You know what a vast extent there
is of cellars and vaults below your old castle, most of them nearly as
sound as ever, and occupied mainly by empty bottles, and the refuse
of past hospitality. Well, they are going to fill these with
something--French wines, smuggled brandy, contraband goods of every kind
you can think of, so long as high profit can be made of them. That is
how your nephew Caryl means to redeem his patrimony. No wonder that he
has been so dark and distant! It never would have done to let us get the
least suspicion of it, because of my position in the Church, and in the
Diocese. By this light a thousand things are clear to me, which exceeded
all the powers of the Sphinx till now."
"But how did you get away, my darling Joshua?" Mrs. Twemlow enquired,
as behoved her. "So fearless, so devoted, so alive to every call of
duty--how could you stand there, and let the wretches shoot at you?"
"By taking good care not to do it," the Rector answered, simply. "No
sooner were all their backs towards me, than I said to myself that
the human race happily is not spiderine. I girt up my loins, or rather
fetched my tails up under my arms very closely, and glided away, with
the silence of the serpent, and the craft of the enemy of our fallen
race. Great care was needful, and I exercised it; and here you behold
me, unshot and unshot-at, and free from all anxiety, except a pressing
urgency for a bowl of your admirable soup, Maria, and a cut from the
saddle I saw hanging in the cellar.
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