Cradock Nowell: A Tale of the New Forest. Vol. 1 (of 3)Blackmore, R. D. (Richard Doddridge)
General
Cradock Nowell: A Tale of the New Forest. Vol. 1 (of 3)
Blackmore, R. D. (Richard Doddridge)
New Forest (England : Forest) -- Fiction
Caring but little for any of them, although he had loved them well
until they seemed to injure him, Cradock proceeded with great
equanimity to do a very foolish thing, which augured badly for the
success of a young man just preparing to start for himself in the
world. He poured the entire contents of his purse into a little
cedar tray, then packed all the money in paper rolls with a neatness
which rather astonished him, and sealed each roll with his amethyst
ring. Then he put them into a little box of some rare and beautiful
palm–wood, which had been his motherʼs, laid his cheque–book beside
them (for he had been allowed a banking account long before he was of
age), and placed upon that his gold watch and chain, and trinkets, the
amethyst ring itself, his diamond studs, and other jewellery, even a
locket which had contained two little sheaves of hair, bound together
with golden thread, but from which he first removed, and packed in
silver paper, the fair hair of his mother. This last, with the pipe
which Clayton had given him, and the empty purse made by Amyʼs fingers,
were all he meant to carry away, besides the clothes he wore.
After locking the box he rang the bell, and begged the man who answered
it to send old Hogstaff to him. That faithful servant, from whom he had
learned so many lessons of infancy, came tottering along the passage,
with his old eyes dull and heavy. For Job had gloried in those two
brothers, and loved them both as the children of his elder days. And
now one of them was gone for ever, in the height of his youth and
beauty, and a whisper was in the household that the other would not
stay. Of him, whom Job had always looked upon as his future master
(for he meant to outlive the present Sir Cradock, as he had done the
one before him), he had just been scoring upon his fingers all the
things he had taught him—to whistle “Spankadillo”, while he drummed
it with his knuckles; to come to the pantry–door, and respond to the
“Whoʼs there”?—“A grenadier”! shouldering a broomstick; to play on the
Jewʼs–harp, with variations, “An old friend, and a bottle to give him”;
and then to uncork the fictitious bottle with the pop of his forefinger
out of his mouth, and to decant it carefully with the pat of his
gurgling cheeks! After all that, how could he believe Master Crad could
ever forsake him?
Now Mr. Hogstaffʼs legs were getting like the ripe pods of a
scarlet–runner (although he did not run much); here they stuck in, and
there they stuck out, abnormally in either case; his body began to come
forward as if warped at the small of the back; and his honest face
(though he drank but his duty) was Septemberʼd with many a vintage.
And yet, with the keenness of love and custom, he saw at once what the
matter was, as he looked up at the young master.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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