A species of savage impulse rose in the clerk's mind, replacing his first
emotion of grief; an impulse that might almost have led him to murder the
villain Gordon, could he have come across him. Was there a chance that
the man would be taken? he asked. Every chance, if he dared show his face
in England, the passenger answered. A reward of seven hundred pounds was
an inducement to the survivors to keep their eyes open; and they'd do it,
besides, without any reward. Moreover--if Gordon had escaped, his
comrades in the boat had escaped with him. They were lawless men like
himself, every one of them, and they would be sure to betray him when
they found what a price was set upon his capture.
Clerk Gum returned home, bearing to his wife and Calne the final tidings
which crushed out all hope. Mrs. Gum sank into a state of wild despair.
At first it almost seemed to threaten loss of reason. Her son had been
her sole idol, and the idol was shattered. But to witness unreasonably
violent grief in others always has a counteracting effect on our own,
and Mr. Gum soothed his sorrow and brought philosophy to his aid.
"Look you," said he, one day, sharply to his wife, when she was crying
and moaning, "there's two sides to every calamity,--a bright and a dark
'un;" for Mr. Gum was not in the habit of treating his wife, in the
privacy of their domestic circle, to the quality-speech kept for the
world.
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