This sight, which might have touched with pity a more generous nature, startled Richard Bassett, and then moved his bile. “I was a fool,” said he; “nothing will ever kill that man. He will see me out; see us all out. And that Mary Wells nurses him, and I dare say in love with him by this time; the fools can't nurse a man without. Curse the whole pack of ye!” he yelled, and turned away in rage and disgust.
That same night he met Mary Wells, and, in a strange fit of jealousy, began to make hot protestations of love to her. He knew it was no use reproaching her, so he went on the other tack.
She received his vows with cool complacency, but would only stay a minute, and would only talk of her master and mistress, toward whom her heart was really warming in their trouble. She spoke hopefully, and said: “'Tisn't as if he was one of your faint-hearted ones as meet death half-way. Why, the second day, when he could scarce speak, he sees me crying by the bed, and says he, almost in a whisper, 'What are you crying for?' 'Sir,' says I, ''tis for you—to see you lie like a ghost.' 'Then you be wasting of salt-water,' says he. 'I wish I may, sir,' says I. So then he raised himself up a little bit. 'Look at me,' says he; 'I'm a Bassett. I am not the breed to die for a crack on the skull, and leave you all to the mercy of them that would have no mercy'—which he meant you, I suppose. So he ordered me to leave crying, which I behooved to obey; for he will be master, mind ye, while he have a finger to wag, poor dear gentleman, he will.”
And, soon after this, she resisted all his attempts to detain her, and scudded back to the house, leaving Bassett to his reflections, which were exceedingly bitter.
Sir Charles got better, and at last used to walk daily with Lady Bassett. Their favorite stroll was up and down the lawn, close under the boundary wall he had built to shut out “The Heir's Walk.”
The afternoon sun struck warm upon that wall and the walk by its side.
On the other side a nurse often carried little Dicky Bassett, the heir; but neither of the promenaders could see each other for the wall.
Richard Bassett, on the contrary, from “The Heir's Tower,” could see both these little parties; and, as some men cannot keep away from what causes their pain, he used to watch these loving walks, and see Sir Charles get stronger and stronger, till at last, instead of leaning on his beloved wife, he could march by her side, or even give her his arm.
Yet the picture was, in a great degree, delusive; for, except during these blissful walks, when the sun shone on him, and Love and Beauty soothed him, Sir Charles was not the man he had been. The shake he had received appeared to have damaged his temper strangely. He became so irritable that several of his servants left him; and to his wife he repined; and his childless condition, which had been hitherto only a deep disappointment, became in his eyes a calamity that outweighed his many blessings. He had now narrowly escaped dying without an heir, and this seemed to sink into his mind, and, co-operating with the concussion his brain had received, brought him into a morbid state. He brooded on it, and spoke of it, and got back to it from every other topic, in a way that distressed Lady Bassett unspeakably. She consoled him bravely; but often, when she was alone, her gentle courage gave way, and she cried bitterly to herself.
Her distress had one effect she little expected; it completed what her invariable kindness had begun, and actually won the heart of a servant. Those who really know that tribe will agree with me that this was a marvelous conquest. Yet so it was; Mary Wells conceived for her a real affection, and showed it by unremitting attention, and a soft and tender voice, that soothed Lady Bassett, and drew many a silent but grateful glance from her dove-like eyes.