‘I tell you,’ said Martin, ‘that as he lies there, disgraced, bought, used; a cloth for dirty hands, a mat for dirty feet, a lying, fawning, servile hound, he is the very last and worst among the vermin of the world. And mark me, Pinch! The day will come—he knows it; see it written on his face, while I speak!—when even you will find him out, and will know him as I do, and as he knows I do. he renounce me! Cast your eyes on the Renouncer, Pinch, and be the wiser for the recollection!’
He pointed at him as he spoke, with unutterable contempt, and flinging his hat upon his head, walked from the room and from the house. He went so rapidly that he was already clear of the village, when he heard Tom Pinch calling breathlessly after him in the distance.
‘Well! what now?’ he said, when Tom came up.
‘Dear, dear!’ cried Tom, ‘are you going?’
‘Going!’ he echoed. ‘Going!’
‘I didn’t so much mean that, as were you going now at once—in this bad weather—on foot—without your clothes—with no money?’ cried Tom.
‘Yes,’ he answered sternly, ‘I am.’
‘And where?’ cried Tom. ‘Oh where will you go?’
‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘Yes, I do. I’ll go to America!’
‘No, no,’ cried Tom, in a kind of agony. ‘Don’t go there. Pray don’t. Think better of it. Don’t be so dreadfully regardless of yourself. Don’t go to America!’