"Ay, he has been here, and brought me good news, doctor. He has tracked out that villain Ralph; and, before the month is out, I hope he will be hanging as high as Haman."
"Ay, now," said Doctor M'Feely, with some hesitation, "that's just what I wanted to talk about. I can't help thinking, my lord, that your lordship is mistaken about Master Ralph; I don't think any thing on earth would have made that young man draw a sword upon your son. Besides, I have letters from his father, and from the good Doctor ----, the vicar of the parish. They both say that they are sure he did not do it--nay, more, that it was impossible; and, moreover--"
"Is the man mad?" exclaimed Lord Woodhall, starting up from his seat with a look of indescribable fury in his countenance, "or would he drive me mad? Was not the challenge sent, man? Did he not say that he would come? Was not the hour appointed? Was not my son killed? Will you persuade me that my poor boy is still alive, when I saw him cold, and stiff, and white, in his bloody coffin? Of what would you persuade me? Henry was killed--at night I--without witnesses--Ralph Woodhall killed him; and I will have vengeance."
The last words were uttered with a shout, and the old man's face was contorted with passion; but Doctor M'Feely, though not very clerical in all his habits, was roused, and felt himself at that moment the minister of the Gospel; and he replied, in a solemn and warning tone, "Vengeance is mine: I will repay, saith the Lord."
The next moment he stood in the hall; and then, taking up his hat and cane, he quitted the house.
A little more than a week after the period of which I have just been speaking, Doctor M'Feely stood in his small rectory-house, a few miles from the town of Dorchester, and looked about him with evident complacence. There was a boy in deep mourning, about fifteen years of age, standing by his side; and the house was completely furnished, plainly, but very neatly. The doctor was in high good humor; every thing was somewhat better than he expected; the glebe good, and largely measured; the house solid, and wanting no repair; the small tithes as well as the large were his, and some of them had come in, so that he was not likely to want butter and eggs in a hurry. There was a prospect, in short, of pleasant abundance before him, and, what is still better, blessed independence. At that moment he did not care a rush for the whole world.
"Well, my dear," he said to the boy, "and what does your mother ask for the whole of this?"
"She says she thinks, sir, two hundred pounds," replied the boy, modestly.
"Pooh! pooh!" cried Doctor M'Feely, with some little acquired feelings of parsimony hanging about him, "a hundred and fifty is quite enough."
"The furniture, the cart, and the garden things cost my poor father four hundred not eighteen months ago," replied the boy, with a sigh.