‘A very worthy man he was—too good for this world, by all accounts.’
‘He’s not the worse off for that now, Sir Giles, I trust.’ ‘No; of course not,’ he returned quickly, with the usual shrinking from the slightest allusion to what is called the other world.—‘Is there anything I can do for you? You are a literary man, they tell me. There are a good many books of one sort and another lying at the Hall. Some of them might be of use to you. They are at your service. I am sure you are to be trusted even with mouldy books, which, from what I hear, must be a greater temptation to you now than red-cheeked apples,’ he added with another merry laugh.
‘I will tell you what,’ Sir Giles, I answered. ‘It has often grieved me to think of the state of your library. It would be scarcely possible for me to find a book in it now. But if you would trust me, I should be delighted, in my spare hours, of which I can command a good many, to put the whole in order for you.’
‘I should be under the greatest obligation. I have always intended having some capable man down from London to arrange it. I am no great reader myself, but I have the highest respect for a good library. It ought never to have got into the condition in which I found it.’
‘The books are fast going to ruin, I fear.’
‘Are they indeed?’ he exclaimed, with some consternation. ‘I was not in the least aware of that. I thought so long as I let no one meddle with them, they were safe enough.’
‘The law of the moth and rust holds with books as well as other unused things,’ I answered.
‘Then, pray, my dear sir, undertake the thing at once,’ he said, in a tone to which the uneasiness of self-reproach gave a touch of imperiousness. ‘But really,’ he added, ‘it seems trespassing on your goodness much too far. Your time is valuable. Would it be a long job?’
‘It would doubtless take some months; but the pleasure of seeing order dawn from confusion would itself repay me. And I might come upon certain books of which I am greatly in want. You will have to allow me a carpenter though, for the shelves are not half sufficient to hold the books; and I have no doubt those there are stand in need of repair.’
‘I have a carpenter amongst my people. Old houses want constant attention. I shall put him under your orders with pleasure. Come and dine with me to-morrow, and we’ll talk it all over.’