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"The perch says things that are not true." "You know you hate me," said the perch; "because your great-great-grandfather swallowed mine in a rage, and my great-great-grandfather's spines stuck in your great-great-grandfather's throat and killed him. And ever since then, Bevis dear, they have done nothing but tell tales against me.
"They are ruins of interest to me," said our English friend, "for one of them perhaps some one that you beheld represents the wreck of my great-great-grandfather's fortune.
He had used up his wife's gold thimble and his great-grandfather's gold-bowed spectacles; and he had melted up the gold head of his great-great-grandfather's cane; and, just as the Peterkin family came in, he was down on his knees before his wife, asking her to let him have her wedding-ring to melt up with an the rest, because this time he knew he should succeed, and should be able to turn everything into gold; and then she could have a new wedding-ring of diamonds, all set in emeralds and rubies and topazes, and all the furniture could be turned into the finest of gold.
"And the traces of the outworks!" cried my uncle, flourishing his stick. "And the pedigree " "Ay, and your great-great-grandfather's armor, which he wore at Marston Moor " "Yes, and the brass plate in the church, uncle." "The deuce is in the boy! Come here, come here: I've three minds to break your head, sir!"
And my precious little keepsakes, that I have cherished since childhood, all scattered or lost! Oh, Tom, you do not know how cruelly it hurts me!" I felt sorry, then. I wanted to cry out, as Stuart had done when he shot his great-great-grandfather's portrait, "Oh, Aunt Patricia, I'm so sorry! It was an accident. I didn't mean to do it, truly I didn't mean to!"
"And the traces of the outworks!" cried my uncle, flourishing his stick. "And the pedigree " "Ay, and your great-great-grandfather's armor, which he wore at Marston Moor " "Yes, and the brass plate in the church, uncle." "The deuce is in the boy! Come here, come here: I've three minds to break your head, sir!"
I stood there looking for a long time in the mirror of the old mahogany hatrack, with a growing conviction that my reflected image looked extraordinarily like some one I had seen before. I finally recognized myself as being an exact counterpart of my great-great-grandfather's portrait. This did not shock me, though the idea was a new one.
Then it must be in there. Yes; here it is. This linen was spun and woven from flax grown on your great-great-grandfather's land. Look at it! It is beautifully made. Each generation of the family has inherited part and left the rest for generations yet to come. Half of it is yours, half is Dent's.
It has been here a great many years, ever since my great-great-grandfather's time.... You've noticed my house, I dare say," he went on. "I have," Nimble answered. "It's a good one, though the chimney looks a bit lopsided, to me. Shall I give it a push and see if I can straighten it?" "No, indeed thank you!" said Brownie hurriedly. "For mercy's sake, don't touch my chimney!
What a strange and fiendish idea it was, the young, handsome noble who had ruined himself and his family in the society of the splendid debauchees, gathering them all together, men and women who had known only love and pleasure, for a glorious and awful riot of luxury, and then, when they were all dancing in the great ballroom, locking the doors and burning the whole castle about them, the while he sat in the great keep listening to their screams of agonized fear, watching the fire sweep from wing to wing until the whole mighty mass was one enormous and awful pyre, and then, clothing himself in his great-great-grandfather's armor, hanging himself in the midst of the ruins of what had been a proud and noble castle.
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