"Nay, sir," answered Sam, "I think she has the right of it, that my
father ought to be told; and that the chances are he will leave it to
Charles to decide."

Matthew Wesley flung up his hands. "'Tis a conspiracy of folly!
Upon my professional word, you ought all to be strait-waistcoated!"
He glared around, found speech again, and pounced upon Sam.
"A pretty success _you've_ made of your father's ambitions--you, with
your infatuation for that rogue Atterbury, and your born gift of
choosing the cold side of favour! You might have been Freind's
successor, Head Master of Westminster School! Where's your
chance now? You'll not even get the under-mastership, I doubt.
Some country grammar school is your fate--I see it; and all for lack
of sense. If you lacked learning, lacked piety, lacked--"

"Excuse me, sir, but these are matters I have no mind to discuss with
you. When Freind retires Nicoll will succeed him, and Nicoll
deserves it. Whether I get Nicoll's place or no, God will decide,
who knows if I deserve it. Let it rest in His hands. But when you
speak of Bishop Atterbury, and when I think of that great heart
breaking in exile, why then, sir, you defeat yourself and steel me
against my little destinies by the example of a martyr."

He said it awkwardly, pulling the while at his bony knuckles; but he
said it with a passion which cowed his uncle for the moment, and drew
from his mother a startled, almost expectant, look. Yet she knew
that Sam's eyes could never hold (for her joy and terror) the
underlying fire which had shone in her youngest boy's that morning,
and which mastered her--strong woman though she was--in her
husband's. And this was the tragic note in her love for Sam--the