“You donʼt despise me, I hope”? said Cradock; “you donʼt think me a coward for running away so? After what has happened to–day, I should go mad, if I stopped here. Not that that would matter much; only that, if it were so, I should be sure to do it”.
John Rosedew had no need to ask what he meant by the last two words, for the hollow voice told him plainly. But for him, it is likely enough that it would have been done ere this; at any rate, in the first horror, his hand alone had prevented it. The parson trembled at the idea, but thought best not to dwell upon it.
“‘Reformidare mortem est animi pusillanimi’, but ‘reformidare vitam’ is ten times worse, because impious. Therefore in your case, my boy, it is utterly impossible, as well as ignoble towards us who love you so. Remember that you will break at least two old hearts you owe some duty to, if you allow your own to be broken. And now for your viaticum; see how you have relieved me. While you lived beneath Hymettian beams in the goods of Tyre and Cyprus, I, even I your godfather, knew not what to give you. The thought has been vexing me for months, and now what a simple solution! You shall have it in the original dross, to pay the toll on the Appian road, at least the South–Western Railway. Figs to Athens, I thought it would be, or even as eels to Copaïs; and now ‘serves iturum Cæsarem’. I believe it is at the twenty–first page of my manuscript, such as it is, upon the Sabellian elements”.
After searching in three or four drawers—for he was rather astray at the moment, though generally he could put his hand, even in the dark, upon any particular one of his ten thousand books—he came upon the Sabellian treatise, written on backs of letters, on posters, on puffing circulars, even on visiting–cards, and cast–away tradesmenʼs tickets; and there, at the twenty–first page or deltis, lay a 50l. Bank of England note, with some very tough roots arranged diamond–wise on the back, and arrows, and hyphens, and asterisks, flying about thickly between them. These he copied off, in a moment, on a piece of old hat–lining, and then triumphantly waved the bank–note in the air. It was not often poor Uncle John got hold of so much money; too bitterly knew Aunt Doxy how large was the mesh of his purse.
While Cradock gazed with great admiration, John Rosedew, with his fingers upon his lips, and looking half ashamed of himself, went to a cupboard, whose doors, half open, gave a glimpse of countless sermons. From among them he drew a wide–mouthed bottle of leeches, and set it upon the table. Then he pulled out the stopper, unplugged it, and lo! from a hole in the cork fell out two sovereigns and a half one. As this money rolled on the table, John could not help chuckling a little.
“Ha, good sister Eudoxia, have I overreached thee again? Double precaution there, you see, Crad. She has a just horror of my sermons, and she runs at the sight of a leech. ‘Non missura cutemʼ—be sure, not a word about it, Crad. That asylum is inviolable, and sempitern, I hope. I shall put more there next week”.
Cradock took the money at once, with the deepest gratitude, but no great fuss about it; for he saw how bitterly that good man would feel it, if he were small enough to refuse.
I shall not dwell upon their good–bye, as we have had enough valediction; only Cradock promised to write from London, so soon as he could give an address there; then leaving sadness behind him, carried a deal of it with him. Only something must yet be recounted, which befell him in Nowelhurst. And this is the first act of it.
While he was in his garret packing a little bag of necessaries, forced upon him by Miss Doxy from Johnʼs wardrobe and her own almost indiscriminately, and while she was pulling and struggling up–stairs with John, and Jemima, and Jenny—for she would have made Cradock, if she could, carry the entire house with him—he, stowing some things in his pocket, felt what he had caught up so hastily, while flying out of the wood. He examined it by the candlelight, and became at once intent upon it. It had lain beneath a drift of dead leaves backed by a scraggy branch, whence anything short of a grand “skedaddle” would never have dislodged it.
And yet it was a great deal too pretty to be treated in that way. Cradock could not help admiring it, though he shuddered and felt some wild hopes vanish as he made out the meaning. It was a beautiful gold bracelet, light, and of first–rate workmanship, harmonious too with its purpose, and of elegant design. The lower half was a strong soft chain of the fabric of Trichinopoli, which bends like the skin of a snake; the front and face showed a strong right arm, gauntleted, yet entirely dependent upon the hand of a lady. No bezilling, no jewel whatever, except that a glorious rose–shaped pearl hung, as in contest, between them.