He went to a cupboard, and took down the box from its usual
shelf, with the same feeling of satisfaction that an old poet recurs to
his first volume of verse; he may have written better things, and things
that have brought him more money, but those spring leaves are dearest to
him of all. So it was with Trevethick's spring lock. He adjusted the
hands, and the padlock sprang open; he lifted the lid, and the box was
empty; the two thousand pounds in Bank of England notes were gone.
He was a big bull-necked man, of what is called (in the reports of
inquests) "a full habit of body," and the discovery was almost fatal to
him. His face grew purple, the veins in his forehead stood out, and his
well-seasoned head, which liquor could so little affect, went round and
round with him, and sang like a humming-top. He was on the very brink of
a fit, which might have "annihilated space and time" (as far as he was
concerned), "and made two lovers happy." But the star of Richard Yorke
was not in the ascendant. The old man held on by the shelf of the
cupboard, and gradually came to himself. He did not even then comprehend
the whole gravity of the position; the sense of his great loss--not only
of so much wealth, but of that which he had secured with such toil, and
laid by unproductively so long for the accomplishment of his darling
purpose--monopolized his mind.
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