“You do!” The words had thunderous suggestion of rising wrath.

“Well,” said the other again, “ye’re hard to please; ye were vexed a while since because ye thought I was criticising him for lying low.”

The answer to this consisted in threats thrown out at any man who took upon himself to criticise his brother.

“And now, when I tell ye I’m thinking he’s in the right of it, ye’re vexed again.  Now, I’ll tell ye:  ye don’t like to think the Rev. Mr. Trenholme’s in the right, for that puts ye in the wrong; but ye don’t like me to think he’s in the wrong, because he’s your brother.  Well, it’s natural! but just let us discuss the matter.  Now, ye’ll agree with me it’s a man’s duty to rise in the world if he can.”

Upon which he was told, in a paraphrase, to mind his own business.

CHAPTER V.

It was a delightful proof of the blessed elasticity of inconsistency in human lives, a proof also that there was in these two men more of good than of evil, that that same evening, when the lamp was lit, they discussed the problem that had been mooted in the afternoon with a fair amount of good temper.  As they sat elbowing the deal table, sheets of old newspapers under their inspection, Trenholme told his story more soberly.  He told it roughly, emphasising detail, slighting important matter, as men tell stories who see them too near to get the just proportion; but out of his words Bates had wit to glean the truth.  It seemed that his father had been a warmhearted man, with something superior in his mental qualities and acquirements.  Having made a moderate fortune, he had liberally educated his sons.  There is nothing in which families differ more by nature than in the qualities of heart which bind them together or easily release them from the bonds of kinship.  The members of this small family had that in them which held them together in spite of the pulling of circumstance; for although the elder son had come on the stage of manhood ten years before the younger, although he had had talents that advanced him among scholarly men, and had been quickly taken from his first curacy to fill a superior position in a colony, he had never abated an affectionate correspondence with Alec, and had remained the hero of his young brother’s imagination.  This younger son, not having the same literary tastes, and having possibly a softer heart, gratified his father by going into business with him; but at that good man’s death he had had sufficient enterprise, sufficient distaste, possibly, for his English position, to sell the business that was left in his hands, and affection drew him, as a loadstone a magnet, to his brother’s neighbourhood.  He brought with him securities of the small fortune they were to divide between them, and expected nothing but happiness in the meeting and prosperity in his future career.  Unfortunately, a cause of dispute between the two brothers arose instantly on Alec’s arrival:  there was an exceptionally good opening in Chellaston for one of Alec’s calling; the brothers took different views concerning that calling; they had quarrelled with all the fire of warm natures, and were parted almost as soon as met.