"You won't be a fool, Humphrey," said the captain. "Half a loaf is better than no bread, and if I don't wring an allowance out of the rogue, I'm a Dutchman."
The captain would have his way, in spite of my protestation. But he returned from his visit to Cludde Court in a towering passion. The knight refused point blank to acknowledge any claim upon him, and swore that if Mistress Pennyquick and I were not out of the house by the day he named, he would come with bailiffs and constables and fling us out neck and crop.
Captain Galsworthy was more concerned than I was at the failure of his well-meant intervention. In my ignorance of the world, and how hardly it uses those who have nothing, I did not foresee, as my wise old friend did, the arduous course I was to follow, nor the many buffets in store for me, but thought, like many lads before and since, that with the equipment of health and strength I could ride a tilt against circumstance. Youth is green and unknowing, as Mr. Dryden hath it, and sure 'tis a mercy.
Before the day was out, we had a piece of news that confirmed the captain's suggestion as to the disappearance of the will. Cyrus Vetch had vanished, together with the contents of his uncle's cash box. When Mr. Vetch went home to his dinner, he found the cash box broken open, and Cyrus gone. I could not doubt now that 'twas my old enemy had wreaked on me the vengeance that had smouldered in his breast ever since Joe Punchard sent him down Wyle Cop in the barrel, and was fanned into a flame by my action on the night of the adventure in Raven Street. Mistress Pennyquick was firm in her belief that the Cluddes were party to the crime, but that I could not credit then, and never will.
Mr. Vetch himself came to see me the next day. The poor old man was quite broken down. He humbly begged my forgiveness for the trouble he had brought upon me, for so he chose to regard it; and he confessed to me, what I am sure he never revealed to a living soul beside, that Cyrus had been for years a thorn in his flesh. He was a spendthrift and a gambler, and had bled his uncle many a time to discharge what he called his debts of honor. This drain upon the lawyer, together with losses he had sustained in the failure of Chamberlain's Land Bank scheme--that monstrous attempt of the Tories to set up a rival to the Bank of England--had brought him to the verge of ruin, and with tears in his eyes he expressed to me his fear that the matter of my father's will would bring him into such ill repute that the Shrewsbury folk would no longer trust him and would give their business into other hands.
This set me a-thinking, and during the week I was allowed to remain in the old farmhouse I turned over in my mind a plan which, I own, mightily pleased me. It was clear that I must do something for myself. I had never had any great liking for farming work, and now that the position of a yeoman on my own land was denied me I was not inclined to accept service on the land of another. Mr. Lloyd, the master of the school, when I went to take leave of him, was kind enough to say that he would use his interest to obtain for me a servitorship at Oxford or a sizarship at Cambridge, which would put me in the way of making a livelihood as a tutor or perhaps as a parson. But I was not in the mind to be any more subsistent on charity, even of this modified sort, nor had I indeed any hope of achieving excellence in the classical tongues, so I thanked him, but declined his offer.
The idea that had entered my noddle was that I might join Mr. Vetch, and do something in the practice of law to make amends for the ill fortune which, unwittingly and indirectly, I had been the means of bringing upon him. When I had made up my mind, I mooted the project to Captain Galsworthy, who laughed at it as quixotic, but confessed that he saw no better course open to me.
"I had liever you took up a more active trade--one in which you could put to use the sciences you have learned of me," said the old warrior. "But that would take you from Shrewsbury, to be sure, and I should miss our little bouts, Humphrey boy. And when you come to think of it, a man needn't be the worse lawyer for a passable dexterity with the small sword."
Mr. Vetch was quite overcome when I set my proposal before him. He embraced it eagerly, drew out my articles at once, and swore that I would be his salvation. And as I must needs have somewhere to live, he insisted on my taking up my abode with him; he had a roomy house, he said, and I need not occupy Cyrus' chamber unless I pleased.
"But what about poor old Becky?" I said. "She is really harder hit by this unlucky affair than I, and 't would break her heart to go to the poor house."