Pembroke read and witnessed the will, then gave the old man’s hand
a hearty shake and said:
“Now that’s right, York–but I knew you would do it. You couldn’t
leave that poor chap to fight along without means or profession,
with certain defeat before him, and I knew you wouldn’t, for his
father’s sake if not for his own.”
“For his dead father’s sake, I couldn’t, I know; for poor Percy–
but you know what Percy was to me. But mind–Tom is not to know
of this unless I fall tonight.”
“I understand. I’ll keep the secret.”
The judge put the will away, and the two started for the battleground.
In another minute the will was in Tom’s hands.
His misery vanished, his feelings underwent a tremendous revulsion.
He put the will carefully back in its place, and spread his mouth
and swung his hat once, twice, three times around his head,
in imitation of three rousing huzzahs, no sound issuing from his lips.
He fell to communing with himself excitedly and joyously,
but every now and then he let off another volley of dumb hurrahs.
He said to himself: “I’ve got the fortune again, but I’ll not let on
that I know about it. And this time I’m gong to hang on to it.
I take no more risks. I’ll gamble no more, I’ll drink no more,
because–well, because I’ll not go where there is any of that sort of
thing going on, again. It’s the sure way, and the only sure way;
I might have thought of that sooner–well, yes, if I had wanted to.
But now–dear me, I’ve had a scare this time, and I’ll take
no more chances. Not a single chance more. Land! I persuaded myself
this evening that I could fetch him around without any great amount
of effort, but I’ve been getting more and more heavyhearted and
doubtful straight along, ever since. If he tells me about this thing,
all right; but if he doesn’t, I sha’n’t let on. I–well, I’d like to tell
Pudd’nhead Wilson, but–no, I’ll think about that; perhaps I won’t.”
He whirled off another dead huzzah, and said, “I’m reformed,
and this time I’ll stay so, sure!”
He was about to close with a final grand silent demonstration,
when he suddenly recollected that Wilson had put it out of his power
to pawn or sell the Indian knife, and that he was once more in
awful peril of exposure by his creditors for that reason.
His joy collapsed utterly, and he turned away and moped toward
the door moaning and lamenting over the bitterness of his luck.
He dragged himself upstairs, and brooded in his room a long time,
disconsolate and forlorn, with Luigi’s Indian knife for a text.
At last he sighed and said:
“When I supposed these stones were glass and this ivory bone,
the thing hadn’t any interest for me because it hadn’t any value,
and couldn’t help me out of my trouble. But now–why, now it is
full of interest; yes, and of a sort to break a body’s heart.
It’s a bag of gold that has turned to dirt and ashes in my hands.
It could save me, and save me so easily, and yet I’ve got to go to ruin.
It’s like drowning with a life preserver in my reach. All the hard luck
comes to me, and all the good luck goes to other people–
Pudd’nhead Wilson, for instance; even his career has got a sort of
a little start at last, and what has he done to deserve it,
I should like to know? Yes, he has opened his own road,
but he isn’t content with that, but must block mine.
It’s a sordid, selfish world, and I wish I was out of it.”
He allowed the light of the candle to play upon the jewels of the sheath,
but the flashings and sparklings had no charm for his eye;
they were only just so many pangs to his heart. “I must not say
anything to Roxy about this thing,” he said. “She is too daring.
She would be for digging these stones out and selling them, and then–
why, she would be arrested and the stones traced, and then–“