The Pennycomequicks (Volume 1 of 3). Baring-Gould Sabine

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СКАЧАТЬ it because I know no one else in whom I can place reliance. This is my will, and I desire you to take charge of it. I commit it to your custody. Put it where it may be safe, and where you may know where to lay hand on it when it shall be wanted.'

      'But, uncle, why not leave it with your lawyer.'

      'I have no lawyer,' he answered sharply. 'I have never gone to law, and thrown good money after bad. You know my dislike for lawyers. I wrote my will with my own hand after your sister married, and I flatter myself that no wit of man or rascality of lawyers can pervert it. I can set down in plain English what my intentions are as to the disposal of my property, so that anyone can understand my purpose, and no one can upset its disposition.'

      'But, uncle – why should I have it who am so careless?'

      'You are not careless. I trust you. I have perfect confidence that what is committed to you you will keep, whether the will concerns you or not. I wish you to have it, and you will obey my wishes.'

      He put the paper into her reluctant hands, and waited for her to say something. Her cheeks were flushed with mingled concern for him and fear for herself. Such a valuable deed she thought ought to have been kept in his strong iron safe, and not confided to her trembling hands.

      He put his hand on her shoulder.

      'Thank you, Salome,' he said. 'You have relieved my mind of a great anxiety.'

      'And now, uncle, you will go to bed?'

      He stood, with his hand still on her shoulder, hesitatingly. 'I don't know; I am not sleepy.' He thought further. 'Yes, I will go. Good-night, my child.'

      Then he left the room, ascended the stairs, passed through his study into his bedchamber beyond, where he turned down the clothes, and threw off his dress coat and waistcoat, and then cast himself on the bed.

      His brain was in a whirl. He could not retire to rest in that condition of excitement. He would toss on his bed, which would be one of nettles to him. He left it, stood up, drew on a knitted cardigan jersey, and then put his arms through his great-coat.

      About a quarter of an hour after he had mounted to his room he descended the stairs again, and then he encountered Salome once more, leaving the little parlour with the envelope that contained his will in her hand.

      'What! You not gone to bed, Salome?'

      'No, uncle, I have been dreaming over the fire. But, surely, you are not going out?'

      'Yes, I am. There has been such a downpour of rain all day that I have not taken my customary constitutional. I cannot sleep. The night is fine, and I shall go for a stroll on the canal bank.'

      'But, uncle, it is past twelve o'clock.'

      'High time for you to be in bed. For me, it is another matter. My brain is on fire; I must take a composing draught of fresh night air.'

      'But, uncle – '

      'Do not remain up longer. I have acted inconsiderately in keeping you from your bed so long. Go to sleep speedily, and do not trouble yourself about me. I have my latch-key, and will let myself in. The gas shall remain turned down in the hall. I am always upset unless I have a walk during the day, and the sheets of rain that poured down have kept me a prisoner. I shall not be out for long. I will cool my head and circulate my blood, under the starry sky.'

      'But you will find the roads sloppy, after the rain.'

      'The towpath will be dry. I am going there, by the canal. Good-night.'

      She held up her innocent, sweet face for the kiss he had neglected to give her a quarter of an hour ago, when he left the room. He half stooped, then turned away without kissing her.

      'Good-night, dear Salome. Mind the will. It is a trust.'

      Then he went out.

      CHAPTER IV.

      ON THE TOWPATH

      There are points, occasions on life's journey, when our guides fail us, and these points and occasions are neither few nor far between. The signposts that might instruct us are either illegible or have not been set up. The forming of a determination is of vital importance, but the material on which to form a determination is withdrawn from us, as the straw was taken from the Israelites when they were ordered to make bricks.

      We buy a map and start on our journey, and come to branch-roads which are not set down. The map is antiquated, and no longer serviceable.

      We buy a legal compendium which is to obviate having recourse to lawyers, and when we encounter a difficulty, turn to it for enlightenment, and find that precisely this question is passed over.

      We purchase a manual of domestic medicine to cut off the necessity of calling in a doctor at every hitch, and when a hitch occurs we discover that precisely this one is unnoted in our book.

      We are provided with moral vade-mecums which are to serve us in all contingencies, but are arrested at every hundred paces by some knot which the instructions in our vade-mecum do not assist us in untying.

      Jeremiah now found himself in a predicament from which he did not know how to escape, at a fork in life's road, and he was unable to form a judgment whether to turn to the left hand or to the right.

      By his own generosity he had rendered his position discouraging. He had behaved to Janet with so great liberality when she married, as to produce a deep and general impression that Salome would be treated with at least equal liberality in the event of her marriage. An admirer might hesitate to offer for a portionless girl, however charming in feature and perfect in mind, not because necessarily mercenary in his ideas, but because he would know that as single life is impossible without means of supporting it, so double life, containing in itself the promise of development into a number of supplemental lives, is proportionately impossible.

      Jeremiah, might, accordingly, with almost certainty, reckon on being left to a solitary and barren decline of life, after he had come late to appreciate the warmth and amenities of domestic association – after he had enjoyed them a sufficient number of years to esteem them indispensable.

      He recalled the dead and meagre existence he had led before he received the little girls and their mother into his house, and he sickened at the prospect of recurring to it. He could not disguise from himself that if he lost Salome, everything that gave zest and interest to life would be taken away from him. He would be forced to revert to the hard uniformity of his previous existence; but that thought was repugnant to him. Most men look back on their childhood or to college days as a period of exuberant vitality and unspoiled delight. To but few is it not given to begin their Book of Genesis with Paradise, flowing with sparkling rivers whose beds are gold, rich with flowers, redolent with odours. Sooner or later all are cast out through the gates, and there is no return – only a reminiscence. To some more than to others the smell of the flowers clings through life. The youth and early manhood of Jeremiah had been joyless, spent among briars and thorns, and only late had he found the gates of Eden, and the cherub with a smile had withdrawn his sword, and allowed him a look in. What would be the end of life to him if Salome were taken away? As his health and powers of resistance failed, his house would be invaded by the Sidebottoms, perhaps also by the unknown Philip, and they would wrangle over his savings, and hold him a prisoner within his own walls. But – dare he suggest to Salome that she should be his wife? He did not shut his eyes to their disparity in age, to the fact that her regard for him was of a totally different texture from such as a man exacts of a wife. Would it be possible to change filial into marital love? Was it not as preposterous СКАЧАТЬ