Wylder's Hand eBook

So reasoned the good attorney, as with a languid smile and a sigh of content, his long hand laid across the cover of the despatch-box by his side, he looked forth through the plate-glass window upon the sunny fields and hedgerows that glided by him, and felt the blessed assurance, ‘look, whatsoever he doeth it shall prosper,’ mingling in the hum of surrounding nature.  And as his eyes rested on the flying diorama of trees, and farmsteads, and standing crops, and he felt already the pride of a great landed proprietor, his long fingers fiddled pleasantly with the rough tooling of his morocco leather box; and thinking of the signed articles within, it seemed as though an angelic hand had placed them there while he slept, so wondrous was it all; and he fancied under the red tape a label traced in the neatest scrivenery, with a pencil of light, containing such gratifying testimonials to his deserts, ’as well done good and faithful servant,’ ‘the saints shall inherit the earth,’ and so following; and he sighed again in the delicious luxury of having secured both heaven and mammon.  And in this happy state, and volunteering all manner of courtesies, opening and shutting windows, lending his railway guide and his newspapers whenever he had an opportunity, he at length reached the great London terminus, and was rattling over the metropolitan pavement, with his hand on his despatch-box, to his cheap hotel near the Strand.

CHAPTER LXV.

I REVISIT BRANDON HALL.

Rachel Lake was courageous and energetic; and, when once she had taken a clear view of her duty, wonderfully persistent and impracticable.  Her dreadful interview with Jos.  Larkin was always in her mind.  The bleached face, so meek, so cruel, of that shabby spectre, in the small, low parlour of Redman’s Farm, was always before her.  There he had spoken the sentences which made the earth tremble, and showed her distinctly the cracking line beneath her feet, which would gape at his word into the fathomless chasm that was to swallow her.  But, come what might, she would not abandon the vicar and his little boy, and good Dolly, to the arts of that abominable magician.

The more she thought, the clearer her conviction.  She had no one to consult with; she knew the risk of exasperating that tall man of God, who lived at the Lodge.  But, determined to brave all, she went down to see Dolly and the vicar at home.

Poor Dolly was tired; she had been sitting up all night with sick little Fairy.  He was better to-day; but last night he had frightened them so, poor little man! he began to rave about eleven o’clock; and more or less his little mind continued wandering until near six, when he fell into a sound sleep, and seemed better for it; and it was such a blessing there certainly was neither scarlatina nor small-pox, both which enemies had appeared on the northern frontier of Gylingden, and were picking down their two or three cases each in that quarter.