"He cried as bad as I did," Lewis said, "and begged me to forgive him
for having trusted so much to my other guardian. Do you know, Jack,
Snuffy regularly forged a letter like my handwriting, to answer that one
Uncle Eustace wrote, which he kept back? He might well do such good
copies, and write the year of Our Lord with a swan at the end of the
last flourish! And you remember what we heard about his having been in
prison--but, oh, dear! I don't want to remember. He says I am to forget,
and he forbade me to talk about Crayshaw's, and said I was not to
trouble my head about anything that had happened there. He kept saying,
'Forget, my boy, forget! Say GOD help me, and look forward. While
there's life there's always the chance of a better life for every one.
Forget! forget!'"
Lewis departed with his uncle. Charlie went for two nights to the moors.
Jem's holidays had not begun, and in our house we were "cleaning down"
after the Colonel as if he had been the sweeps.
I went to old Isaac for sympathy. He had become very rheumatic the last
two years, but he was as intelligent as ever, and into his willing ear I
poured all that I could tell of my hero, and much that I only imagined.
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