CHAPTER LXII.
MR. JACKSON'S BIG TROUT.
Of course, he did not die; I need not tell you that. B—— and P. H—— pulled him through, and shook their honest hands over his bed. Poor B—— is reported to have winked on this occasion; but such a proceeding was so unlike him, that I believe the report must have come round to us through one of the American papers—probably the same one which represented the Prince of Wales hitting the Duke of Newcastle in the eye with a champagne cork.
However, they pulled him through; and, in the pleasant spring-time, he was carried down to Casterton. Things had gone so hard with him, that the primroses were in blossom on the southern banks before he knew that Lord Saltire was dead, and before he could be made to understand that he was a rich man.
From this much of the story we may safely deduce this moral, "That, if a young gentleman gets into difficulties, it is always as well for him to leave his address with his friends." But, as young gentlemen in difficulties generally take particularly good care to remind their friends of their whereabouts, it follows that this story has been written to little or no purpose. Unless, indeed, the reader can find for himself another moral or two; and I am fool enough to fancy that he may do that, if he cares to take the trouble.
Casterton is built on arches, with all sorts of offices and kitchens under what would naturally be the ground floor. The reason why Casterton was built on arches (that is to say, as far as you and I are concerned) is this: that Charles, lying on the sofa in Lord Hainault's study, could look over the valley and see the river; which, if it had been built on the ground, he could not have done. From this window he could see the great weirs spouting and foaming all day; and, when he was carried up to bed, by William and Lord Hainault, he could hear the roar of them rising and pinking, as the night-wind came and went, until they lulled him to sleep.
He lay here one day, when the doctors came down from London. And one of them put a handkerchief over his face, which smelt like chemical experiments, and somehow reminded him of Dr. Daubeny. And he fell asleep; and when he awoke, he was suffering pain in his left arm—not the old dull grinding pain, but sharper; which gradually grew less as he lay and watched the weirs at Casterton. They had removed the splinters of bone from his arm.
He did not talk much in this happy quiet time. William and Lady Ascot were with him all day. William, dear fellow, used to sit on a footstool, between his sofa and the window, and read the Times to him. William's education was imperfect, and he read very badly. He would read Mr. Russell's correspondence till he saw Charles's eye grow bright, and heard his breath quicken, and then he would turn to the list of bankrupts. If this was too sad he would go on to the share list, and pound away at that, till Charles went to sleep, which he generally did pretty quickly.