Astounding Stories of Super-Science February, 2026, by Astounding Stories is part of HackerNoon’s Book Blog Post series. You can jump to any chapter in this book here. The Moors and the Fens, volume 1 (of 3) - Chapter XI: The Baronet’s First-born Astounding Stories of Super-Science February 2026: The Moors and the Fens, volume 1 (of 3) - Chapter XI The Baronet’s First-born By J. H. Riddell Astounding Stories of Super-Science February, 2026, by Astounding Stories is part of HackerNoon’s Book Blog Post series. You can jump to any chapter in this book here. The Moors and the Fens, volume 1 (of 3) - Chapter XI: The Baronet’s First-born Astounding Stories of Super-Science February, 2026, by Astounding Stories is part of HackerNoon’s Book Blog Post series. You can jump to any chapter in this book here. here Astounding Stories of Super-Science February 2026: The Moors and the Fens, volume 1 (of 3) - Chapter XI The Baronet’s First-born By J. H. Riddell By J. H. Riddell But as the mariner, tossing on the bosom of the ever-restless, always treacherous, ocean, clings with might and main to the quivering mast, though aloft storms surround, and tempests howl about him, whilst below lies the sure, certain calm of the grave, so the miser baronet resolutely grasped the volume of life, perhaps with even a firmer clutch than he might have done, had its numerous pages contained the story of an existence devoted to the good and well-being of his fellow-creatures. As the slave strives for freedom, as the wretched do for peace, as the weary pine for rest, as the drowning catch at straws, as the sailor seizes the saving spar,—so, with similar eagerness, Sir Ernest kept an unrelaxing hand on that which many an one would gladly relinquish any day; for more than mothers love their children and some men love fame, than others love 196station, than the young love pleasure, or the old repose, the miser loved gold: dearer was it unto his soul than mortal affection or immortal expectations; than comfort, or ease, or luxury, or virtue, or principle: the hope of adding the merest trifle to his hoard seemed more in his eyes than the hope of salvation; the dread of letting one sixpence pass by his greedy hand swallowed up all fear or horror of perdition. Though life was to him a mere sordid existence, he resolved to “take the most out of it,” as he did out of everything else: gold was the only thing he cared for, and, to go on acquiring it, life was necessary; and so he clung to the latter and amassed the former with a perseverance which, if employed in a better cause, would have made him an unspeakable benefactor to his species. The wrinkles on his withered face grew daily deeper; the lines below his eyes and round his mouth became marked and fixed, as if they had been chiselled there; the twisted veins on his high narrow forehead looked, spite of the sallow skin that only partially concealed them, like crawling reptiles wandering through his flesh; his hands seemed to get more like talons—the long colourless nails like claws; his tone grew shriller and harsher; his step 197more uncertain and rapid than ever; his temper more unbearable; his mood more changeable; his spirit more litigious: but still the bright light of former times gleamed in his eyes; there was purpose in his thought, command in his voice, energy in his mind: age might do its worst upon him, but Sir Ernest defied it to kill him; he shook one trembling hand undauntedly in the face of time, and, laying the other firmly on the principle of vitality, refused to die. Men, with no business, no purpose, no plan, might lie down in their narrow graves if it so pleased them any day; but the miser had work to do, which, if properly carried out, would last him for ever: and so he lived on, faithfully serving his God as few men serve their God. He never attempted the impossible task of serving two masters; but, taking Mammon for his, worked and slaved and toiled at his bidding with fifty times more vigour and determination than those do who profess to be laying up treasures for themselves in that land “where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through and steal.” He lived on—and Ernest waited. his their As men do wait who wish for what they dared not speak of—with outward patience, with intense irritability, with feverish thirst, and dark heart, and 198darker reveries; saved from utter ruin by one good purpose, by one unselfish object which he strove to gain, not for his own sake, but for that of Henry. He had formed a resolution the day of his brother’s departure, about which he never said a syllable to any one, which was to scrape together, by some indefinite means, an amount sufficient to buy Henry a commission. Many amiable persons, as they are usually termed, constantly plan generous and philanthropic projects, but never carry them out; and others, who are charmed by their wordy benevolence, take the will for the deed, and think better of such empty talkers than of their silenter fellows, who talk not at all and act much. With Ernest, however, to think was not to speak, but to do; to resolve was to perform, not brilliantly or rapidly, but silently and probably tardily. He neither possessed the hope nor the talents of his brother; but he had a kind of invincible obstinacy, or adhesiveness, of disposition, which caused him, whenever he had once made up his mind on any point, to stick thereto with unswerving tenacity. It might be years after,—it might be towards the close of life,—other and brighter prospects might arise before him, obstacles might present themselves, difficulties appear, but it was much the same to him: 199he walked aside, or round, or over; he stood still, or strode on; but whichever course he pursued, it was in his character to keep his eye ever steadily fixed on the object he had once determined to reach, and never for one moment to remove his gaze from the contemplation thereof. To a nature like this, it was a matter of no small importance what he decided was worth striving or waiting for in life. As weak characters change their ideas every hour, it follows, par consequence, that what they resolve to do to-day signifies not in the least, as it is quite certain not to be carried out to-morrow: but, with a man whose resolves are not to be shaken, it becomes almost an affair of temporal and eternal welfare that he shall resolve well, or else not at all; for, if the bad be chosen, it cannot, in the hands of one blessed or cursed with such a temperament, work for aught else than evil; and, if the good be embraced, it can never, even by a mischance, turn out completely ill. in his character par consequence Thus it was fortunate that, while much of wrong entered Ernest’s mind, right had obtained part possession of his soul too; wherefore the one, guided, and the other clouded, his life: his heart resembled the briny ocean, filled to suffocation with unhealthy thoughts and dangerous wishes; but, affection for 200Henry, dashing like the rapid mountain torrent through the flood, kept still a portion of his nature pure and undefiled. As in the natural world, so in the moral; the two waters ebbed and flowed ceaselessly, but never mingled—a drop of the salt never mixed with the other: the brine never became fresh, nor the fresh, brine. Living a life so lonely and retired, neither passion ever got so far from land as to be swallowed up in that larger ocean which cools hatreds, quenches loves, tears the magnifying glass—self-pity—from the eye and reveals wrongs, as they frequently are, mere bubbles on the surface; which divides friends, reconciles enemies, makes some better, many worse, mends a few, mars more; which most pant to enter; which all are loath to leave; that busy, ever-varying, ever-deceitful, ever-inviting ocean, on which all sigh to try their frail barks; whose characteristic is turmoil, whose mandate is toil, whose boundary is eternity; over whose surface keeps ever sailing the grim pilot, Death,—who takes one from his pleasure boat and another from his merchant vessel; the child from his little skiff; the fisherman from his tarry yawl; the officer from the man of war; the pirate from his ill-gotten prize; the traveller from his comfortless ship: who picks off a man from the crew of every bark, and 201removes them from that mighty ocean, the World, for ever. In that bustling arena Ernest Ivraine, though he might have lost something, would assuredly have gained much; but he had determined to sit out the drama of his father’s existence till the curtain finally dropped on the last act of the interminable piece. And whilst he wearied over scene after scene of that which some deem a comedy, and others a tragedy—life,—he strove to diversify the incidents of his own existence a little, by working earnestly at the plan he had formed for Henry’s advancement that morning when they parted. Often, when sleep—that heaven-sent angel which visits millions of the poor and needy, and passes by the couches of those who toil not with their bodies for their daily bread—refused to fall either lightly or heavily, or, in fact, at all on his weary eyelids, Ernest began to reflect about his brother, so refined in his tastes, so striking in appearance, so tender of heart, living as a common soldier amongst rude companions, far away from any friend, prevented by rank and circumstances from forming a single acquaintance in his own grade of society. He thought of his dead mother and his surviving parent; of his home and its occupants; of the trifling sum which could raise 202Henry and emancipate both; and, knowing how hopeless it would be to expect to wring even a guinea from the miser’s chest, he vowed firmly to work out his brother’s deliverance by some means, and wait patiently himself till destiny should do the same good generous turn by him. Most amongst us feel wonderfully inclined to believe in the assertion of “where there’s a will there’s a way;” but no one blessed by that worthy dame, whom we call our mother—Nature—with half an ounce of the invaluable commodity, rarely to be met with, always to be devoutly prayed for,—yclept common sense, can deny that same way often proves a most desperately tedious and round-about one. So at least Ernest Ivraine found: there was not a device or an expedient which he did not think of to gain money; he spared no time, nor thought, nor fatigue, to become the possessor of so many hundred pounds in hard cash. But, though he did make some way, he discovered his crippled efforts so mightily resembled trying to cut through a log of timber with an oyster knife, that fifty times he would have abandoned his effort in disgust and despair had something stronger than love of self not held him to his weary, money-getting, sterile post. 203About a large property, barren though it may be, there are many perfectly legitimate openings for a son to gain a little of the precious metal, even though his parent be lord and master of the estate and entitled to the revenues derivable therefrom. So soon as Ernest perceived this fact, he wondered it had never revealed itself to his understanding before, and became, not like Nimrod, a mighty hunter, but an amateur farmer, who grew learned in all sorts of agricultural mysteries, who came to know the value of a sheep, the weight of that Jewish horror—the pig, the market value of a cow, and, above all, the intrinsic beauty and worth of that finest amongst animals—a horse. It is not, perhaps, very desirable for any gentleman to become “professionally versed” in this latter point, since knowledge of racers and acquaintance with that numerous and ill-reputed class, called “jobbers,” generally brings individuals into company where, to say the least of it, they had best not be, and not unfrequently conducts them to that disagreeable finale, the Court of Bankruptcy. But Ernest Ivraine was too proud and reserved ever to make friends, or rather familiars, of his inferiors: no one could assert his acquaintances were ostlers, that his drawing-room was the stable, his associates men 204who at “Tattersalls do congregate.” He had no taste for races,—no propensity to, or predilection for, gambling; he never entered a horse for a “Cup” anywhere, he made no bets, took no odds: he reared and sold for employment and for—Henry. There were not wanting those amongst his connections, who had formerly termed him a mercenary though indolent hanger-on for the crumbs that might fall to his greedy hand from death’s table, who now termed him, in angry contempt, “a gentleman horse-jockey:” but, if he did lay himself in the slightest degree open to such an imputation, surely the deed, in this instance, justified the means; for nothing could be nobler than to aid a struggling brother; and if trading in black and grey and brown and chesnut quadrupeds be not the most respectable profession in the world, it is no worse than many another, if followed fairly and honestly. Sir Ernest laughed in his most diabolical manner at those who represented that his son had fairly started in the race on that road which is universally admitted to lead to ruin. “There is more in that fellow than I ever thought,” he said; “he is making Paradise of real value: he gives me the whole of the profits, and I let him, now and then, have an animal to rear and get what he can out of it. He 205wants a small sum of money, he says, for something or other; and, as he improves my property, I humour his whim: he adds, he is “happier” employed about the place, seeing after the labourers, and so forth, than in doing nothing; and as, though he looks no happier than before, he benefits my purse, I agree to his fancy. Mutual accommodation, reciprocal advantages! father and son, owner and heir, pulling the same way—for once working disinterestedly together! ha! ha!” and the old man chuckled at the idea till the veins in his forehead became more conspicuous, and the expression of his countenance less human than ever. And, in truth, as years rolled on, the father and the son did seem to agree so admirably, and to become so communicative, after their extraordinary fashion, that relatives, far and near, trembled for their respective interests in the old man’s will, and silently struck an all important nought from the sum they had once fondly hoped he would leave them; whilst Ernest first made shillings pounds, and pounds twenties, and twenties hundreds, and silently gathered together the sum needful to make Henry a lieutenant, and began to feel his hope of a favourable bequest strengthen, and to rejoice he had not, like his brother, cast fortune from him, and 206to yearn more sinfully and eagerly than ever for his father’s death, ere a change came. Meantime letters arrived from Henry, at long intervals and uncertain periods, as they always do from the proud but unsuccessful; they were short, though affectionate; the high confident tone soon vanished from the sheet. True, he had, occasionally, little scraps of good fortune and approving notice to recount: he was a corporal, had gained a stripe, two stripes, three—he was a sergeant: his officer, a hard, stern, Waterloo hero, had said he was as brave a fellow as ever lived, and prophesied great things for him; but Henry wrote all this in a manner which spoke quite as much of mortification as of pleasure; of a heart that was despairing,—as of one which strove still to hope. “He was climbing,” he once briefly said. “Yes,” thought Ernest, “but it is as the tortoise climbs up the weary hill to fame; so slowly that life will be finished before he reach the summit, or even a pleasant halting place half-way.” The awful gulf that separates the ranks from the mess table, which birth, unassisted by influence, cannot cross; which money can only pass with a golden bridge; which valour dyes crimson with its best blood in its frantic endeavours to stem,—yawned 207between Henry and success. It had not seemed so wide or impracticable at a distance; but now, when the impetuous young man stood on the brink, he saw how almost impossible he should find it to reach the other side, without a helping hand stretched forth to aid his endeavour. “No one to help you,” Ernest had said ere he left his home behind him. “No one to help you?” “Except God and myself,” Henry had then promptly replied; and should he who, amidst the depressing swamps of Paradise had firm faith in the power of God, and humble confidence in the abilities and energies with which his Creator had gifted him, doubt now? Ah! it is easy for men always to be brave in action; but who, on the surface of this wide earth, is constantly so in thought? Not Henry Ivraine, who grew sick, and faint, and hopeless, even whilst he presented a cheerful face against adverse circumstances, and prepared him sternly, day by day, to meet the weary struggle men call life. He said he never repented; and it was true, for his motive now for exertion was an honest one; whilst the former, spoken of as the reason for endurance, seemed to his good manly heart, mean and sinful. But he was disappointed, as others have 208been, and others must be,—as it seems to be the will of the Universal Disposer of all events that, at some time or other in their careers, most shall be. He strove to conceal knowledge of this from Ernest; strove to smother the feeling, even as it arose in his breast; and so for years he continued trying to wait patiently for that which he had long begun to fear never would arrive unto him—success. Ernest grieved for the blight which he saw had fallen on the once hopeful spirit; but he comforted himself by thinking how proudly, after this severe probation, his brother would wear his epaulettes; how nobly he had deserved that which merit seemed impotent to win: he felt glad to reflect that Henry would be made happy by him, and he longed to tell his father that the “vagabond soldier” was at length a respected officer. Dearer to him, oh, far dearer, was Henry the disappointed, than Henry the sanguine. He had possessed love for the latter, it is true; but he had love and sympathy to give to the former, who required both,—yet would fain have concealed that his impetuous daring heart, and unfortunate position, made him stand so wofully in need of two of the best gifts bountiful Heaven has placed in the hands of man to bestow on his stricken and struggling fellow—assistance and compassion. 209Years had rolled away since they two parted; since that night when, by the blazing wood fire, Henry told his final resolution to his brother; since that night when, in semi-darkness, with the half-extinguished logs smouldering on the hearth, he confronted his parent and spoke bitterly, impetuously, but truthfully to him for the last time; since that night when Ernest dissuaded and he persisted; when it was free to both to go, or both to stay; when the elder tossed restlessly on his couch, as the hours given, not to repose, but to mental strife and sad deliberation, hurried, as such hours do, rapidly away, leaving, however, a vivid memory of every painful minute behind them; since that morning when the younger came to the bedside of his brother to hear his choice; when he roused the miser from slumber to say, with his pale, troubled, youthful, noble face confronting the old man’s withered, sunken, sordid visage, that earnest word which comes in stifled tones from the heart when it is almost breaking,—good-bye; since that morning when his father closed the portals of home so securely behind him; when he and Ernest walked through the dense chill darkness preceding dawn for five dreary miles; when he saw the vehicle which was to take him a few stages on his long vague 210journey; when he hung for a moment like a child upon his brother’s neck; and still, though tears blinded his eyes, rushed resolutely to his fate: years had rolled away since then, changed the hopeful stripling into a disappointed man, and his gloomy desponding brother into a scarcely less gloomy hoper; had bronzed the fair cheek and subdued the high spirit of the one, and given a sort of purpose and one or two pleasant thoughts to the other. The first had been boyishly flinging stones at fortune’s apples during all that period, and missed the mark for which he aimed; whilst the second perseveringly climbed the tree, at the top of which hung the inviting cluster he desired to grasp; and, as he ascended, he traded and bartered, to the end that he might fling Henry some of the heavy metal—gold—which, more sure in its operation than those unpolished gems, worth and merit, deemed by most, till seen in precious settings, common worthless stones of no account, was certain to bring down at the first throw the prize he had so long desired. Years of care, of weariness, of anxiety, of sorrow, had passed over the heads of both men,—for men they were in every thought and feeling now,—and altered them in mind, appearance, hope, expectation, in almost everything, save the old sensations, hate and 211love; for these two passions of the soul render the heart which hath been tried in the evil or the good fire of aversion or affection, invulnerable to change. As steel, thrice tempered, resists the strength of iron, so that portion of man’s nature which hath once really passed through either of the glowing furnaces, lighted by wrongs or kindled by regard, defies the withering, chilling hand of time for ever, and remains through time loving or hating always. And thus, after the lapse of all those years, Ernest was enabled to remit to Henry the sum needful to raise him from the ranks; and having, as he fondly hoped, after immense difficulty, thrown him the first broad stepping-stone leading to fortune, he turned him with more zeal and interest than ever to watch the progress he himself was making along the road to wealth. For he had now a sort of double prize in view; he had two to please instead of one: he had not merely an avaricious father, but a widowed aunt, to humour. Wealth, treble what Henry had spurned in those far away days, treble what Ernest had then deemed worth trying for, was now in the house, ready to be taken possession of by some one, whenever the last breath struggled slowly through the 212thin lips of the miser baronet and his still more sordid sister, who, having wedded in girlhood a man rich as some are in this mighty England, had saved and hoarded and made a private purse for herself during his lifetime, and finally induced him at death to bequeath everything which he could will away from his next kin to his childless widow; then fleeing, on the one hand, from the wrath of his relatives and the needy importunities of many of her own, she took refuge in Paradise, where she and Sir Ernest watched each other, as two dogs with bones a-piece watch, lest, by any lack of vigilance, a sovereign or a sixpence should be stolen from the hoard of either to find its way by an unaccountable process called, in vulgar language—thieving, into a money-chest in which it had never previously been locked. some one The house that had formerly only been haunted by a tall, lean, meagre, sneering old man, was now also the abode of a little, sharp, vindictive, restless woman, who stole about on tiptoe and caught up everything that her brother overlooked, and pinched the limited establishment more than ever, and looked at morsels of meat and fragments of bread and atoms of wood and little pieces of soap with the eye of a woman who had only one aim and object in life, to save and hoard money as her brother did, only with 213double eagerness, with a double zest, if that were possible. “Close” was the name which heaven, in the person of her husband, had decreed she should be known by; and assuredly it was not an altogether inappropriate one, for she was so close of hand and heart, that Paradise grew more dreary every day after her arrival. And Ernest felt how insupportable this second chain would have made home, had it not been so beautifully gilded. He waited on now for them both to die, but neither felt inclined to do so at his bidding; he sometimes grew tired of the never-ending delay, but the prize had now become so great that it was better worth striving for than ever; besides which, after lingering so long, he was not going to give up now: and, beyond the gates of Paradise, no treasure lay within his reach; and the treasure within its gates he had at last grown to fancy himself certain of, if he only had patience and never despaired. For his father was now most confidential and communicative: he consulted him about investments, legal cases, disputed points, contested questions; got him occasionally to transact such business for him as required no money to pass through the hands of his eldest born, who had come to be regarded 214by almost every one as his heir. And Mrs. Close also was, comparatively speaking, gracious to the grave, dark, stern young man, who never crossed her inclinations, who appeared so careful and fond of money-making, and who, above all, valued society so very little, and avoided, as if it had been a pestilence, all intercourse with his kind. She liked him for his sins and faults; his father had never entertained any particular regard for him, but he had begun lately to feel he was of use to him, and to believe he would keep the guineas and acres of Paradise and the residue of his land and tenements “better together” than any other relative he was so fortunate as to possess. And neither, seeing further than the silent gloomy surface, knew aught of the character which lay beneath, and thought there was “nothing more” in Ernest, of any kind, good, bad, or indifferent. About HackerNoon Book Series: We bring you the most important technical, scientific, and insightful public domain books. This book is part of the public domain. Astounding Stories. (2009). ASTOUNDING STORIES OF SUPER-SCIENCE, FEBRUARY 2026. USA. Project Gutenberg. Release date: February 14, 2026, from https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/77931/pg77931-images.html#Page_99* This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org, located at https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html. About HackerNoon Book Series: We bring you the most important technical, scientific, and insightful public domain books. About HackerNoon Book Series: We bring you the most important technical, scientific, and insightful public domain books. This book is part of the public domain. Astounding Stories. (2009). ASTOUNDING STORIES OF SUPER-SCIENCE, FEBRUARY 2026. USA. Project Gutenberg. Release date: February 14, 2026, from https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/77931/pg77931-images.html#Page_99* This book is part of the public domain. Astounding Stories. (2009). ASTOUNDING STORIES OF SUPER-SCIENCE, FEBRUARY 2026. USA. Project Gutenberg. https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/77931/pg77931-images.html#Page_99 This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org, located at https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html. This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org, located at https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html. www.gutenberg.org https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html
