Here he rode on for some minutes without speaking, then continued in an altered voice:
‘See here now, Mr. Wilfred, it’s little I thought to say to mortial man the things I’ve let out of my heart this blessed day. But my feeling to you and your father is the same as I had to my first master—the heavens be his bed! If he’d always been among such people here—rale gintry—that cared for him and thought to help him, Tom Glendinning would maybe have been a different man. But the time’s past. I’m like a beaten fox, nigh run down; and I’ll never die in my bed, that much I know. You won’t spake to me agen about this. My heart’s burstin’ as it is; and—I’ll maybe drop—if it comes on me again—like it—does—now——’
He pressed his hand closely, fiercely, upon the region of the heart. He grew deadly pale, and shook as if in mortal agony; his face was convulsed as he bowed himself upon the saddle-bow, and Wilfred feared he was about to fall from his horse. But he slowly regained his position, and quivering like one who had been stretched upon the rack, guided his horse along the homeward path.
‘’Tis spasms of the heart, the doctor tould me it was,’ he gasped at length. ‘They’d take me off some day, before you could light a match, “if I didn’t keep aisy and free from trouble,”’ he said. ‘Maybe they will, some day; maybe something else will be too quick for them. It’s little I care. Close up, Mr. Wilfred, we’re late for home, and I’d like to regulate thim calves before it’s dark.’
Much Wilfred mused over the history of the strange old man who had now become associated with their fortunes.
‘What a life!’ thought he. ‘What a tragedy!’ How changed from the days when he followed the Mayo hounds; reckless then, perhaps, and impatient of control, but an unweaned child in innocence compared to his present condition. And yet he possessed qualities which, under different treatment might have led to honour and distinction.
As far as personal claims to distinction were concerned, few districts in which the Effinghams could have been located, would have borne comparison with the vicinity of Lake William. It abounded, as we have told, in younger sons of good family, whom providence would appear to have thus guided but a few years before their own migration. This fortunate concurrence they had themselves often noted, and fully did they appreciate the congenial companionship.