"Don't fox yourself to think so. Your children haven't any use for their father and never will have. He's done for himself with them—all but Auna—and when she's old enough to see the sense of it, no doubt she will."
"Jeremy's right," said Jane. "You mustn't think that, Margery. The boys and Avis always did care a lot more for you than their father. They never hit it, and you knew it, if Jacob did not."
"He knew it very well; but it didn't alter his feeling for them. He'll do the right thing by all of them, however they treat him," argued the other.
"You may think so, but John Henry's a great fool for turning his father down as he does all the same," declared her brother. "The man's not made of patience, and as to justice, the less we say about justice the better, when we think of you and look at you now."
"I've told John Henry to see his father; I've told him half a dozen times on the quiet," said Margery. "For his own sake he should."
Elsewhere, by a coincidence, this very thing that they desired was happening, for John Henry had met Jacob's ancient friend and been firmly directed to pay his injured parent a visit. He obeyed, being the more inclined to do so for private ends; and while Bullstone first felt satisfaction at the visit, his pleasure presently waned, since it became apparent that not concern for his father alone had brought John Henry.
He hoped that Jacob was better; but this was not what interested him.
"'Tis a very good thing you weren't killed," he said, "and I expect you'll have the law of that lunatic and win this time. He didn't ought to be at large, for he's cunning and wicked. He may do something like this again and bring it off next time."
"I've gone through all that with Adam Winter, his brother. You needn't trouble on that score. It's all part and parcel of other things, and there's no fear that Samuel would assault anybody but me. I've told his brother that I won't take any step in the matter, or have him put away. He's not the only one who has been revenged against me, John Henry. At any rate he did it openly."
"It's all very wretched and I'm sick of the subject, and I wish it could be dropped," said his son; "and it's a thousand pities that you can't go farther off from Brent, or else mother can't be took away out of it. There's a talk of her going to Uncle Lawrence, and it would be a blessing if she did, for she's growing to a thread-paper and getting as weak as a rabbit. Of course you can't go, I suppose; but she might, and they ought to take her."