‘Very like it!’ said Charley—‘calling such a chestful as this rubbish!’
‘I am pleased enough to possess it,’ I said; ‘but if they had been such books as some of those at the Hall—’
‘Look here, then,’ he said, stooping over the chest, and with some difficulty hauling out a great folio which he had discovered below, but had not yet examined—‘just see what you can make of that.’
I opened the title-page rather eagerly. I stared. Could I believe my eyes? First of all on the top of it, in the neatest old hand, was written—‘Guilfrid Combremead His Boke. 1630.’ Then followed what I will not write, lest this MS. should by any accident fall into the hands of book-hunters before my death. I jumped to my feet, gave a shout that brought Charley to his feet also, and danced about the empty room hugging the folio. ‘Have you lost your senses?’ said Charley; but when he had a peep at the title-page, he became as much excited as myself, and it was some time before he could settle down to the papers again. Like a bee over a flower-bed, I went dipping and sipping at my treasure. Every word of the well-known lines bore a flavour of ancient verity such as I had never before perceived in them. At length I looked up, and finding him as much absorbed as I had been myself—
‘Well, Charley, what are you finding there?’ I asked.
‘Proof perhaps that you come of an older family than you think,’ he answered; ‘proof certainly that some part at least of the Moldwarp property was at one time joined to the Moat, and that you are of the same stock, a branch of which was afterwards raised to the present baronetage. At least I have little doubt such is the case, though I can hardly say I am yet prepared to prove it.’
‘You don’t mean I’m of the same blood as—as Geoffrey Brotherton!’ I said. ‘I would rather not, if it’s the same to you, Charley.’
‘I can’t help it: that’s the way things point,’ he answered, throwing down the parchment. ‘But I can’t read more now. Let’s go and have a walk. I’ll stop at home to-morrow and take a look over the whole set.’
‘I’ll stop with you.’
{Illustration: “Well. Charley. What are you finding there?” I asked.}