"That some of them should do so, is to be expected!" replied Mr. Cheriton. "But I do not believe from what I have myself seen, that nearly so many as half fall away."
"And suppose they did, would that be any argument against Mr. Wesley's preaching?" asked the elder sailor with some warmth. "Would you refuse to go to the rescue of a shipwrecked vessel, because you could probably save only half the passengers?"
"Oh! I have nothing against Mr. Wesley, I assure you!" Mr. Thorpe hastened to say. "I would go to hear him to-morrow, if he came this way; and I like him all the better for talking as though he himself believed what he said. I can understand a man's refusing to consider or believe in the Christian religion at all, but how a man can profess to believe in it, and even make a business of preaching it, and yet be perfectly indifferent and careless about the matter—that passes my comprehension. It seems to me that religion must be all or nothing."
This was the last time but one that I saw Mr. Thorpe before his ship sailed. We met indeed, next day, and exchanged a few words while my uncle was examining a new kind of weather-glass or something of that sort, in an instrument-maker's shop. He bade me good-bye, and gave me a little keepsake—an ivory whistle made of the tooth of a great monster like a crocodile, curiously wrought on the outside, and set in gold, with a little gold chain attached. He told me he had made it himself on shipboard. I don't know; I suppose it was not quite right, but I gave him in return a little prayer-book which I had bought to carry in my pocket. We parted then and there, and I have never seen him since. Ah well!
Amabel had excused herself from going out with us. My uncle took me into a great many fine shops and would have bought innumerable fairings for me, if I had let him. I compounded for a watch, which I really did want, and some books of poetry and history; but he would not be withheld from giving me a fine cloth cloak, or mantle lined with fur, saying that winter was coming on, and I would find Northumberland far colder than I was used to. We had some very serious talk together, and the more I saw of him, the better I liked him.
"I should love dearly to have you with me, my maid, if I were settled any where!" said he, as we walked slowly homeward. "I have neither chick nor child of my own. You are my nearest relation, and almost my only one; save the Stantons in Devonshire, who are too great folks to care for an old fellow like me, though the Corbets were settled there long before the Stanton were ever heard of.
"'Corby of Corby sat at home,
When Stanton of Stanton hither did come.'
So the rhyme runs. However, that does not matter. You are my nearest of kin as I said, and it is but right and natural that I should make you mine heir, though I desired to see you, before the matter was finally settled. But I am more than satisfied with you."
He then told me that his will was already made in my favor, and deposited in the hands of a legal gentleman in Exeter, whose address he gave me, bidding me to keep it carefully.
"He is an honest and worthy gentleman, and will stand your friend if you need one. Meantime do you keep this matter to yourself for the present. I should like, as I said, to have you with me, but I must make one more voyage before I give up the old ship I have sailed in so long, and besides it would not be fair to Sir Julius Leighton to deprive his daughter of her companion."