CHAPTER XXIII. MY GUARDIAN.
On the third day after my adventure in the park Mr. Ravenor called to seeme. He came in splashed from head to foot and had evidently ridden a longdistance and fast. I offered him a chair and some refreshment, for helooked pale and tired, but he declined both, and walked slowly up anddown the room, his hands grasping a long riding-whip behind his back.
"I can only give you a minute or two now, Morton," he said, with someslight return of his former brusque _hauteur_; "I am expecting visitorsfrom London to-night and must get back to receive them. But there issomething I must say to you. You will be surprised to hear that yourmother has left you a considerable property?"
I was very much surprised.
"Are you quite sure of this, Mr. Ravenor?" I ventured to ask. "My motheralways spoke to me as though we were poor."
"I do not make mistakes," he answered, pausing in his walk and lookingdown upon me from his great height with knitted brows and piercing eyes,"least of all in matters of such importance. How much the exact sum willamount to I cannot tell yet, but it is more than twenty thousand pounds,so you will be able to choose your own profession. What will it be, Iwonder--the Bar, the Army, the Church, agriculture? Come, you are a boyof imagination and have never been in love. You must have had day-dreamsof some sort. Whither have they led you?"
"Not to any of the professions which you have mentioned," I answeredpromptly.
"Then where? Tell me. I am curious to know."
"My ideas have always been very vague," I said slowly. "I should like tolive quite away from any town, to read a good deal, and to spend the restof my time out of doors; and then, perhaps, after a time, I might try tothink something out and put it into words."
"In short, you would like to be an author," Mr. Ravenor broke in, with aslight smile.
"Yes; but I should not want to write to amuse people, or to becomefamous," I went on, encouraged by Mr. Ravenor's gravity. "I should liketo make people think. I should like to make them turn aside from thegroove of their daily life and realise that the world is full of greaterand higher things than mere material prosperity. Men seem to me to findtheir daily work and pleasure too absorbing. They think of themselves andothers only as individuals, never as limbs of a great common humanitywith a mighty destiny. The world grows narrower and narrower for them asthey grow older, instead of broader and broader. It is because theyneglect the use of their imagination--at least, so it seems to me."
"Have you read Hibbet's little pamphlets?" Mr. Ravenor asked.
"Both of them," I answered. "I like his ideas."
"Have your clothes come from Torchester?" he inquired, with apparentirrelevance.
"Yes; they came last week," I told him, wondering.
"Very well; put on your dress-suit and come up to the Castle at eighto'clock to-night. You shall dine with me and meet Hibbet."
Meet Sir Richard Hibbet! Dine at the same table! My cheeks flushed and myheart beat fast. Life was opening out for me.
"Yes; he and Marris and Williams, the publisher, you know, are allstaying at the Castle. There will be some more of them down to-night.Don't be late. I will find time, if I can, to have some talk with you,for I want you to go to Dr. Randall's next week."
He nodded and took his departure. I watched him mount his horse andgallop away across the open park. Then I started for a solitary walk, toponder my altered prospects.
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