"Let us go home," said the old man, trying to exclude all excitement
from his throat and heart; "but you must stay outside until I come to
fetch you. I feel a little anxious, my dear boy, as to how your dear
mother will get over it. She has never been strong since the bad news
came about you. And somebody else has to be considered. But that must
stand over till to-morrow."
CHAPTER LVI
THE SILVER VOICE
Many shrewd writers have observed that Britannia has a special
luck--which the more devout call Providence--in holding her own, against
not only her true and lawful enemies, but even those of her own bosom
who labour most to ruin her. And truly she had need of all her fortune
now, to save her from the skulking traitor, as well as the raging
adversary.
"Now I will have my revenge," said Carne, "on all who have outraged and
plundered me. Crows--carrion-crows--I will turn them into owls without
a nest. Prowling owls, to come blinking even now at the last of my poor
relics! Charron, what did that fellow say to old Jerry, the day I tied
the dogs up?"
"He said, my dear friend, that he missed from the paintings which he had
taken to his house the most precious of them all--the picture of your
dear grandmother, by a man whose name it is hard to pronounce, but a
Captain in the British Army, very much fond of beloving and painting
all the most beautiful ladies; and since he had painted the mother of
Vash--Vash--the man that conquered England in America--all his work was
gone up to a wonderful price, and old Sheray should have one guinea if
he would exhibit to him where to find it.
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