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Updated: June 8, 2025
Little good, you will say, such a sermon from such a perverse, bad- humoured preacher as Reginald Cruden, could do! Very likely, reader; but, after all, who are you or I to say so? Had any one told Reginald a week ago what would be taking place to-day, he would have coloured up indignantly and hoped he was not quite such a prig as all that.
The trial of Medlock and Shanklin took place in due time, and among the witnesses the most important, but the most reluctant, was Reginald Cruden. It was like a hateful return to the old life to find himself face to face with those men, and to have to tell over again the story of their knavery and his own folly. But he went through with it like a man.
The only call he made that day was at his banker's, where he was told all, and there is no reason to doubt that the shock produced the stroke from which he died." "Mr Richmond," said Mrs Cruden, after a while, like one in a dream, "can this be true? What does it all mean?" "Alas! madam," said the lawyer, "it would be no kindness on my part to deny the truth of what I have told you.
In other words, she was ready to believe that Reginald Cruden was a "bad lot," but she was not able to bring herself on that account to desert her neighbour at the time of her trouble.
"And has it recovered?" asked Mrs Cruden, with a tremble in her voice. "I regret to say it has not, Mrs Cruden.
"Oh, Mrs Cruden, I made sure you knew all about it." "What is it?" cried Mrs Cruden, now thoroughly terrified and trembling all over. "Has anything happened to him? Is he dead?" and she seized her visitor's hand as she asked the question. "No, Mrs Cruden, not dead. Maybe it would be better for 'im if he was." "Better if he was dead?
As soon as supper was over Reginald suggested a precipitate retreat into the streets, for fear of another neighbourly incursion. Mrs Cruden laughingly yielded, and the trio had a long walk, heedless where they went, so long as they were together.
It was for this the crowd had gathered, it was for the result of this that that knot of idlers were waiting so patiently outside. Bilcher was the hero of this day's gathering. Who was likely to care a rush about such a lesser light as a secretary charged with a commonplace fraud. "Has the case of Cruden come on yet?" asked Horace anxiously. The policeman answered him with a vacant stare.
"I don't see, mother," he added, "however poor we are, we are called on to associate with a lot like that." "They have not polished manners, certainly," said Mrs Cruden; "but I do think they are good-natured, and that's a great thing." "I should think so," said Horace. "What do you think? Samuel wants to propose me for his club, which seems to be a very select affair."
But before Mrs Cruden could interpose to rescue him, the ladylike Miss Jemima, who had already regarded the good-looking shy youth with approval, entered the lists on her own account, and moving her chair a trifle in his direction, said, in a confidential whisper, "Ma thinks we're not a very sociable couple, that's what it is." A couple! He and Jemima a couple!
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