It seemed to matter very little to John that Mr. Cattley met him in the evening with what he thought good news. In the absence of anything better, it was good news. May had been very amiable, as was the manner of that hopeless but good-humoured and philosophical unfortunate. He declared that nothing on earth would induce him to injure his children by attaching himself to them: he had come back to John’s room only to return those papers which he had taken with the intention of disposing of them on his son’s account, meaning no harm. He had never meant any harm. He had intended, perhaps, to secure to himself a share of the profit, but never to harm the boy. ‘Though he’s sadly changed, if ever he was my little chap,’ he said.
Mr. Cattley did not tell Jack, but he confided to Susie that he had offered to take that smiling and gentle-mannered reprobate to live with ‘us’ in the new parish where nobody would have known. But May would not listen to any such proposal. He was very wise and foreseeing, and full of consideration.
‘There is no saying who might turn up,’ he said; ‘at the last, everything gets known; and perhaps a parson’s house would be too much for me,’ he had added, with a twinkle in his eyes. ‘I don’t know that I’m good enough for that. I might fall into temptation, don’t you know! And I couldn’t live with a blunderbuss always at my head, which would be the case if I were with that son of mine—if he is my son. And Susie would be worse, with her eyes. I remember her eyes long ago—they were harder to meet than all her mother’s talk. They’re all very good, Mr. Cattley. A man might be very happy among them; but not my kind. I’m not worthy of such company. No, I’ve got a plan of my own.’
This plan, when it was stated, was to the effect that May had made up his mind to emigrate. He thought he would go to the far West of America, or to California.
‘I don’t want to go to a place where there’s no fun,’ he avowed, candidly. ‘I want to see a little life. If I stay here, I’ll get into mischief.’
Mr. Cattley (against his own wishes) had done his best to persuade him to depart from this determination, but in vain; and finally he had been authorised to treat with the family for the passage-money of the two travellers, for Mr. Cattley had found the faithful Joe in attendance, and had not been able to persuade May that this was not a fit companion for him.
‘He has been all the company I’ve had. Perhaps he’s not fit for respectable society,’ said May, looking at the slouching ruffian with eyes that were almost affectionate, ‘but I’m not respectable myself, and why should I pretend to be better than he is? I’m not better, I’m worse, if the truth was known; for of course I know a great deal better, and ought to have avoided what was wrong, if anything is really wrong or right in this world. It depends so much on your point of view.’
‘But why should you not be respectable?’ the curate had said. ‘There is a home waiting for you, and better company than Joe.’
The unteachable, the never-to-be-convinced, shook his head. ‘Joe will suit me best,’ he said. And thus the bargain was made. He was to have a moderate allowance, his passage-money, and his outfit. He was shipped off with his friend, decently clothed, well fitted out as he desired, and disappeared into the West. When his children, half-glad, half-miserable, went to see him off, he bade them be cheerful and not fret. ‘For there is no telling when the fancy may take me, and I may turn up again,’ he said. The hearts of Susie and John sank within them at this last blessing which he flung at them over the side of the ship, which was already beginning to churn the water on her passage outward-bound. They did not see the twinkle in his eye, nor know that he meant it for a joke in the humorous simplicity of his heart.
Susie married her curate shortly after, very quietly, without any fuss, in London, an event which caused much excitement in Edgeley, but none where it took place. The Rev. Percy Spencer never mentioned it at all, or allowed that he knew of it. But he spoke of ‘that fool Cattley,’ and was so violent about the late curate’s mismanagement of the parish that even the mild rector, who never made any appearance save in extremity, took up the cudgels on behalf of the absent.