At first this made me a little timid, for I had never thought that any strong points would be needed for telling a simple tale. To my mind the difficulty was, not to tell the story, but to know what to make of it when told; and soon I forgot all about myself in telling what I had seen, heard, and found.
The Major could not keep himself from stamping great holes through his—something I forget the name of, but people sow it to make turf of chalk—and dear “Aunt Mary's” soft pink cheeks, which her last grandchild might envy, deepened to a tone of rose; while her eyes, so full of heavenly faith when she got upon lofty subjects, took a most human flash and sparkle of hatred not theological.
“Seven!” she cried; “oh, Nicholas, Nicholas, you never told me there were seven!”
“There were not seven graves without the mother,” the Major answered, sternly. “And what odds whether seven or seventy? The criminality is the point, not the accumulation of results. Still, I never heard of so big a blackguard. And what did he do next, my dear?”
The way in which they took my story was a great surprise to me, because, although they were so good, they had never paid any attention to it until it became exciting. They listened with mere politeness until the scent of a very wicked man began to taint my narrative; but from that moment they drew nearer, and tightened their lips, and held their breath, and let no word escape them. It made me almost think that people even of pure excellence, weaned as they are from wicked things by teaching and long practice, must still retain a hankering for them done at other people's cost.
“And now,” cried the Major, “let us see it”—even before I had time to pull it out, though ready to be quick, from a knowledge of his ways. “Show it, and you shall have my opinion. And Mary's is certain to agree with mine. My dear, that makes yours so priceless.”
“Then, Nicholas, if I retain my own, yours is of no value. Never mind that. Now don't catch words, or neither opinion will be worth a thought. My dear, let us see it and then judge.”
“My own idea, but not so well expressed,” Major Hockin answered, as he danced about, while I with stupid haste was tugging at my package of the hateful locket. For I had not allowed that deceitful thing any quarters in my pocket, where dear little relics of my father lay, but had fastened it under my dress in a manner intended in no way for gentlemen to think about. Such little things annoy one's comfort, and destroy one's power of being quite high-minded. However, I got it out at last, and a flash of the sun made the difference.
“Brilliants, Mary!” the Major cried; “brilliants of first water; such as we saw, you know where; and any officer in the British army except myself, I do believe, would have had them at once in his camlet pouch—my dear, you know all about it. Bless my heart, how slow you are! Is it possible you have forgotten it? There came out a fellow, and I cut him down, as my duty was, without ceremony. You know how I used to do it, out of regulation, with a slash like this—”
“Oh, Nicholas, you will be over the cliff! You have shown me how you used to do it, a thousand times—but you had no cricks in your back then: and remember how brittle the chalk is.”