‘I have thought a thousand times,’ answered Bagott, still with a strange mildness, ‘and always to the same end. None of you knows, none of you can know, all that I owe to this my friend, since he came to fill the vacant place caused by another’s secession.’
‘He hath corrupt your mind,’ cried Nol despairingly.
‘Harkee, good man,’ answered his master: ‘I bear with you because I love you. I love you all, who have served me so long and singly; and because of my love I would have you abet, not balk me in a step my very conscience demands. Come, Nol, come Phineas, please your old master by pleasing him who will one day take his place, it may be in no great time.’
That set Nol howling; but it conquered him, poor simple soul. He swore, and Phineas swore, that they would all, answering for the others, try to act up to their lord’s wishes, and so they stumbled out. When they were gone, Bagott produced wine, with which he regaled the mildewed men of law—too accustomed, like undertakers, to the laying-out and burying of human hopes to be in any way affected by the grief they had witnessed, but flattered over their employment by so great a lawyer—and, having presently got rid of them, turned to his inseparable companion, and said pantingly, as he placed the Will in his hands:—
‘In trust, then, Melton, for the future, when the true faith is restored to our land, and the seminary we wot of shall form itself within these desolate walls, and the Chapel be reconsecrated to the service of the holy Mass.’
Significant words, betraying something of the trend of recent events.
‘I accept the trust,’ said Melton simply, as he received the document—‘in nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti.’ But the thought beneath the words ran as thus: ‘Hot hands. He will be the worse for this rally. How long? Will he last till the nephew’s return? The worse for me: but even then, not failure. We must pile on the fuel.’
‘Bagott,’ he said aloud; ‘this effort has been too much for you. You must take means to restore the vital spark, or I will not answer for the consequences.’
He poured liberally from a flask, while the other watched him with a sort of dull, exhausted eagerness; and once, twice, thrice he poured again—and so gained his end.
‘You drunken dog,’ he said to the insensible figure. ‘Will you never die?’