"I am afraid your informant was drawing the longbow a little," said John; "for there's no appearance of that state of affairs about my wife's cousin. Of course, being a farmer out there, as he was, he had his land and stock, and all that sort of thing. But from what he tells me, land and stock don't fetch much money in that part of the world when it comes to be sold. And it was nothing but a rough sort of log-house they lived in up to the time of their coming away."
"I daresay you are right," said Tom. "Those fellows who come home for a spree, or for business, as Brooks did, are apt to crack up one another. And it doesn't matter to us whether Wilson is rich or poor, does it?"
"Not a bit," said John; "only if he has got enough to start himself in some sort of way, when he gets well enough to attend to business, it will be a good thing. And if not, why, I must lend him a helping hand."
"You had better take care what you are about, though," said Richard Grigson. "I have nothing to say about Walter Wilson, for I know nothing about him more than I knew twenty years ago, and he was a fine, straightforward enough young follow then, only more than a little pigheaded. But about the Wilsons generally—well, they know how to get their pennyworth for their penny. I am speaking of Walter's father and brothers, mind; not of Walter himself."
Now this conversation, and the further insight into character that it gives, will, perhaps, partly account for certain anxiety which evinced itself in Matthew Wilson a day or two afterwards, when he made it his business to call upon our friend Tincroft at the Manor House.
In those two or three days, John, with commendable delicacy, had abstained from intruding himself upon the family at Low Beech, excepting so far as to be assured that his friend Walter was comfortably domiciled in his old home, and had all the attentions paid him that were rendered necessary by his state of health, or rather of unhealth. He knew, too, that there had been meetings between Walter and his brothers, both at their own homes and at a family gathering at Low Beech, to which even the offending George had been admitted, where, if not the fatted calf, several plump fowls were duly sacrificed in honour of the reunion. All this John knew, but he was not exactly prepared for the visit he received one day, when the following colloquy, or something like it, took place.
"You keep yourself pretty much to yourself, Mr. Tincroft," said the farmer, when he had ensconced himself in the old arm-chair in Mr. Richard's library, of which John had naturally taken possession for the time being, and in which he had free range.
"Oh, I knew Walter was in good hands," said John. "He has his mother and sister to look after him; and he must have a great deal to talk about with you all; and—and, in short—I didn't wish to intrude."
"No intrusion at all, Mr. Tincroft; it wouldn't have been any intrusion. Aren't we a sort of relations? It's your wife's—Sarah's—uncle I am, you know."
"True," replied John; "and if I thought it would have been any pleasure or gratification, I would have called oftener. But I didn't know, you see; and under the circumstances, you understand, I felt convinced you would prefer having Walter's company alone."