For what we sold we received nine hundred thousand pounds, “which is very much less,” said Mansel, “than what it is worth: but that cannot be helped, for I never was any good in the countinghouse, and, from what I’ve seen of you two, you’re worse than I.” And, indeed, for my part, if I had been told it was worth but half a million, I should have been none the wiser and perfectly content.
Of this huge sum Mansel, Hanbury and I took each two ninths for himself and Carson, Rowley and Bell received one ninth apiece.
To my great surprise, when Bell had been given his cheque, he said that, if I was content to keep him, he had no wish to leave my service; when I pointed out that he was now a man of means, he said that, for his part, that did not alter the case; and since Hanbury and I were proposing to share an estate in the country, I told him to take a holiday and report to me in three weeks’ time.
Both George and I found it hard to part with Mansel: and, when the latter suggested that we should come down to Hampshire and spend a week with him there, we were only too glad to accept.
And there, in the midst of the New Forest, he brought us back to the world; for our doings of the last two months had thrown our focus out, and, when we looked upon the future, this seemed intolerably grey. But Mansel pointed the virtue of quiet enjoyment, maintaining that only those who knew the quality of peace could, when the moment came, taste the full flavour of battle: “for,” said he, “for the last two months we have been against the peace, and that is a condition which is all very well for a time but, if it is too much prolonged, will surely lose its sweetness and, what is infinitely worse, will sour the years that are left in the cellar of Life.”
So he did us an enduring service, for, but for that week in Hampshire, I do not think that either George Hanbury or I would ever have settled down, but, having the means to do so, would have gone out to rove the world in search of more excitement and so have dropped substance for a shadow and thrown our birthrights away.
As it is, I can now look back upon those seventy days as a man regards some picture, the contemplation of which never fails to bring him infinite delight: for they stand clean out of a quiet, orderly existence and, by the contrast, gain immeasurably.
Their burden is as vivid today as it was that sunshiny morning when we unloaded the toolbox, not far from the London road—the murder of the Englishman, and the quiet contempt of his prophecy that Ellis would come to grief: the level-crossing, and the fierce pounding of my heart as we sat awaiting the train: the courtyard of Wagensburg, and Mansel against the lime-tree with Rose Noble stretched at his feet: the earsplitting crash of the bomb, and Mansel’s steady voice calling the roll: the heat of the closed car’s engine scorching my back: the smell of tanning, and Tester’s menacing bark: Rose Noble’s weight upon me, and his heavy breathing as he set out to take my life: our last, stupendous effort to reach the chamber, and Ellis dead and staring against the bars: and then, our terrible battle with that most jealous of wardens, the great well.
The memory of these things I find as valuable as my share of the treasure itself, and I doubt if ever a man was so well paid for undertaking the care of a masterless dog.
The latter is with me always, and I think her life is happy. I have called her “Rafter”; for, as the name of a dog, the word does well enough, while it will always mean a great deal to me.
And here I may say that Tester was more fortunate than she, for he never went into quarantine, but, instead, into the toolbox of the second car, to emerge upon Ashdown Forest with, to judge from his spirits, a new lease of life. But, then, he was a hardened smuggler, and had cheated the Customs this way a dozen times.
Colophon
Blind Corner
was published in by
Dornford Yates.
This ebook was produced for
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Robin Whittleton,
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Al Haines, Jen Haines, and Distributed Proofreaders Canada
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Faded Page
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The cover page is adapted from
Grotto of Sarrazine near Nans-sous-Sainte-Anne,
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League Spartan and Sorts Mill Goudy
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