“What do you think of this cause of ours, Cutty; how does it look to your eyes?”
“Just as dark as thunder! Why you go to trial at all next term I can't make out. Pracontal's case is clear as noonday. There's the proof of the marriage,—as legal a marriage as if an archbishop celebrated it,—and there 's the registry of birth, and there is, to confirm all, old Bramleigh's letters. If you push on after such a show of danger signals as these, it is because you must like a smash.”
“You'd strike, then, without firing a shot?”
“To be sure I would, if it was only to save the expense of the powder; besides, Pracontal has already declared, that if met by an amicable spirit on your brother's part, there are no terms he would not accede to, to secure recognition by your family, and acceptance as one of you.”
“I 'm sure I don't see why he should care for it.”
“Nor I, for the matter of that. If there's a lot in life I 'd call enviable, it would be to be born in a foundling hospital, and inherit ten thousand a year. A landed estate, and no relations, comes nearer to my ideas of Paradise than anything in Milton's poems.”
“Here they come,” cried Jack, as a merry group issued from the road, and came joyously forward to meet them.
“Here's this good fellow Tom Cutbill come to spend some days with us,” said Jack, as the girls advanced to greet him.
“Is n't it kind of him?” said Cutbill; “is n't it like that disinterested good-nature that always marks him? Of course I'm heartily welcome! how could it be otherwise? Miss Bramleigh, you do me proud. Miss Julia, your slave. Ah, your reverence! let's have a shake of your devout paw. Now I call this as pleasant a place for a man to go through his sentence of transportation as need be. Do the ladies know what I'm charged with?”
“They know nothing, they desire to know nothing,” said Augustus. “When we have dined and had our coffee, you shall make your own confession; and that only if you like it, and wish to disburden your conscience.”