And now he saw so much of import in his new discovery, that he resolved to neglect all other business, and start for London the very next morning, if Rosa could be persuaded to let him, without having heard his purpose. But, in spite of all his eagerness, he did nothing of the sort; for Rufus junior that very night was taken with some infantile ailment of a serious kind, and for more than a month the doctor could not leave home for a day even, without breach of duty towards his wife, and towards the unconscious heir of his orchard–house and pyramids.
Troubles were closing round Bull Garnet, but he knew nothing of them; and, to tell the truth, he cared not now what the end would be, or in what mode it would visit him. All he cared for was to defer (if it might be so) the violence of the outburst, the ruin of the household, until his darling son should be matured enough of judgment, and shaped enough in character, to feel, and to make others feel, that to answer for our own sins is quite enough for the best of us.
Yet there was one other thing which Mr. Garnet fain would see in likely course of settlement, ere the recoil of his own crime should sweep upon his children. It regarded only their worldly affairs; their prospects, when he should have none. And being the mixture he happened to be—so shrewd, and so sentimental—he saw how good it was to exert the former attributive, when his children were concerned; and the latter, and far larger one, upon the world at large.
He had lately made some noble purchase from the Government Commissioners—who generally can be cheated, because what they sell is not their own—and he felt that he was bound by the very highest interests to be a capable grantee, till all was signed, and sealed, and safely conveyed to uses beyond attaint of felony. Therefore he was labouring hard to infuse some of his old energy into the breasts of lawyers—which attempt proves the heat of his nature more than would a world of testimony.
CHAPTER VI.
“Why should I care for life or death? The one is no good, and the other no harm. What is existence but sense of self, severance for one troubled moment from the eternal unity? We disquiet ourselves, we fume, and pant—lo, our sorrows are gone, like the smoke of a train, and our joys like the glimmer of steam. Why should I fear to be mad, any more than fear to die? What harm if the mind outrun the body upon the road of return to God? And yet we look upon madness as the darkest of human evils!
“How this gliding river makes one think of life and eternity! Not because the grand old simile lives in every language. Not because we have read and heard it, in a hundred forms and more. A savage from the Rocky Mountains feels the same idea—for ideas strongly stamped pierce into the feelings.