e his gipsire,--the ill-mannered, affectionate
fellow! I must think--I must think--"
And while still thinking, the door softly opened, and Warner himself,
in a high state of abstraction and revery, stalked noiselessly into
the room, on his way to the garden, in which, when musing over some new
spring for his invention, he was wont to peripatize. The sight of the
gold on the table struck full on the philosopher's eyes, and waked him
at once from his revery. That gold--oh, what precious instruments, what
learned manuscripts it could purchase! That gold, it was the breath of
life to his model! He walked deliberately up to the table, and laid his
hand upon one of the little heaps. Marmaduke drew back his stool, and
stared at him with open mouth.
"Young man, what wantest thou with all this gold?" said Adam, in a
petulant, reproachful tone. "Put it up! put it up! Never let the poor
see gold; it tempts them, sir,--it tempts them." And so saying, the
student abruptly turned away his eyes, and moved towards the garden.
Marmaduke rose and put himself in Adam's way. "Honoured sir," said the
young man, "you say justly what want I with all this gold? The only gold
a young man should covet is eno' to suffice for the knight's spurs
to his heels. If, without offence, you would--that is--ahem!--I
mean,--Gramercy! I shall never say it, but I believe my father owed your
father four marks, and he bade me repay them. Here, sir!" He held out
the glittering coins; the philosopher's hand closed on them as the
fish's maw closes on the bait. Adam burst into a laugh, that sounded
strangely weird and unearthly upon Marmaduke's startled ear.
"All this for me!" he exclaimed. "For me! No, no, no! for me, for IT--I
take it--I take it, sir! I will pay it back with large usury. Come to me
this day year, when this world will be a new world, and Adam Warner
will be--ha! ha! Kind Heaven, I thank thee!" Suddenly turning away, the
philosopher strode through the hall, opened the front door, and escaped
into the street.
"By'r Lady," said Marmaduke, slowly recovering his surprise, "I need
not have been so much at a loss; the old gentleman takes to my gold as
kindly as if it were mother's milk. 'Fore Heaven, mine host's laugh is
a ghastly thing!" So soliloquizing, he prudently put up the rest of his
money, and locked his mails.
As time went on, the young man became exceedingly weary of his own
company. Sibyll still withheld her appearance; the gloom of
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