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Carne was not with them, but had crossed the creek, as the marks of his boots in the mud declared; and creeping some little way along the thicket, Scudamore descried him walking to and fro impatiently in a little hollow place, where the sailors could not see him. This was on Scudamore's side of the creek, and scarcely fifty yards below him.
Tom Fool had just been boasting of his exploit in escaping from Raglan, and expressing his conviction that Dorothy, whom he had valiantly protected, was safe at Wyfern, and Rowland was in consequence dressing as fast as he could to pay her a visit, when Tom caught sight of Richard riding towards the cottage, and jumping up, ran into the chimney corner beyond his mother, who was busy with Scudamore's breakfast.
He never rallied, and a few hours afterwards the news spread through the country that Scudamore, the banker, was dead, and that the bank had stopped payment. People could believe the former item of news, but were incredulous as to the latter. Scudamore's bank was looked upon in Lincolnshire as at least as safe as the Bank of England itself.
But by Scudamore's own showing they parted "fairely;" or, as we should now say, good friends. Among Sir Kenelm Digby's English correspondents, while he was in Paris, was Lord Conway, a soldier as devoted to literature as to arms, and a general who always seemed fated to fight under disadvantages.
But still worse is it for that poor thrush, or lintie, or robin, or warbler-wren, if he flutters in his bosom when he spies that cat, and sets up his feathers, and begins to hop about, making a sad little chirp to his mate, and appealing to the sky to protect him and his family. Blyth Scudamore's case was a mixture of those two.
"A man came out of the sea to-day, and made me believe we were all found out," said the gay Charron to the gloomy Carne, a day or two after poor Scudamore's wreck. "I never beheld a more strange-looking creature as the owner of our human face divine, as some of your poets have found to say.
About half an hour, sir, will suit me, unless they comes down to the skittle-alley, as ought to be always on a Saturday afternoon; but not a soul there when I looked in." Any man in Scudamore's position, except himself, would have grieved and groaned.
'I have had but one glimpse of him since the morning, and if he looks now as he looked then, I fear your lordship would be minded rather to drive him from your table than welcome him to a seat beside you. As she spoke, lady Margaret caught a glimpse of a peculiar expression on Scudamore's face, where he stood behind his master's chair.
And the only way to understand how a friend has taken affliction is to go if it may be done without intrusion and let him tell you, if he likes. Admiral Darling was so much vexed when he heard of Blyth Scudamore's capture by the French, and duty compelled him to inform the mother, that he would rather have ridden a thousand miles upon barley-bread than face her.
Then with hearty good-will, and life-long faith in each other, the two men parted, and Scudamore's heart was uncommonly low for a substance that was not a "Jack-in-the-box" as he watched from the shore the slow fading into dream-land of the Katterina. Nothing except patriotic feeling may justify a man, who has done no harm, in long-continued misery.
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