"Well, sir," says I, finishing my letter with a flourish, and setting it aside. "How do you fare?"
He raised his hands, and dropped them like so much lead on his knees, casting up his eyes and giving a doleful shake of his head for a reply.
"Nothing is amiss at the Court, I pray--your lady Mistress Godwin is well?"
"I know not, friend," says he. "She hath taken my keys, denied me entrance to her house, and left me no privilege of my office save the use of the lodge house. Thus am I treated like a faithless servant, after toiling night and day all these years, and for her advantage, rather than mine own."
"That has to be proved, Mr. Steward," says I, severely; "for you must admit that up to this present she has had no reason to love you, seeing that, had her fate been left in your hands, she would now be in Barbary, and like to end her days there. How, then, can she think but that you had some selfish, wicked end in denying her the service we, who are strangers, have rendered her?"
"Thee speakest truth, friend, and yet thee knowest that I observed only the righteous prudence of an honest servant."
"We will say no more on that head, but you may rest assured on my promise--knowing as I do the noble, generous nature of your mistress--that if she has done you wrong in suspecting you of base purpose, she will be the first to admit her fault and offer you reparation."
"I seek no reparation, no reward, nothing in the world but the right to cherish this estate," cries he, in passion; and, upon my looking at him very curiously, as not understanding the motive of such devotion, he continues: "Thee canst not believe me, and yet truly I am neither a liar nor a madman. What do others toil for? A wife--children--friends--the gratification of ambition or lust! I have no kith or kin, no ambition, no lust; but this estate is wife, child, everything, to me. 'Tis like some work of vanity,--a carved image that a man may give his whole life to making, and yet die content if he achieves but some approach to the creation of his soul. I have made this estate out of nothing; it hath grown larger and larger, richer and more rich, in answer to my skill; why should I not love it, and put my whole heart in the accomplishment of my design, with the same devotion that you admire in the maker of graven images?"
Despite his natural infirmities, Simon delivered this astonishing rhapsody with a certain sort of vehemence that made it eloquent; and indeed, strange as his passion was, I could not deny that it was as reasonable in its way as any nobler act of self-sacrifice.
"I begin to understand you, Mr. Steward," says I.