“Of what, Mrs Edith?” asked Hans with a smile. “‘A man’s life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth.’ I am one of the richest men in England, I take it, and my wealth is not of a sort that shall make it hard to enter into the Kingdom of God. The corn and wine and oil may be good things, and are such, being God’s gifts: yet the gladness which He giveth is a better, and will abide when they are spent.”
Lady Oxford kept her word, and his grandmother and Aunt Edith had a farewell interview with Aubrey. His face was a study for a painter when the receipts were shown him. Tom Rookwood had refused him a second loan only a few weeks earlier, and had pressed him to repay the former: Hans Floriszoon had paid his debts without even letting him know it. Yet he had lent many a gold piece to Tom Rookwood, while the memory of that base, cruel blow given to Hans made his cheek burn with shame. Had he not been treasuring the pebble, and flinging away the pearl?
“Hans has paid my debts!” he said, in an exceedingly troubled voice. “Hans! out of his own pocket? May God forgive me! Tell him,”—and Aubrey’s voice was almost choked—“tell him he hath heaped coals of fire on mine head.”
Edith asked no questions, but she gave a shrewd guess which was not far off the truth, and she was confirmed in it by the fact that Hans received the message with a smile, and expressed no doubt what it meant.
That night there were twenty-two miles between Aubrey and London: and the next day he rode into Oxford, and delivered Mr Marshall’s letter of recommendation to the bookseller, Mr Whitstable, whose shop was situated just inside the West Gate—namely, in close contiguity to that aristocratic part of the city now known as Paradise Square.
Mr Whitstable was a white-haired man who seemed the essence of respectability. He stooped slightly in the shoulders, and looked Aubrey through and over, with a pair of dark, brilliant, penetrating eyes, in a way not exactly calculated to add to that young gentleman’s comfort, nor to restore that excellent opinion of his own virtues which had been somewhat shaken of late.
“You are of kin to the writer of this letter, Mr Marshall?”
Aubrey admitted it.
“And you desire to learn my trade?”
“I am afeared I scarce do desire it, Master: but I am content, and needs must.”