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Updated: May 23, 2025
It's nearly twelve years since we met, and I wasn't very polite to him that time," said Aymer wearily. "There was a reasonable excuse for you." "I'm afraid I did not consider reason much in those days, sir. If he'd been a saint in disguise I should have behaved like a brute just the same." Charles Aston came and stood looking down with a kind, quiet, satisfied smile.
All that day he had been secretly dreading to-night, shrinking like a coward from a situation which must arouse in his son memories better forgotten. He was not a man given to shirking unpleasing experiences to save his own heart a pang, but he was a veritable child in the way that he studied to preserve his eldest son from the like. It was Aymer who first spoke in his usual matter-of-fact tone.
Since the last appearance of Peter Masters, Aymer had seemed to lose something of his old independent spirit of resistance. The mine of strength within himself, which his father had developed, was nearing exhaustion, and he lived more and more by force of his interest in outward things, and the active part he played in Christopher's life.
Presently Aymer turned to him as he sat on a low chair by the side of the wide sofa and put his arm round him again. "I'm sorry, little Christopher," he said rather huskily, perhaps because he was smoking, "but I'm afraid I can't give you that, old chap. We only remember them here."
Despite his honest intention never to stand between Christopher and any fate that might serve to draw him into connection with his father, Aymer had a hard fight to master his keen desire to put Peter's letter in the fire and say nothing about it. Surely, after all, he had the best right to say what his adopted charge's future should be.
"My lord," answered the Antiquary, "I must necessarily have the greatest respect for your lordship's family, which I am well aware is one of the most ancient in Scotland, being certainly derived from Aymer de Geraldin, who sat in parliament at Perth, in the reign of Alexander II., and who by the less vouched, yet plausible tradition of the country, is said to have been descended from the Marmor of Clochnaben.
"Cousin Charles is capable of any unworldly folly, but Aymer was a man of the world once. It looks like colossal bluff." And then the meaning of all this swept over Christopher's mind like a wave of fire, scorching his soul, desecrating and humiliating the very mainspring of his life. Aymer's son!
'To the rescue! cried bold King Richard, and on rushed the crusaders to Aymer's help; when lo! and suddenly the ranks severed, and the black steed emerged! Aymer still on the selle, but motionless, and his helm battered and plumeless, his brand broken, his arm drooping. On came man and horse, on, charging on, not against Infidel but Christian.
Christopher offered no solution to the problem. "Would you like to live here with me?" He looked round. A dim sense of alarm crept back. The room looked so empty and unreal, so "alone." Without knowing why, Christopher, who had never had a real home to pine for, felt miserably homesick. Aymer watched him closely and did not press the question.
"You are a bad, silly boy to be jealous," said Aymer, watching him, half laughing, half affectionately, "you ought to have known for yourself, if they had been enough for me, you wouldn't be here at all."
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