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ground. I can carry no such base thoughts to any one - to my
father least of all; that would be to fall into the bottom of his
scorn. The weakness of my ground," he continued, "lies in myself,
that I am not one who engages love. I have their gratitude, they
all tell me that; I have a rich estate of it! But I am not present
in their minds; they are moved neither to think with me nor to
think for me. There is my loss!" He got to his feet, and trod
down the fire. "But some method must be found, Mackellar," said
he, looking at me suddenly over his shoulder; "some way must be
found. I am a man of a great deal of patience - far too much - far
too much. I begin to despise myself. And yet, sure, never was a
man involved in such a toil!" He fell back to his brooding.
"Cheer up," said I. "It will burst of itself."
"I am far past anger now," says he, which had so little coherency
with my own observation that I let both fall.
CHAPTER V. - ACCOUNT OF ALL THAT PASSED ON THE NIGHT ON FEBRUARY
27TH, 1757.
On the evening of the interview referred to, the Master went
abroad; he was abroad a great deal of the next day also, that fatal
27th; but where he went, or what he did, we never concerned
ourselves to ask until next day. If we had done so, and by any
chance found out, it might have changed all. But as all we did was
done in ignorance, and should be so judged, I shall so narrate
these passages as they appeared to us in the moment of their birth,
and reserve all that I since discovered for the time of its
discovery. For I have now come to one of the dark parts of my
narrative, and must engage the reader's indulgence for my patron.
All the 27th that rigorous weather endured: a stifling cold; the
folk passing about like smoking chimneys; the wide hearth in the
hall piled high with fuel; some of the spring birds that had
already blundered north into our neighbourhood, besieging the
windows of the house or trotting on the frozen turf like things
distracted. About noon there came a blink of sunshine, showing a
very pretty, wintry, frosty landscape of white hills and woods,
with Crail's lugger waiting for a wind under the Craig Head, and
the smoke mounting straight into the air from every farm and
cottage. With the coming of night, the haze closed in overhead; it
fell dark and still and starless, and exceeding cold: a night the
most unseasonable, fit for strange events.
Mrs. Henry withdrew, as was now her custom, very early. We had set
ourselves of late to pass the evening with a game of cards; another
mark that our visitor was wearying mightily of the life at
Durrisdeer; and we had not been long at this when my old lord
slipped from his place beside the fire, and was off without a word
to seek the warmth of bed. The three thus left together had
neither love nor courtesy to share; not one of us would have sat up
one instant to oblige another; yet from the influence of custom,
and as the cards had just been dealt, we continued the form of
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