“Dear mother, how foolish I am,” he said, “to worry you with these trifles! I wish I had kept to my own opinion——”
“It is no trifle; you would have been wrong to treat it as a trifle. I have lived a long life, and seen many strange things; it takes more than a trifle to frighten me.”
For a minute or two she lay back, and was not fit to speak or be spoken to; only she managed to stop her son from ringing for her maid or the housekeeper. He had never beheld her so scared before, and could scarcely make out her signs to him that she needed no attendance.
Like most men who are at all good and just, Sir Roland was prone to think softly and calmly, instead of acting rapidly; and now his mother, so advanced in years, showed less hesitation than he did. Recovering, ere long, from that sudden shock, she managed to smile at herself and at his anxiety about her.
“Now, Roland, I will not meddle with this formidable and clumsy thing. It seems to be closed most jealously. It has kept for two centuries, and may keep for two more, so far as I am concerned. But if it will not be too troublesome to you, I should like to hear what is said about it.”
“In this old document, madam? Do you see how strangely it has been folded? Whoever did that knew a great deal more than now we know about folding.”
“The writing to me seems more strange than the folding. What a cramped hand! In what language is it written?”
“In Greek, the old Greek character, and the Doric dialect. He seems to have been proud of his classic descent, and perhaps Dorian lineage. But he placed a great deal too much faith in the attainments of his descendants. Poor Sedley would have read it straight off, I daresay; but the contractions, and even some of the characters, puzzled me dreadfully. I have kept up, as you know, dear mother, whatever little Greek I was taught, and perhaps have added to it; but my old Hedericus was needed a great many times, I assure you, before I got through this queer document; and even now I am not quite certain of the meaning of one or two passages. You see at the head a number of what I took at first to be hieroglyphics of some kind or other; but I find that they are astral or sidereal signs, for which I am none the wiser, though perhaps an astronomer would be. This, for instance, appears to mean the conjunction of some two planets, and this——”
“Never mind them, Roland. Read me what you have made out of the writing.”
“Very well, mother. But if I am at fault, you must have patience with me, for I am not perfect in my lesson yet. Thus it begins:—