erenger

'This was not what my Lady expected,' he muttered; but though Berenger
silenced him by a stern look, he took the first opportunity of asking
Philip if it would not be far wiser for his brother to place himself in
safety in England.

'Wiser, but less honest,' said Philip.

'He who has lost all here, who has incurred his grandfather's anger,'
pursued Aime, 'were he not wiser to make his peace with his friends in
England?'

'His friends in England would not like him the better for deserting his
poor wife's cause,' said Philip. 'I advise you to hold your tongue, and
not meddle or make.'

Aime subsided, and Philip detected something like tears. He had still
much of rude English boyhood about him, and he laughed roughly. 'A fine
fellow, to weep at a word! Hie thee back to feed my Lady's lap-dog, 'tis
all thou art fit for.'

'There spoke English gratitude,' said Aime, with a toss of the head and
flash of the eye.

Philip despised him the more for casting up his obligations, but had no
retort to make. He had an idea of making a man of young Selinville,
and his notion of the process had something of the bullying tendency of
English young towards the poor-spirited or cowardly. He ordered the boy
roughly, teased him for his ignorance of manly exercises, tried to cure
his helplessness by increasing his difficulties, and viewed his fatigue
as affectation or effeminacy. Berenger interfered now and then to guard
the poor boy from a horse-jest or practical joke, but he too felt
that Aime was a great incumbrance, hopelessly cowardly, fanciful, and
petulant; and he was sometimes driven to speak to him with severity,
verging on contempt, in hopes of rousing a sense of shame.

The timidity, so unusual and inexplicable in a youth of eighteen or
twenty, sowed itself irrepressibly at the Sands of Olonne. These were
not misty, as on Berenger's former journey. Nissard steeple was soon in
sight, and the guide who joined them on a rough pony had no doubt
that there would be ample time to cross before high water. There was,
however