shall escape.' He who is not a coward, and has succumbed, knows that God
has seen all, and it is not so hard a task for him to make his heart bare
to the world. Worse, I should fancy it, to know myself an impostor when
men praised me."

Young Richard's eyes were wandering on Austin's gravely cheerful face. A
keen intentness suddenly fixed them, and he dropped his head.

"So I think you're wrong, Ricky, in calling this poor Tom a coward
because he refuses to try your means of escape," Austin resumed. "A
coward hardly objects to drag in his accomplice. And, where the person
involved belongs to a great family, it seems to me that for a poor
plough-lad to volunteer not to do so speaks him anything but a coward."

Richard was dumb. Altogether to surrender his rope and file was a
fearful sacrifice, after all the time, trepidation, and study he had
spent on those two saving instruments. If he avowed Tom's manly
behaviour, Richard Feverel was in a totally new position. Whereas, by
keeping Tom a coward, Richard Feverel was the injured one, and to seem
injured is always a luxury; sometimes a necessity, whether among boys or
men.

In Austin the Magian conflict would not have lasted long. He had but a
blind notion of the fierceness with which it raged in young Richard.
Happily for the boy, Austin was not a preacher. A single instance, a
cant phrase, a fatherly manner, might have wrecked him, by arousing
ancient or latent opposition. The born preacher we feel instinctively to
be our foe. He may do some good to the wretches that have been struck
down and lie gasping on the battlefield: he rouses antagonism in the
strong. Richard's nature, left to itself, wanted little more than an