“I believe so. Mrs. Nelligan went over the next morning to the cottage. She had heard of poor Mr. Martin's death, and thought she might be of some use to Miss Mary; but when she arrived, it was to find her in fever, talking wildly, and insisting that she must be up and away to Kyle-a-Noe to look after a poor sick family there.”
“Has Mrs. Nelligan seen her since that?”
“She never left her,—never quitted her. She relieves Henderson's daughter in watching beside her bed; for the old housekeeper is quite too infirm to bear the fatigue.”
“What a sad change has come over this little spot, and in so brief a space too! It seems just like yesterday that I was a guest at Cro' Martin,—poor Martin himself so happy and light-hearted; his dear girl, as he called her, full of life and spirits. Your son was there the night I speak of. I remember it well, for the madcap girls would make a fool of me, and insisted on my singing them a song; and I shall not readily forget the shame my compliance inflicted on my learned brother's face.”
“Joe told me of it afterwards.”
“Ah, he told you, did he? He doubtless remarked with asperity on the little sense of my own dignity I possessed?”
“On the contrary, sir, he said, 'Great as are Mr. Rep-ton's gifts, and brilliant as are his acquirements, I envy him more the happy buoyancy of his nature than all his other qualities.'”
“He's a fine fellow, and it was a generous speech; not but I will be vain enough to say he was right,—ay, sir, perfectly right. Of all the blessings that pertain to temperament, there is not one to compare with the spirit that renews in an old man the racy enjoyment of youth, keeps his heart fresh and his mind hopeful. With these, age brings no terrors. I shall be seventy-five, sir, if I live to the second of next month, and I have not lived long enough to dull the enjoyment life affords me, nor diminish the pleasure my heart derives upon hearing of a noble action or a generous sentiment.”
Nelligan gazed at the speaker in mingled astonishment and admiration. Somehow, it was not altogether the man he had expected; but he was far from being disappointed at the difference. The Valentine Repton of his imagination was a crafty pleader, a subtle cross-examiner, an ingenious flatterer of juries; but he was not a man whose nature was assailable by anything “not found in the books.”
Now, though Nelligan was himself essentially a worldly man, he was touched by these traits of one whom he had regarded as a hardened old lawyer, distrustful and suspicious.