity, and he was tempted to return to the navy, even after his
absence of ten years from the service; but this step, for many reasons,
was not practicable. At the time when his garden was invaded by the
vandal students from the Brockway Academy, he was still thinking what he
could do to save himself from the inglorious life of ease he was
leading, and, at the same time, serve his country and his race.
Shuffles had robbed his garden of some of his choicest fruit; had struck
his nephew a severe blow on the head, and threatened to inflict still
greater chastisement upon him in the future. Mr. Lowington was justly
indignant; and his own peace and the peace of the neighborhood demanded
that the author of the mischief should be punished, especially as he was
an old transgressor. It was absolutely necessary that something should
be done, and the retired naval officer was in the right frame of mind to
do it. Just then, when he was wrought up to the highest pitch of
indignation, his anger vanished. Shuffles at sixteen was the counterpart
of himself at fifteen.
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