‘And can nothing be done?’ asked the Duke.
‘Why, you see, he is back in £ s. d.; and, to make it up, the poor body must sell her all, and he won’t let her do it, and wrote a letter like a prince (No room, sir), as fine a letter as ever you read (Hilloa, there! What! are you asleep?)—as ever you read on a summer’s day. I didn’t see it, but my mother told me it was as good as e’er a one of the old gentleman’s sermons. “Mother,” said he, “my sins be upon my own head. I can bear disgrace (How do, Mr. Wilkins?), but I cannot bear to see you a beggar!”’
‘Poor fellow!’
‘Ay! sir, as good-a-hearted fellow as ever you’d wish to meet!’
‘Is he involved to a great extent, think you?’
‘Oh! a long figure, sir (I say, Betty, I’ve got a letter for you from your sweetheart), a very long figure, sir (Here, take it!); I should be sorry (Don’t blush; no message?)—I should be sorry to take two hundred pounds to pay it. No, I wouldn’t take two hundred pounds, that I wouldn’t (I say, Jacob, stop at old Bag Smith’s).’
Night came on, and the Duke resumed his inside place. Mr. Macmorrogh went to sleep over his son’s article; and the Duke feigned slumber, though he was only indulging in reverie. He opened his eyes, and a light, which they passed, revealed the countenance of the widow. Tears were stealing down her face.
‘I have no mother; I have no one to weep for me,’ thought the Duke; ‘and yet, if I had been in this youth’s station, my career probably would have been as fatal. Let me assist her. Alas! how I have misused my power, when, even to do this slight deed, I am obliged to hesitate, and consider whether it be practicable.’
The coach again stopped for a quarter of an hour. The Duke had, in consideration of the indefinite period of his visit, supplied himself amply with money on repairing to Dacre. Besides his purse, which was well stored for the road, he had somewhat more than three hundred pounds in his notebook. He took advantage of their tarrying, to inclose it and its contents in a sheet of paper with these lines:
‘An unknown friend requests Mrs. Burnet to accept this token of his sympathy with suffering virtue.’