Chapter 9

ESAU.

"To be weak is miserable,
Doing or suffering."

"Now conscience wakes despair
That slumberd; wakes the bitter memory
Of what he was, what is, and what must be."

It was the middle of February before Harry could leave Sandal-Side. He
had remained there, however, only out of that deference to public
opinion which no one likes to offend; and it had been a most melancholy
and anxious delay. He was not allowed to enter the squire's room, and
indeed he shrank from the ordeal. His mother and Charlotte treated him
with a reserve he felt to be almost dislike. He had been so accustomed
to consider mother-love sufficient to cover all faults, that he forgot
there was a stronger tie; forgot that to the tender wife the husband of
her youth--her lover, friend, companion--is far nearer and dearer than
the tie that binds her to sons and daughters.

Also, he did not care to give any consideration to the fact, that both
his mother and Charlotte resented the kind of daughter and sister he had
forced upon them. So there was little sympathy with him at Seat-Sandal,
and he fancied that all the gentlemen of the neighborhood treated him
with a perceptible coolness of manner. Perhaps they did. There are
social intuitions, mysterious in their origin, and yet hitting
singularly near the truth. Before circumstances permitted him to leave
Sandal-Side, he had begun to hate the Seat and the neighborhood, and
every thing pertaining to it, with all his heart.

The only place of refuge he had found had been Up-Hill. The day after
the catastrophe he fought his way there, and with passionate tears and
complaints told Ducie the terrible story. Ducie had some memories of her
own wilful marriage, which made her tolerant with Harry. She had also
been accused of causing her mother's death; and though she knew herself
to be innocent, she had suffered by the accusation. She understood
Harry's trouble as few others could have done; and though a good deal
of his evident misery was on account of his separation from Beatrice,
Ducie did not suspect this, and really believed the young man to be
breaking his heart over the results of his rash communication.

He was agreeably surprised, also, to find that Stephen treated him with
a consideration he had never done when he was a dashing officer, with
all his own small world at his feet. For when any man was in trouble,
Steve Latrigg was sure to take that man's part. He did not ask too
particularly into the trouble. He had a way of saying to Ducie, "There
will be faults on both sides. If two stones knock against each other
until they strike fire, you may be sure both of them have been hard,
mother. Any way, Harry is in trouble, and there is none