The Hillyars and the Burtons by Henry Kingsley

I KNOW that my love for Erne Hillyar was, at first, only one of those boy-friendships which I suppose all boys have had; which after a time fade away, and then flow strong again for another object; or, if there be no new object, simply wear out into a kind of half-jealous regret. "He don't care for me as he used," you say mournfully; no, but how much do you care for him, my good friend? Would you go into the next street to meet him, if it would prevent your going ten miles to get ten minutes with Mary? I think not. These boy passions die out to a certain limit, and to a certain limit only; for there is always a tenderness left for the old boy after all. Tom must always have reserved for him the inestimable and delicious privilege of being bored to death with the catalogue of Mary's perfections, until he mentally howls at the mention of that dear creature's name; and Tom must be your best man at the wedding, if procurable, because the renewal of the old tendresse on that particular occasion is something sentimentally good and graceful, even if it is the finish and end of the whole business,--for which result there is no possible reason.

But my friendship for Erne was not of this kind altogether, for it grew and developed. Martha never came between him and me for a moment. I fell in love with Martha,--well, principally, I believe, because I fell in love with her. Come, sir, what made you fall in love with your wife? Don't know. No more do I know why I fell in love with my wife, unless it was her spraining her ankle on the slide by Clerkenwell Prison, and having no one to take her home. But, having once fallen in love with her, I began to find out, by degrees, what a noble, excellent little body she was; and so my love for her grew and grew, and I would not like to swear (though I should not like her to know it) that it has reached its full development yet. And yet, the more I loved Martha, the more my friendship for Erne became part of myself. For, having inherited from my mother the trick of living, save on special emergencies, in the future, or in the past, or anywhere but in the present, I had gradually built up for myself a palace of fancy, quite as beautiful as you could expect from a mere blacksmith's lad, in which palace Martha and I were to live forever in comfort by the products of my trade, and in which also Erne and Emma were to take up their abode with us, and live on, --say manna or quails: details are contemptible. I fancy, if my recollection serves me, that part of the scheme was that Martha and I were to have four children, two boys and two girls, exceedingly beautiful and good; and that, when we had arrived at this point, we were to stop,--which we have n't. I think also, at one time, after having seen a certain picture, that I intended to have another and a fifth child, who was to die beautifully in infancy, and to do something absolutely tremendous, in a sentimental point of view, on its death-bed. I don't know how long this last fancy,--thank God, only a fancy,--endured; but I do know that this dear martyr was the only one of my five children for whom I sketched out any future whatever. The other four were to remain children, ranging in age from two years to seven, until Martha and I, gray-headed in the character of Mr. and Mrs. Anderson, were borne together (having died the same day, --a matter of detail easily arranged on a future opportunity) into the church-yard of the late ingenious Mr. Gray's "Elegy, " followed by a sorrowing population.