Indeed, it would not be saying too much if the announcement was made that the discovery of Nicholas Crafer's statement had produced a total change, not only in this young man's method of life, but also in his mind.
When he had finished the perusal of that statement (which, you may remember, he began one November afternoon) another day had come; a foul, murky, fog-laden atmosphere was doing duty for the dawn. The river reeked with it, and so did the fields across the Thames. Also the fire had gone out now, though he had made it up several times during the night, the lamp had consumed nearly the last drop of oil in its glass bowl, and he could hear his old housekeeper and general servant shuffling about upstairs as though preparing to begin the day. And his eyes were wet with tears--tears which the last page or two of that finely-written, often misspelt, and sometimes nearly illegible manuscript had caused to spring to them. For to him, young and impressive--though as yet his heart had never been fairly touched by Love's rose-tipped wings--there seemed a sadness inexpressible in the story of his ancestor's love for the daughter of one of Oliver's officers who had died so young, and of the manner in which he had bought the house, so that daily, when he arose, the first place to meet his eyes should be the spot where they had walked together in those long-forgotten years.
"Poor old Nicholas!" he thought, as he went to the French windows and drew the heavy curtains that protected the room from the river's damp, and peered across that river to the other side; "poor old Nicholas! It was there you used to walk with her when you were both young. It was there, when you had grown old and she had long since gone and left you, that you used to gaze and dream of her. And," he went on, as he turned back into the room, "it was here, in this very spot, two hundred years ago, that you sat night by night writing that story alone, as I this night have sat alone and read it. I almost wonder that your ghost did not come forth and stand at my elbow, and peer over my shoulder at your crabbed, crooked handwriting as I did so."
He dropped the manuscript in his pocket as he finished his meditations and, going upstairs, met the old housekeeper coming down.
"Lawks, Mr. Reginald!" she said with a start, "what a turn you give me! Whatever have you got up so early for?"
"I have not been to bed yet, Maria," he said, "but I am going now." Then, observing her look of astonishment and the shaking of her head--perhaps she thought he had been wassailing in London and had only just come down by the early train--he said, "I have been engaged all night over some family papers. Call me at twelve and get some breakfast ready by then. I shall go to town directly afterwards. And, Maria, I shall be going abroad again soon; you will have the house all to yourself once more."
"Ha!" she said, with a grunt; "well, who's afraid? I ain't, neither of ghostes nor burgulars, tho' we had one----"
But Reginald was on his way to bed before she had finished her oration.
"The first thing to be done," he thought to himself, as he splashed about in his bath after that five hours' sleep--which was enough for him, since it was more than a watch below--"is to get a promise from the first Sea Lord, on the ground of 'urgent private affairs,' that I shall not be called upon to serve for another year. If I can manage that, then off I go to Coffin Island and dear old Nick's treasure. Lord bless me! how I would like to have known Nick--as Phips called him."
There had come into the young man's heart as he read that paper a feeling which, I suppose, often comes into the hearts of most of us who have ever had ancestors--the feeling that we would like to have known them, to have seen them and to have shaken hands with them, observed the quaint garb they wore, and listened to their quaint speech. So it was now with Reginald. He would have liked to have heard Nicholas tell the story instead of having read it, would like to have stood by his side when he fought the Etoyle, to have been by him when the drunken and delirious pirate died singing his song, to have accompanied him on that solitary voyage when he kept--good honest man!--a cheerful heart and trusted to his God alone to watch over him.