And so they did; the bitterest moon, save one, of the present century. And old men said that there had not been such a winter, and such a sight of snow, since the one which the Lord had sent on purpose to discomfit Bony.
Mr. Oglander, in his lonely home, strove bravely to make the best of it. He had none of that grand religious consolation which some people have (especially for others), and he grounded his happiness perhaps too much upon his own hearthstone. His mind was not an extraordinary one, and his soul was too old-fashioned to demand periods of purging.
Moreover, his sister Joan came up—a truly pious and devoted woman, the widow of an Oxford wine-merchant. Mrs. Fermitage loved her niece so deeply that she had no patience with any selfish pinings after her. "She is gone to the better land," she said; "the shores of bliss unspeakable!—unless Russel Overshute knows about her a great deal more than he will tell. I have far less confidence in that young man since he took to wear india-rubber. But to wish her back is a very sinful and unchristian act, I fear."
"Now, Joan, you know that you wish her back every time that you sit down, or get up, or go to tea without her."
"Yes, I know, I know, I do. And most of all when I pour it out—she used to do it for me. But, Worth, you can wrestle more than I can. The Lord expects so much more of a man!"
Being exhorted thus, the Squire did his best to wrestle. Not that any words of hers could carry now their former weight; for if he had no daughter left, what good was money left to her? The Squire did not want his sister's money for himself at all. Indeed, he would rather be without it. Dirty money, won by trade!—but still it had been his duty always to try to get it for his daughter. And this is worth a word or two.
At the Oxford bank, and among the lawyers and the leading tradesmen, it had been a well-known thing that old Fermitage had not died with less than £150,000 behind him. Even in Oxford there never had been a man so illustrious for port wine. "Fortiter occupa portum" was the motto over the door to his vaults, and he fortified port impregnably. Therefore he supplied all the common-room cellars, which cannot have too much geropiga; and among the undergraduates his name was surety for another glass. And there really was a port wine basis; so that nobody died of him.
All these things are beside the mark. Mr. Fermitage, however, went on, and hit his mark continually; and his mark was that bull's eye of this golden age, a yellow imprint of a dragon. So many of these came pouring in that he kept them in bottles without any "kicks," sealed, and left to mature, and acquire "the genuine bottle flavour." When he had bottled half a pipe of these, and was thinking of beginning now to store them in the wood, a man coming down with a tap found him dead; and was too much scared to steal anything.
This man reproached himself, ever afterwards, for his irresolute conscience; and the two executors gave him nothing but blame for his behaviour. People in Holiwell said that these two took a dozen bottles of guineas between them, to toast their testator's memory; but Holiwell never has been famous for the holy thing lying at the bottom of the well. Enough that he was dead; and every man, seeing his funeral, praised him.