“I know the person you mean, my boy.”
“I know what kind of person he is, and
he said God was just like him, and in the God like
him, if I can find him, I will believe with all my
heart and soul—and so would you, father,
if you knew him. You will say, perhaps, he ain’t
nowhere to know! but you haven’t a right to say
that until you’ve been everywhere to look; for
such a God is no absurdity; it’s nothing ridiculous
to look for him. I beg your pardon, both of you,
but I’m bound to speak. Jesus Christ said
we must leave father and mother for him, because he
is true; and I must speak for him what is true, even
if my own father and mother should think me rude.”
He had spoken eagerly; and man or woman who does not
put truth first, may think he ought to have held his
tongue. But neither father nor mother took offence.
The mother, unspeakably relieved by what had taken
place, was even ready to allow that her favourite
preacher might “perhaps dwell too much upon
the terrors of the law.”
MORNING.
The next post brought a letter from Simon Armour,
saying, after his own peculiar fashion, that it was
time the thing were properly understood between the
parties concerned; but, that done, they must attend
to the baronet’s wish, and disclose nothing
yet: he believed sir Wilton had his reasons.
They must therefore, as soon as possible, make it clear
to him that there was no break in the chain of their
proof of Richard’s identity. He proposed,
therefore, that his daughter should pay her father
a visit, and bring Richard.
The suggestion seemed good to all concerned.
Criminal as she knew herself, Jane Tuke did not shrink
from again facing sir Wilton, with the nephew by her
side whom one and twenty years before she had carried
in her arms to meet his unfatherly gaze! To her
surprise she found that she almost enjoyed the idea.
Richard cashed the post-office-order the old man sent
them, and they set out for his cottage.
The same day Simon went to Mortgrange and saw the
baronet, who agreed at once to go to the cottage to
meet his sister-in-law. The moment he entered
the little parlour where they waited to receive him,
he made Mrs. Tuke a polite bow, and held out his hand.
“You are the sister of my late wife, I am told,”
he said.
Jane made him a dignified courtesy, her resentment,
after the lapse of twenty years, rising fresh at sight
of the man who had behaved so badly to her sister.
“It was you that carried off the child?”
said the baronet.
“Yes, sir,” answered Jane.
“I am glad I did not know where to look for
him. You did me the greatest possible favour.
What these twenty years would have been like, with
him in the house, I dare not think.”
“It was for the child’s sake I did it!”
said Jane.
