“I was not thinking of Caldo. I hope I did not mean it. God knows, I am very wicked”.
“So we are all, my boy. I should like to see a fellow that wasnʼt. Iʼd pay fifty pounds for his body, and dissect him into an angel”.
Cradock Nowell smiled a little at such a reward for excellence, and then renewed his gaze of dreary bewilderment at the water.
“Now let me show you my tracings, Cradock. Three times I have pulled them out, and you wonʼt condescend to glance at them. You have made up your mind to abdicate upon my ipse dixi. Now look at the bend sinister, that is yours; the bend dexter is for the elder brother”.
“Dr. Hutton, it may be, and is, I believe, false shame on my part; but I wish to hear nothing about it. Perhaps, if my mother were living, I might not have been so particular. But giving, as she did, her life for mine, I cannot regard it medically. The question is now for my father. I will not enter into it”.
“Oh the subjectiveness of the age”! said Rufus Hutton, rising, then walking to and fro on the bank, as he held discourse with himself; “here is a youth who ought to be proud, although at the cost of his inheritance, of illustrating, in the most remarkable manner, indeed I may say of originating, my metrostigmatic theory. He carries upon the cervical column a clear impression of grapes, and they say that before the show at Romsey the gardener was very cross indeed about his choice Black Hamburgs. His brother carries the identical impress, only with the direction inverted—dexter in fact, and dexter was the mark of the elder son. This I can prove by the tracing made at the time, not with any view to future identification, but from the interest I felt, at an early stage of my experience, in a question then under controversy. If I prove this, what happens? Why, that he loses everything—the importance, the house, the lands, the title; and becomes the laughing–stock of the county as the sham Sir Cradock. What ought he to do at once, then? Why, perhaps to toss me into that hole, where I should never get out again. By Gad, I am rash to trust myself with him, and no other soul in the secret”! Here Dr. Hutton shuddered to think how little water it would take to drown him, and the river so dark and so taciturn! “At any rate, he ought to fall upon me with forceps, and probe, and scalpel, and tear my evidence to atoms. For, after all, what is it, without corroboration? But instead of that, he only says, ‘Dr. Hutton, no more of this, if you please, no more of this! The question is now for my father’. And he must know well enough to which side his father will lean in the inquiry. Confound the boy! If he had only coaxed me with those great eyes, I would have kept it all snug till Doomsday. Oh what will my Rosa say to me? She has always loved this boy, and admired him so immensely”.
Perhaps it was his pretty young wifeʼs high approval of Cradock which first had made the testy Rufus a partisan of Clayton. The cause of his having settled at “Geopharmacy Lodge” was, that upon his return from India he fell in love with a Hampshire maiden, whom he met “above bar” at Southampton. How he contrived to get introduced to her, he alone can tell; but he was a most persevering fellow, and little hampered with diffidence. She proved to be the eldest daughter of Sir Cradockʼs largest tenant, a man of good standing and education, who lived near Fordingbridge. As Rufus had brought home tidy pickings from his appointment in India, the only thing he had to do was to secure the ladyʼs heart. And this he was not long about, for many ladies like high colour even more than hairiness. First she laughed at his dancing ways, incessant mobility, and sharp eyes; but very soon she began to like him, and now she thought him a wonderful man. This opinion (with proper change of gender) was heartily reciprocated, and the result was that a happier couple never yet made fools of themselves, in the judgment of the world; never yet enjoyed themselves, in the sterling wisdom of home. They suited each other admirably in their very differences; they laughed at each other and themselves, and any one else who laughed at them.
“Well, I shall be off”, said Dr. Hutton at last, in feigned disgust; “you will stare at the water all day, Mr. Cradock, and take no notice of me”.
“I beg your pardon, I forgot myself; I did not mean to be rude, I assure you”.
“I know you did not. I know you would never be rude to any one. Good–bye, I have business on hand”.