CHAPTER IV.

Bramble park.

Changing the field of our story from the blue waves to that of land, we must ask the reader to go back with us for a period of years from that wherein our story has opened, to the fertile country and highly-cultivated lands in the neighborhood of Manchester, England.  Sir Robert Bramble’s estate was some eight miles from the large manufacturing town just named, and embraced within its grounds some of the most delightfully situated spots within a day’s ride in any direction.  Parks, gardens, ponds, groves, stables and fine animals; in short, every accompaniment to a fine English estate.  Sir Robert was a man of not much force of character, had inherited his estates, and had partly exhausted his income so far as to render a degree of economy imperatively necessary, a fact which was not calculated to render any more amiable a naturally irritable disposition.

The family at Bramble Park, as the estate was called, consisted of Sir Robert and his lady, a weak-minded, but once beautiful woman, and two sons, Robert and Charles, the eldest at this period some twelve years of age, the youngest about nine; the usual number of servants, in doors and out; made up the household.  Sir Robert’s could hardly he said to be a very happy household, notwithstanding there seemed to be every element and requisite to be found there for peaceful domestic happiness; and perhaps it would have puzzled a casual observer to have ascertained wherein laid the root of that evil, which, like a poisonous upas, seemed to spread its branches through the household.

There was a cloud apparently shadowing each face there; there was constantly some trouble of a domestic character.  Sir Robert and Lady Bramble seemed to be not on the best of terms with each other, and the servants wore a hang-dog look, as though they expected at any moment to be called to account for some piece of rascality.  There was, however, one pleasant face in that household, though even that seemed tempered by sadness; this was the youngest brother, Charles.  He was, or rather would have been, a cheerful, happy boy, but for the malign influence of his brother Robert, who seemed his opposite in almost everything.  Robert was jealous, irritable and revengeful; Charles was open-hearted, mild and forgiving.  Robert was cruel to both servants and animals; Charles was kind to all, and a favorite with all; even the dumb animals avoided one and adhered to the other, instinctively knowing a friend.

Robert was the first born and the favorite with his mother, whom he ruled literally in all things, while Sir Robert, looking upon him as the legal heir and representative of his name, of course considered him in a somewhat different light from that in which he regarded Charles.  At times it seemed as though an evil spirit had taken possession of Robert’s heart, and he delighted in oppressing, domineering