“And who owned this cabin before?” asked I.
“A villain they call Con Cregan, your honor,—the biggest thief ye ever heard of; he was paid for informin' agin the people, and whin the Government had done wid him, they transported him too!”
“Had he any children, this same Con?”
“He had a brat of a boy that was drowned at 'say,' they tell me; but I'd never believe it was that way that Con Cregan's son was to die!”
I need scarcely remark that I saw no inducement for prolonging this conversation, wherein all the facts quoted were already familiar, and all the speculations the reverse of flattery; and I was far more agreeably occupied in discussing the eggs and milk the old lady had placed before me, when the door opened, and the curate entered. A deep cavernous cough and a stooped figure announcing the signs of some serious chest disease, were all I had time to observe; when, with the politeness of a gentleman, he advanced towards me. The first sound of his voice was enough, and I cried out, “Lyndsay! my oldest and best friend,—don't you know me?”
“I am ashamed to say that I do not,” said he, faltering, while he still held my hand, and gazed into my face.
“Not yet?” asked I again, smiling at the embarrassment of his countenance.
“Not even yet,” said he. “Tell me, I beseech you, where did we meet?”
“Come here,” said I, leading him to the door, and pointing to the wide-stretching moor that lay before us; “it was there,—yonder, where you see that heavy cloud-shadow stealing along,—yonder we first met. Do you know me now?”
He started; his pale cheek grew paler, and he fell upon my neck in a burst of tears. Who shall ever know the source, or what the meaning? They were not of joy, still less of sorrow,—they were the outbreak of a hundred emotions. Old memories of happy days, never to come back; boyish triumphs, successes, failures; moments of ecstasy—of bitter anguish; his own bleak, joyless existence, perhaps, contrasting with mine; and then at last the fell consciousness of the malady in which he was but lingering out life.