Again the grave, reserved face lighted up with an almost indescribable expression, in which fierce passions of hunger and yearning seemed to burst the bonds of long-continued repression and to shine forth out of a demon’s eyes.
Lady Marion in the meantime had carried her grievance against the librarian straight to her mother, who, although not passionately attached to her daughters, was kind and indulgent to them. After hearing the story, she agreed to use her influence to procure the dismissal of Amos Goodhare, the more readily as she herself shared the popular prejudice against him.
“I don’t promise that your father will listen to me, my dear,” she said. “I dare say you are old enough to guess that Goodhare is a connection of the family, though, of course, we don’t talk about it. He has to be provided for somehow, and I think your father looks upon him as rather a dangerous man—one whom he likes to keep under his own eye. Perhaps I am wrong, but that has always been my impression. And I don’t suppose your father will think there is much in the story of the lost treasure.”
Lady St. Austell was right. The earl pronounced the story to be “all nonsense,” and said that at the beginning of the last century, to which period he assigned the letter when the first part was shown to him, people went mad on the subject of buried money, and would even fit out ships to go in search of hoards said to have been left by pirates on distant islands. However, he listened attentively to Marion’s account of how she saw the librarian secrete part of the letter in his own pocket. Although he said nothing on the subject to Goodhare, perhaps he thought that his MSS. were not in safe keeping. Shortly afterwards he established a public library in the little town of Carstow, dowered it with a handsome supply of books and appointed Amos Goodhare custodian, with a small furnished house rent free and a more than ample salary.
Goodhare received news of the change in his position with his usual dignified modesty, and declared that he was entirely at the earl’s service always, and was happy provided he was allowed to remain near the old town and castle of which he had grown so fond.
On learning a new regulation which Lord St. Austell, at the instance of the countess, about this time established at the old castle, Amos Goodhare, however, showed himself less submissive. The earl, who preserved all the ruins on his estates with scrupulous care, left each in charge of a keeper, who kept the key and admitted visitors on payment of a small fee. In the case of Carstow, the keeper lived in a tower of the castle itself, close to the gate. She was a respectable widow, with a family of children, and the new rule was that no person whatever should be allowed to go over any part of the ruins unaccompanied either by herself or by one of her children. The only exceptions to this regulation were the Pennant family, for whom Marion procured this privilege; and any deviation from the rule, except in their case, was to be punished by dismissal from the charge of the gate. When Amos Goodhare heard of this, he ventured, in his usual respectful manner, to suggest that this piece of favoritism would offend all the other families in the neighborhood; but the earl, who, having promised to satisfy this whim of his wife’s, was not the man to go back from his word, simply said that it was known that, having no sons of his own, he took an especial interest in the Pennants; and that the regulation would be enforced in such a manner as not to interfere with the enjoyment of anybody. The rule had become necessary in consequence of the dangerous state of part of the ruins; and this reason should be published. The librarian could say no more.
But when the days grew shorter, and the black shadows of the night began to lengthen out under the grey walls early in the evening, Amos Goodhare, now installed in his little house adjoining the new library of Carstow, would spend his every spare hour in rambles round the old fortress, now this, now the other side of the winding river. Walking slowly, with eyes always cast down, and feet that appeared reluctant to rise, even for a moment, from the precious earth, he seemed to worship each blade of grass, each broken stone. It was a beautiful devotion, people said, that made a man so well known for learning and accomplishments linger so lovingly about the grey ruin, never even caring to go within the walls, but always hovering about it, scarcely letting himself go beyond the limited area within which he could keep its rugged and broken towers in view. Why, there could scarcely be a foot of ground within a mile of the castle that he didn’t know, they said.
And they were right. Under the beams of the rising sun, when the laborer was going to his work in the fields; at midday, in sun, or wind, or rain; at evening time, when his work was done, and he was free to wander restlessly until far into the night, the tall, gaunt, stooping figure, with its keen, hungry eyes, stalked, like a starving ghoul, about the precincts of the castle. It passed its long, lean fingers searchingly over the very stones and among the clinging ivy that hung in ragged bunches round the bases of the towers. It crept along over the ground with shuffling, searching feet. It returned, night after night, savage and disappointed, like a starving rat to its hole.
So the winter passed.
At last, one evening in April, when every rood had been well trodden by his restless feet, Amos Goodhare gave in.