It was accepted. The Captain was mortified and disappointed, but five pounds is five pounds. It even seems a good deal more when your income is very small and the part of it which you handle yourself so much smaller as to amount to nothing worth mentioning. It was September now, and already the mornings and evenings were cold, foretaste of the winter which was coming, which would hold the exposed land in its grip for months. Five pounds would buy things which would make the winter more tolerable; small comforts and luxuries meant a great deal to real poverty in cold weather and feeble health. Of course to Johnny and Julia too; they were all going to benefit. Captain Polkington packed the bulb in a small box and posted it when he went to Halgrave to have his hair cut.
By return he received a five pound note--a convenient handy form of money, easy to send, easy to change. Halgrave might not perhaps be able to give change for it without inconvenience, but Julia could get it changed next time she went into town. That would not be just yet, but a note will keep; it would perhaps be better to keep it for the present. The Captain folded it in his pocket-book and kept it.
It was not till October that Captain Polkington was able to change the five pound note. This was really Julia's fault, she went so seldom into the town; he had once or twice suggested her doing so when she said they wanted this or that, but she never took the hint, and the note was still in his pocket-book. At last, however, the opportunity came.
A keeper's wife with whom Julia had got acquainted had promised her a pair of lop-eared rabbits if she could come and fetch them. She was not very anxious to have them, but Mr. Gillat was; he said they would be very profitable. Julia doubted this; but, since he wanted them, she said they would have them, and accordingly, one morning, they started together with a basket for the rabbits. They started directly after breakfast for they had to go a long way across the heath and could not at the best be back before two o'clock. Captain Polkington watched them go, standing at the cottage door until their figures were small on the great expanse of heather. Then he went in and, sitting down, wrote a hasty note to Julia; it was to the effect that he had been obliged to go into town, but would be back by dark or soon after. It read as quite a casual communication, as if he were in the habit of going into town frequently and had much business to transact. The Captain was rather satisfied with it; he felt he was doing the straightforward thing in telling Julia, his whole proceedings were open and above board. When he came back he should tell her all about the money, how it had been raised and how spent. She should have had the spending of it herself if only she had gone to town when he suggested it; as it was, he must do it; it was absurd to wait any longer; the weather was already cold; he must go, and bring her some pleasant surprise when he came back.