A Terrible Temptation: A Story of To-DayReade, Charles
General
A Terrible Temptation: A Story of To-Day
Reade, Charles
England -- Fiction
“SIR--Some nights since we caught your successor that is to be, at my
dining-room window, prying into my private affairs. Having the honor of
our family at heart, I was about to administer a little wholesome
correction, when he reminded me he had been instrumental in tracking
Miss Bassett, and thereby rescuing her: upon this I was, naturally,
mollified, and sent him about his business, hoping to have seen the
last of him at Highmore.
“This morning my door is covered with opprobrious epithets, and as Mr.
Bassett bought paint and brushes at the shop yesterday afternoon, it is
doubtless to him I am indebted for them.
“I make no comments; I simply record the facts, and put them down to
your credit, and your son's.
“Your obedient servant,
“RICHARD BASSETT.”
Lady Bassett did not come down to breakfast that morning; so Sir
Charles digested this dish in solitude.
He was furious with Reginald; but as Richard Bassett's remonstrance was
intended to insult him, he wrote back as follows:
“SIR--I am deeply grieved that a son of mine should descend to look in
at your windows, or to write anything whatever upon your door; and I
will take care it shall never recur.
“Yours obediently,
“CHARLES DYKE BASSETT.”
This little correspondence was salutary; it fanned the coals of hatred
between the cousins.
Reckless Reginald soon found he had caught a Tartar in his new master.
That gentleman punished him severely for every breach of discipline.
The study was a cool dark room, with one window looking north, and that
window barred. Here he locked up the erratic youth for hours at a time,
upon the slightest escapade.
Reginald wrote a honeyed letter to Sir Charles, bewailing his lot, and
praying to be removed.
Sir Charles replied sternly, and sent him a copy of Mr. Richard
Bassett's letter. He wrote to Mr. Beecher at the same time, expressing
his full approval.
Thus disciplined, the boy began to change; he became moody, sullen,
silent, and even sleepy. This was the less wonderful, that he generally
escaped at night to a gypsy camp, and courted a gypsy girl, who was
nearly as handsome as himself, besides being older, and far more
knowing.
His tongue went like a mill, and the whole tribe soon knew all about
him and his parents.
One morning the servants got up supernaturally early, to wash. Mr.
Reginald was detected stealing back to his roost, and reported to the
master.
Mr. Beecher had him up directly, locked him into the study alone, put
the other students into the drawing-room, and erected bars to his
bedroom window.
A few days of this, and he pined like a bird in a cage.
A few more, and his gypsy girl came fortune-telling to the servants,
and wormed out the truth.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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