Oh, the calm lapses in the turbulent and turbid stream of life which
Heaven sometimes graciously affords us,--the short breathing-spaces in
the race,--the still pauses in the battle,--how sweet, how comforting
they are! Such a pause had fallen upon the city of Rochelle and all its
inhabitants. True, there were individual griefs and sufferings: the
door of the closet with the skeleton in it can never be altogether shut.
But to the city generally, and to its denizens generally, there was a
lull in the storm. It was nowhere more pleasantly felt than in the house
of good old Clement Tournon. He was a calm--a very calm--man; had been
so all his life. He had met with sorrows which had touched him deeply;
but he had borne them calmly. He had known pleasures; but he had enjoyed
them calmly. He had mingled with angry parties, and seen strife and
bloodshed; but he had been calm through all; and that very
calmness--which, by-the-way, is one of the most impressive qualities in
regard to our fellow-men which any one can possess--had won for him
great reverence upon the part of his neighbors.
Young Edward Langdale, too, shared in the temporary tranquillity. "Sweet
are the uses of adversity." It is a good text, and a true one also, if
we use the adversity wisely; but sometimes we do not; and, although
Master Ned had known more adversity than most youths of his age, we must
acknowledge that he had found it all very severe, and had not had wisdom
enough to discover honey in the stony rock. He had been hardened,
sharpened, rendered stern, in the rough school through which he had
passed. His character must have seemed to the reader somewhat harsh and
remorseless; at least so I intended it to appear. But he had now
suffered a long and heavy sickness: his frame was still feeble; his
activity, for the time at least, was lost; and some traits in his
character which seemed to have been smothered by coarser things revived
and shone out. There was a latent poetry in his nature, a love and
appreciation of all that was beautiful, a sense of harmony, and a
delight in music, together with those strong affections which are so
often combined with strength of character. These, in the body's
feebleness, asserted their power. Strange how the corporeal and the
mental wage such continual warfare upon each other! But even at times
when the bodily force and the strong will had possessed the most perfect
sway, and given him command and rule over men much older and higher than
himself, those qualities of heart and mind, though latent, had acted
unseen to win affection also.
Six days after his arrival in Rochelle, the little saloon in Clement
Tournon's house presented as calm and pleasant a scene as ever the eye
rested upon. There was the old man himself, with his small velvet cap
upon his head; and there was Master Ned, leaning back in a large chair,
with the hue of returning health coming back into his cheek,--always a
pleasant sight; and there was beautiful Lucette, who had just been
singing to the two, and who was now sitting on a low footstool, with her
fair, delicate hand resting on the head of a lute. A beautiful silver
lamp, with three burners,--modelled from those graceful lamps which we
see in the hands of the Tuscan peasantry,--gave light to the chamber;
for the wax tapers in two exquisitely-wrought candlesticks had been
extinguished to save the eyes of Master Ned from the glare; and a
water-pitcher and goblet, finely shaped from the antique and covered
with grotesque figures, stood on a little table at the youth's left
hand, to cool his lips, still dry and hot from his recent illness.
The eyes of Edward Langdale were fixed upon those specimens of the old
syndic's art, and he was expressing his admiration of the delicacy and
fineness of the designs, when Lucette observed, quietly, "He has much
more beautiful things than those, Master Ned. I wish, father, I might
bring and show him the pyx that was sent from Rome."
"Do so, my child," said Tournon. "And hark, Lucette----"
He whispered a word in the young girl's ear, and she left the room, but
returned in a minute or two, bringing with her two objects in soft
leathern covers,--one of which was a pyx, probably from the hands of
Benvenuto Cellini.
Edward took it from her hands and admired it greatly, gazing at the
various curious arabesques with which it was decorated, and at the
medallions displaying exquisitely-chiselled figures, while the old
syndic untied the other cover, and took forth a large cup, or hanap, of
pure gold, ornamented by a row of precious stones encircling it in a
sort of garland, which again was supported by some beautiful sculptured
figures. Master Ned rose feebly to lay the pyx upon the table, but the
moment his eyes lighted on the cup he stood still, gazing at it as if
sight had suspended every other faculty. "Good Heaven!" he exclaimed, at
length, addressing the merchant, who was watching him closely: "where
did you get that?"
"I bought it some four years ago, when I was in England," answered
Clement Tournon. "Something seems to surprise you. Did you ever see it
before?"
"See it!" exclaimed Master Ned. "Yes, often, my good friend,--ay,
several times every year, since I could see any thing, till just four
years ago last Martinmas. Every birthday--every festival-day--it was
brought forth; for it must be the same. Oh, yes! Is there not 'Edward
Langdale' engraved on one side of the foot, and 'Buckley Hall' upon the
other?"
"There is," said the syndic; "and that is the very reason I told Lucette
to bring it. I wished to ask you if you are any relation of those
Langdales of Buckley Hall. Edward Langdale! The two names are the same."
"They are, indeed," said Master Ned. "That cup is mine, my good friend:
at least, it ought to be,--it and much more which is now lost to me
forever."
"If it ought to be, it is thine still, my son," said the old syndic.
"Now, God forbid that I should withhold the rightful property of
another! But tell us how all this happened. Let me hear what you can
recollect of your own life and fate. I know something of Buckley Hall,
for it was in Huntingdon that I bought that cup. I would not purchase it
at first, because I thought it was stolen,--most likely from the court
of King James, who was then at Royston; but the goldsmith who had it
told me that he had bought it fairly from Master Richard Langdale, the
owner, and showed me a receipt for the money. I would fain hear how all
this happened."
"Not to-night; not to-night," answered the youth. "The sight of that cup
has shaken me much, my father; and to speak of those days would shake me
still more in my weak state. To-morrow I shall be stronger, I trust; and
then I will tell you all. I have often thought it would do me good if I
were to talk over the whole of those sad things with some one; for they
only seem to rankle and fester in the silence of my own bosom, and to
make me reckless and ill-tempered. But I must get a little better and
stronger first. Now I think I will go to bed."
He turned to go, but then paused, and, taking up the cup, gazed at it
earnestly for several minutes, saying, "I was just nine years old when
my father had my name engraved on it and gave it to me on my birthday,
bidding me never to fill it too full nor empty it too often."
"Wise counsel," said the old man; "but, if it be thine, take it, my son.
I am not a receiver of stolen goods."
"No," said Edward Langdale. "You knew not that he who sold it had no
right to do so; neither did he from whom you purchased it. Orphans are
often wronged, Monsieur Tournon; but I ought not to have been wronged by
him who wronged me. Well, to-morrow we will talk more of all these
matters."
A little after nightfall on the following day, the same three sat
together in the same room. There had been no music, however, that
evening; and Lucette was leaning her fair head upon the old merchant's
knee. Edward Langdale was evidently stronger and better,--though he said
he had slept but little. Yet there was more color in his cheek and lips,
and his face and air had more their usual character of bold decisive
frankness, than on the preceding night.
"Now I will tell you my whole story," he said, "beginning with my
earliest recollections. Indeed, there is not much to tell, and it may be
done very shortly."
MASTER NED'S HISTORY.
"Amongst the first of my remembrances is the burning of my father's
house. I recollect the house itself quite well; and a very handsome
place it was. There were four great octangular towers at the
corners,--one on the southwestern side, all covered with ivy, in which a
number of cream-colored owls used to make their abode during the day
sunshine. A deer-park surrounded the house, full of fern and
hawthorn-trees, and at the bottom of a bank was the highroad, with the
river brawling and rushing on by its side.
"Of the interior of the house I do not remember much, although there is
an impression on my mind of large rooms and furniture which had seen
better days. Of the events which there took place I can recall nothing
till the night of the fire,--the great fire, as it was called for many a
year. And well it deserved the name; for in its progress it not only
destroyed the house, but ate up the buttery, which was detached, and
consumed the farm-buildings and stabling, in which were lost many fine
horses and an immense quantity of agricultural produce.
"I remember on that night, the 18th of August, being startled out of my
sleep by loud cries and shrieks and all sorts of noises,--especially a
rushing, roaring sound, which frightened me more than all the rest. I
was a boy about seven years old at the time; and sleep clings to one at
that age like a tight garment, so that though I was as it were roused,
and even alarmed, I was half asleep still. It was more like an ugly
dream than a reality; and perhaps I might have lain down and fallen into
sound slumber again, had not some one suddenly thrown open the door,
rushed to the bed, and caught me up in her arms. I saw not distinctly to
whose bosom I was pressed, yet I felt sure. Whose could it be but a
mother's? She ran wildly with me to the door and there made a short
hesitating pause, then dashed along the corridor through flames and
smoke, ran down the stone steps, out of one of the back doors, upon the
smooth lawn behind, and laid me down under a large mulberry-tree. Hard
by were several persons, weeping and wringing their hands; but amongst
them was my little sister, some three years younger than myself. 'He is
safe! he is safe!' cried my mother. 'Run, some one, and tell Sir
Richard.'
"My father, who was at that time about forty years of age, joined us in
a few minutes, kissed me and my mother, remarked that she was scorched a
good deal and her beautiful hair much burned; but he left us speedily,
and returned to see what could be done to save the valuable property in
the house. I have been told since that he was evidently agitated and
confused, and his orders contradictory, and that much more might have
been saved if he had displayed more presence of mind. Corporeally, he
was undoubtedly a very brave man, and had shown himself such; but he was
not a man of ready action or strong determination. However, almost all
the plate was saved, and some of the pictures, which were fine; but
several boxes of papers of much importance, I am told, could not be
found in the confusion of the moment, and were undoubtedly lost. Memory
breaks off about that time; and I only remember that the whole house was
burned, and the greater part of the walls fell in, with the exception of
those of the ivy-tower, which were very ancient and much thicker than
the rest. Even there the wood-work was all consumed, and the stairs
fell, except where a few of the stone steps, about half-way up, still
clung to the masonry.
"My father often talked of rebuilding the house; but I believe his
finances had been previously embarrassed, and he had suffered a heavy
loss. We went then to live at Buckley Hall, which had fallen to my
mother from her uncle some two years before, and which was not many
miles distant from the old house. It was a more modern building, with
fine gardens, in stiff figures of all shapes, with urns, and fountains,
and many quaint devices; but it had no deer-park, and I sadly missed the
fern, and the hawthorn, and the wild broomy dells.
"My next remembrance is of being ill and confined to bed, and my mother
singing to me as I began to grow a little better; and I recollect quite
well her coming in one day, looking very anxious, and my asking her to
sing, with all the thoughtless impatience of youth. Well, she sang; but
the tears rolled down her cheeks; and when I was suffered to go out of
my room I could find my little sister no more. I never saw her again;
and she must have died, I suppose, of the same malady from which I had
suffered. My mother's health waned from that hour, slowly,--so slowly as
to be hardly seen to change between day and day,--but none the less
certainly. Gentle and sweet, patient and uncomplaining, she would not
burden any one even with a knowledge of what she felt. My father was all
kindness to her and to me; but he was sometimes too light and
thoughtless, I believe,--vowed that society would cheer her, and filled
his house with company,--not always the most considerate or the most
quiet. There was upon me, young as I was, an impression that my mother
was not well, that she loved tranquillity, that noise disturbed her; and
I did my best to keep still, and even silent, when I was near her. I
would sit with her for hours, reading; for when we came over to Buckley
we found a good teacher there, and I had rapidly learned to read. Then,
when I could bear inactivity no longer, I would go out and get my pony,
saddle him myself, and ride wild over the country, or wander about the
gardens and think. I learned a good deal about this time; for my father
was very expert in all manly exercises, and took a pleasure in teaching
me, and the good parson of the parish--a very learned but singular
man--took great care of my studies.
"At length, when I was about ten years old, the terrible moment came
when I was to lose a mother. I will not dwell upon that sad time; but my
heart seemed closed,--shut up. I cared for nothing,--loved
nothing,--took no interest in any thing; and yet I was cast more than
ever upon my own thoughts, for the good old parson, whose instructions
might have afforded me some diversion for the mind, removed suddenly to
a much better living, some fifteen miles distant.
"My father still gave me instruction in fencing, wrestling, the use of
the broad-sword; but he gave them and I received them languidly. At
length, one day, he said to me, 'Edward, you are sad, my boy; and it is
time you should resume your studies. I shall be very lonely without you;
but I think it will be better for you to go over to good Dr.
Winthorne's, whom you love so well, and who, I am sure, will receive you
as a pupil. We shall only be fifteen miles apart, and I can see you
often.'
"I made no objection, for Buckley had grown odious to me: every thing
there revived regrets: and in about a week I was quietly installed in
the neat and roomy parsonage, the glebe and garden of which were bounded
by the same stream which ran past the old house in which I was born. It
had been there a brawling stream; but here, some ten miles farther down
upon its winding course, it had become a slow and somewhat wide river.
"I wish I had time to tell you how I learned, and what I learned, under
the good clergyman's instruction. He had his own notions--and very
peculiar notions--in every thing. Latin and Greek he taught me; but he
taught me French and Italian too,--and taught them all at once. His
lessons were very short, for it was his maxim never to weary attention;
but he took especial care that my bodily faculties should not lose any
thing for want of exercise. He would say that he had known very clever
hunchbacks and very learned and ingenious lame men, but that each of
them had some peculiarity of judgment which showed that a straight
intellect seldom inhabited a crooked body, or a strong mind a feeble
one. He would make me wrestle and play at quoits and cudgels with
plough-boys, shoot with the gamekeepers of neighboring estates, ride my
pony over a rough country and dangerous leaps, and himself lead the way.
He was a devout man, notwithstanding, and was highly esteemed by his
parishioners, and by a small circle of noble gentlemen, to some of whom
he was allied and who were not unfrequent guests at the parsonage. All
this went on for about nine months, a considerable part of which time my
father was absent from Buckley, travelling, as they said, for his
health, in Italy, where he had spent some years when quite a young man.
At length, when he returned, I went home to pass some time with him; but
I found him not alone."
"Had he married again so early?" asked Clement Tournon, with a look of
consternation.
"Oh, no!" replied Master Ned: "he never married again; but there was a
young gentleman with him, some twenty-one or twenty-two years of age,
tall, very handsome, but with a dark and heavy brow, which almost
spoiled his beauty. He spoke English with a strong foreign accent, and
had altogether the appearance of a foreigner. I naturally presumed he
was a guest, and treated him as such; but it was evident that he was an
exceedingly favored guest, and all the servants seemed to pay him the
most profound attention. I know not why, but I speedily began to dislike
him: perhaps it was a certain sort of patronizing air he assumed toward
me,--not exactly that of an elder to a younger person, but that of a
superior to an inferior. My father's conduct, too, was very strange. He
did not introduce the visitor to me by name, but presented me to him,
saying, 'My son Edward,' and during the rest of the day called him
simply Richard. On the following morning I detected--or fancied I
detected--the servants looking at me, watching me with an appearance of
interest that almost amounted to compassion. They were all very fond of
me, and each seemed to regard Master Ned--the only name I went by--as
his own child; but when they now gazed upon me there was an air of
vexation--almost of pity--on their faces, and once or twice I thought
the old steward was about to tell me something of importance in private;
but he broke off, and turned his conversation to common subjects.
"All this, however, was so disagreeable to me, that, after having stayed
two days at Buckley, I returned to my old preceptor's house at
Applethorpe, feeling more wretched than I had felt since the first sad
shock of my mother's death.
"The same night, after supper, Dr. Winthorne questioned me closely as to
my visit, and asked what had caused me to return so soon. Whether he saw
any thing in my manner, or had heard of any thing from others, I did not
know; but I told him all frankly, and he fell into a fit of thought
which lasted till bedtime. On the following morning my studies, my
exercises, and my amusements were renewed with increased activity. There
was something more I wished to forget, as well as the irreparable loss
of my mother; and I left not one moment unemployed. It was now the month
of May, and the season had been both cold and rainy; but I never
suffered either cold or rain, either snow or sleet, to keep me
within-doors; and no naked Indian could be more hardy than I was. At
length, some warm skies, with flying clouds and showers, came to cheer
us; and, with my rod in my hand, I sallied forth one morning early to
lure the speckled tyrants of the stream out of the water. I walked on
with good success for about two miles, and arrived at a shadowy reach of
the river, where it lapsed into some deep pools, and then, tumbling over
a shelf of rock in a miniature cascade, rushed on deep and strong
toward the east. I have said I was early; but there was some one there
before me. A powerful-looking man, of some four or five and twenty years
of age, was wading the stream with a rod in his hand and a pair of
funnel-shaped boots upon his legs. Where he stood, the water did not
come much above his knees; but I knew that a little farther on it
deepened, and the bed of the stream was full of holes, in which the
finest trout usually lay; but the stranger seemed a skilful angler, and,
I doubted not, knew the river as well as I did. Not to disturb his
sport, I sat quietly down on the bank and watched him. He was not very
prepossessing in appearance, for his features were large and coarse, and
though there was a certain sort of dignity about his carriage, yet his
form was more that of a man accustomed to robust labor than to the more
graceful sports of a gentleman. However, as I was gazing, he hooked a
large fish, apparently somewhat too stout for his tackle; and, to
prevent the trout from getting among the roots and stones while he
played him, the fisherman kept stepping backward, with his face toward
me and his back toward the deep run and the pool. 'Take care! take
care!' I cried. But my warning came too late: his feet were already on
the ridge of rock, and the next instant he fell over into the very
deepest part of the water. He rose instantly, but whether he was seized
with cramp, or that his large heavy boots filled with water, I know not;
but he sank again at once with a loud cry, and I ran along the ridge of
stone to give him help. The stream was much swollen with the late rains,
and even there it was running very strong, so that I could hardly keep
my footing; but I contrived to get to a spot near which he was just
rising again, and held out the thickest end of my rod to him. It was
barely within his reach; but he grasped it with one hand so sharply as
almost to pull me over into the pool with him. I got my feet between two
large masses of stone, however, and pulled hard, drawing him toward me
till he could get hold of the rock with his hands. His safety was then
easily insured; and I only remarked two things peculiar in his demeanor:
one was, that he never thanked me; and the other, that in all the
struggle he had contrived to retain his fishing-rod.
"'Can you not swim?' he asked, as soon as we had both reached the bank.
I answered in the negative, and he added, 'Learn to swim. Please God, it
may save your life some day. Learn to swim.' I offered to take him up to
the parsonage that he might dry his clothes; but he refused, not very
civilly; and then he asked my name, looking me very steadily in the
face, without the slightest expression of gratitude for the aid I had
rendered him, and no trace of either agitation or trouble from the
danger he had run. 'You have kept your rod,' I said, 'but you have
broken your line.'
"'I never let go my hold,' he answered; 'but, as you say, I have broken
my line and lost my fish. Are you Sir Richard Langdale's son, the man up
at Buckley?' I answered that I was, and in a few minutes after we
parted. I did not forget his advice, however, for a part of every day
during that summer I passed in the water, learning and practising the
art of swimming, till none could swim better or longer. I have never
seen that man since; but he has fully repaid my service by inducing me
to learn that which has more than once been of great service to me.
"It was the month of October before I once more visited Buckley; and
then my father sent for me. I found the same young man still there whom
I had seen on my former visit; but now my father removed all doubt of
who he was, by saying, 'Edward, it is time that you should know that
this is your brother Richard,--your elder brother.'
"I need not dwell upon the mortification and annoyance which this
announcement caused me. I was very young, as you may know when I tell
you that this occurred about five years ago, and, though of a somewhat
sensitive character, I might have thought little of the matter after the
first shock, had my brother's manner pleased me, had he shown kindness
or affection for me. But, with a sort of presentiment of what he was to
become, I disliked him from the first; and he repaid me well, treating
me with a sort of supercilious coldness I could not bear. On the morning
of the fourth day, when he had gone out fowling with a number of
servants and dogs, I went into my father's chamber and announced to him
my intention of going back that morning to pursue my studies with good
Dr. Winthorne. Perhaps my tone was somewhat too decided and imperative
for one so young toward his father; but it certainly was respectful, and
my father did not oppose my purpose. He merely spoke--almost in an
apologetic manner--of my brother and myself, intimated that he saw my
annoyance, and, attributing it to motives which had never crossed my
mind, added, 'You will have fortune enough, Ned. You surely need not
grudge your brother his share.' I did not reply; but his words set me
musing, and, an hour after, I left Buckley and returned to Applethorpe.
There, as before, I told my worthy preceptor all that had occurred, and
he somewhat censured my conduct, but at the same time condoled with and
comforted me. 'This young man,' he said, 'must be the son of an Italian
lady, to whom, according to a vague rumor current about the time your
father married your mother, he had been previously wedded in her own
country. It was said her relations had separated her from him on account
of his religion and had shut her up in a convent, where she had died of
grief. What he said about your fortune being sufficient, alluded of
course to the Buckley estate, which, being derived from your mother,
must descend to you.'
"'I never thought of fortune,' I answered, 'and should be glad to have a
brother whom I could love; but I cannot like this young man.'
"I had now seen my father for the last time in life. A quarrel, it would
seem, took place between him and one of the gentlemen of the
neighborhood, and about six months after the period of my visit they met
and fought. Both were good swordsmen; and my father killed his adversary
on the spot. He was much wounded in the encounter, however, and died
some four-and-twenty hours after. Sir Richard, his son, had not thought
fit to send for me; but, as soon as the news reached Applethorpe, Dr.
Winthorne went over with me to Buckley. There a scene took place which I
shall never think of without pain. My brother's whole thoughts were of
the rich succession which had fallen to him. He had four or five lawyers
with him, some from the country, others brought post-haste from London.
He claimed the whole estates,--Buckley, and all that it contained; and
his lawyers showed that, the estate having fallen to my mother after her
marriage, without any deed of settlement having reserved it to herself
and her heirs, it had passed in pure possession to my father, and
descended to his eldest son. There was some dispute between him and Dr.
Winthorne, who, with the village attorney, advocated my cause warmly;
but in the end the good clergyman took my arm, saying, 'Come away,
Edward: there are too many bad feelings here already: there will be more
if we stay. Your brother, who strips you of your mother's fortune
because she perhaps trusted too far his father and yours, cannot deprive
you of Malden farm, which was left you by your great-uncle. Indeed, I
will not believe that your father did not intend to do you justice. His
last words to you implied it; and probably, Mr. Sykes, Sir Richard did
make a will, which we must leave you to have produced, if there be one.'
"These last words were addressed to my firm friend, the village lawyer,
who, though aged and a good deal deformed, wanted no energy. He had
always loved my mother, and whenever I could I had sent him game and
fish. I always see him when I am in England. But no will was ever found:
proofs of my father's marriage to the Signora Laura Scotti were
produced, and also of her death some five years before the marriage of
my mother, and my brother Richard remained possessed of all that had
once seemed destined for me. He found the property greatly encumbered,
it is true, paid no debt that he could by any means evade, and, being
naturally of a profuse and luxurious disposition, soon found it
necessary to sell much plate and jewels, many of which, beyond doubt,
were my mother's own. Among the rest must have gone the cup I saw last
night. As for myself, the little farm of Malden was all that was left
me, the annual income of which is not quite two hundred pounds a
year,--enough, perhaps, for any right ambition; but I had been educated
in high expectations, and I had received a shock which changed, or
seemed to change, my whole nature.
"One night, when we had been talking of these things, Dr. Winthorne laid
his hand upon my shoulder, saying, 'Ned, you must make yourself a name
and an estate. There are two courses before you: either pursue your
studies vigorously for a few years, and then go to the university and
push your fortunes in the Church or at the bar, or put yourself in the
way of another sort of advancement, and mingle in the strife of courts
and camps. You have talent for the one if you choose to embrace it; your
animal qualities may fit you for the other. If the latter be your
choice, among my noble kinsfolks I can put you on the entrance of the
road; but you are not a boy who can remain idle. Think over it till
to-morrow at this hour; and then tell me of your resolve.'
"My determination was soon formed. I could not make up my mind,
especially with the feelings that were then busy in me, to devote myself
to mere dry and thoughtful studies; and I chose the more active scenes.
The very next night Dr. Winthorne wrote to the Lord Montagu, distantly
related to his mother, and in about two months after I received the
appointment of gentleman-page in his household, the only path now open
in England to honor and renown. In this career I have met with many
vicissitudes, and have learned much in a harsher and sterner school than
that of good Dr. Winthorne. I have not suffered, I trust, in mind or in
body, and, if my character has been hardened, I do believe the change
took place, not in the four last years of action and endeavor, but in
the few months of suffering and endurance which immediately preceded and
followed my father's death. Let it not be thought, my excellent friend,
that in any thing I have said I wished to cast a reproach upon his
memory. I am sure that he intended to secure to me what by right and
equity was mine, whatever mere law may say; but probably the duel in
which he fell was hasty; and it was a habit of his mind to put off both
consideration and action as long as he could. Thought was a labor that
troubled him, and he often would not see dangers because reflection upon
the best way of meeting them would have been painful. As to my brother,
I have never seen him again: I hear he has returned to Italy, there to
spend what remains to him of his wealth. Thus, you see that, though that
cup is mine by right, it is no more mine by law than the estate of
Buckley, which has gone from me forever."
The old merchant mused, and Lucette exclaimed, eagerly, that Sir Richard
Langdale's conduct was cruel and unjust; but Master Ned answered, very
mildly,--more so, indeed, than he might have done had not sickness
softened him,--"There is much that is both cruel and unjust in the law;
but, when I think of the contrast between my home before and after he
appeared in it, and when I think of what my own heart was before and
after he put his icy hand upon it, how he took from it its gentleness,
and its kindness, and its confidence, I cannot but believe he has been
cruel, and, though the same blood may and does flow in our veins, his is
mingled with another stream, which is noway akin to mine."
"You must take that cup, Master Edward," said the syndic. "I cannot keep
it in conscience. Every time I saw it in the cupboard, I should----" But
his sentence was broken in upon, and all discussion stopped, by the
entrance of Marton, introducing a stout man in plain travelling-attire,
who was a stranger at least to Edward Langdale.