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side, we could see her weeping with her head upon his knee. Mr.
Henry kept up the talk with me upon some topic of the estates - he
could speak of little else but business, and was never the best of
company; but he kept it up that day with more continuity, his eye
straying ever and again to the chimney, and his voice changing to
another key, but without check of delivery. The pane, however, was
not replaced; and I believe he counted it a great defeat.

Whether he was stout enough or no, God knows he was kind enough.
Mrs. Henry had a manner of condescension with him, such as (in a
wife) would have pricked my vanity into an ulcer; he took it like a
favour. She held him at the staff's end; forgot and then
remembered and unbent to him, as we do to children; burthened him
with cold kindness; reproved him with a change of colour and a
bitten lip, like one shamed by his disgrace: ordered him with a
look of the eye, when she was off her guard; when she was on the
watch, pleaded with him for the most natural attentions, as though
they were unheard-of favours. And to all this he replied with the
most unwearied service, loving, as folk say, the very ground she
trod on, and carrying that love in his eyes as bright as a lamp.
When Miss Katharine was to be born, nothing would serve but he must
stay in the room behind the head of the bed. There he sat, as
white (they tell me) as a sheet, and the sweat dropping from his
brow; and the handkerchief he had in his hand was crushed into a
little ball no bigger than a musket-bullet. Nor could he bear the
sight of Miss Katharine for many a day; indeed, I doubt if he was
ever what he should have been to my young lady; for the which want
of natural feeling he was loudly blamed.

Such was the state of this family down to the 7th April, 1749, when
there befell the first of that series of events which were to break
so many hearts and lose so many lives.


On that day I was sitting in my room a little before supper, when
John Paul burst open the door with no civility of knocking, and
told me there was one below that wished to speak with the steward;
sneering at the name of my office.

I asked what manner of man, and what his name was; and this
disclosed the cause of John's ill-humour; for it appeared the
visitor refused to name himself except to me, a sore affront to the
major-domo's consequence.

"Well," said I, smiling a little, "I will see what he wants."

I found in the entrance hall a big man, very plainly habited, and
wrapped in a sea-cloak, like one new landed, as indeed he was.
Not, far off Macconochie was standing, with his tongue out of his
mouth and his hand upon his chin, like a dull fellow thinking hard;
and the stranger, who had brought his cloak about his face,
appeared uneasy. He had no sooner seen me coming than he went to
meet me with an effusive manner.

"My dear man," said he, "a thousand apologies for disturbing you,
but I'm in the most awkward position.

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