"I do not understand what you allude to," answered the sheriff. "What did he do?"
"No matter, no matter," answered Mr. Wheatley. "I cannot enter into particulars; but he grossly and grievously insulted an excellent lady, the wife of his dearest friend, while her husband was absent on a sporting trip. It was within my hearing, though he did not know I was near. That was enough to sicken me of him; but when I afterwards found that he contrived to slay Uriah the Hittite with the sword of the Philistines, then Sir ----. But here come the ladies to announce breakfast, I do hope; for that is a much pleasanter thing to discuss than what we are discussing.--Miss Davenport, I kiss your shoe-strings."
"Mr. Wheatley, I never wear shoe-strings," answered Bessy.
"Then may your shadow never be less!" rejoined Mr. Wheatley.
"God grant it!" cried Bessy; "for it is little enough already." And we all laughed and went in to breakfast. It is wonderful how the human mind recovers from the most severe shocks. There is an elasticity, a buoyancy, about it which no one knows or believes, till he has remarked closely what I may call the evenings of the terrible days of human life. Some dreadful event has happened--some ghastly, sweeping desolation--something which has shaken all hearts with anxiety, or chilled them with fear. A few hours have passed: the event is over, the deed done, the consequences ascertained; the whole thing is fixed, firm, and certain, beyond all recall; and though a certain portion of sad remembrance, a mourning spirit, if I may so call it, remains like a cloud, yet every now and then the corruscation of a smile or a jest enlivens the gloom; the tears dry up in the re-awakening sunshine, and shade by shade the fragments of the cloud depart. To call our little breakfast-party gay, would be to apply a wrong epithet. Yet it was not altogether uncheerful--far more cheerful than might be expected by those who consider nothing but the dreadful scenes gone before. They very naturally leave out of consideration all the bright reaction which takes place in the human heart when it finds itself suddenly freed from the weight of dread and horror and anxiety for the next moment; when security and peace are restored, and the spirit springs up, and rejoices in the removal of evils and terrors which once clouded the prospect all around. In the moral as in the physical world, nature re-acts against oppression. Look at the thunder-storm, with its heavy clouds and its darkened sky, the flash, the roar, and the deluge; and then see the clouds rolled away, and the blue sky smiling above, and the sun shining in his splendour, and every drop upon the blades of grass sending back, like diamonds, the cheerful rays he casts upon them. It is true, that, as we sat round the table, it was not all brightness. Moments of sombre thought would fall upon us; impressions of great calamities past; recollections of things that never were to be more; and the shadows which the experience of danger and sorrow ever projects upon the future. Still, these were but the shadows of the fragments of past clouds, and the sunlight of the relieved mind shone out bright between. After breakfast, Mr. Wheatley, and the sheriff, and myself walked quietly out into the porch, to re-discuss the subject which had been broken off an hour before. The kindness of the worthy magistrate's heart was strongly evinced in this instance.
"I have no great love for William Thornton," he said; "I never have had; still it is a sad thing to see writs, or executions, or foreclosures, put in force against a man lying in a dangerous, if not a dying, state, from a severe wound. Now, I think you have said, Mr. Wheatley, that you did not mind for your own share in the business, if you could secure your partner."
"Rather a hard case, sheriff," replied Mr. Wheatley, with one of his short laughs. "I have breakfasted since, and have, of course, grown hard-hearted. Nothing like an empty stomach for tenderness towards anything, except broiled fowls or cold lamb. However, I won't go back from what I said. If he can secure Mr. Griswold, I will take my chance out of the sweepings."
"I have no doubt," said the sheriff, "that Miss Davenport will advance the money to repay your friend."
"No! no!" cried Mr. Wheatley, with a burst of eager feeling which I had not expected from him. "She shall not do it--I will not take it from her. He insulted and outraged her mother; he brought on the death of her father to conceal what he had done; he was, more or less, the murderer of the one and of the other, for grief killed her, and the pistol killed him; and the daughter shall not be called upon, with my consent, to save him from the consequences of his own folly or his own faults."
"Well, Mr. Wheatley," I said, interposing before the sheriff could reply. "Another means, perhaps, may be found. Suppose I advance the money, and place myself in the position of your friend, who originally lent it."