"Ah, but he hasn't," returned Matthew; "I tried to get it out of him, too. But when I happened to say to him 'I reckon you have come home with your pocket pretty well lined?' he drew in his horns, and said he supposed he had got enough to last him as long as he lived. So I thought, maybe, you could tell me a little about it."
John did not reply, and the old man went on.
"You see, 'tis likely that Walter won't last long; he may and he mayn't. But say, suppose he shouldn't—and he looks mortal bad at times—there's his girl that he has brought over with him. Now, she's kith and kin to me and my dame—there's no denying it. And say that there's something to come to her afterwards, why, I reckon I am the proper one to look after it. You see that, Mr. Tincroft?"
"Yes, I see, I see," said John, shutting his eyes notwithstanding, which he sometimes did when he had a hard problem to solve.
"And as I thought, and so did my dame, that mayhap you could give us a little insight into it."
"Look you, Mr. Wilson," responded John, who had by this time opened his eyes again, the problem being solved; "your son and my friend Walter may be as rich as Crœsus, for anything I know to the contrary."
"Crœsus? Oh, you mean old Creasy of Rick Hall; I didn't think you knew him. Well, to be sure, people said he was rich; but when he died they found out their mistake, just as I always said they would," said old Matthew.
"Well," continued John, despairingly, "your son may be as rich as old Creasy was thought to be, or as poor as Lazarus; but all I can say is, I know very little about his circumstances. And it strikes me—does it not you, Mr. Wilson?—that Walter is the proper person to speak to on the subject."
Manifestly Matthew did not think so. At any rate, he went on: "I am a plain man, Mr. Tincroft, and have worked hard all my life—so has my dame—to get together what little there is to keep us going, and against a rainy day, maybe. We have got other boys, too, besides Walter, though one of them has not behaved as he ought to have done; he did me out of High Beech, George did—or his wife did, by putting him up to it, as my mistress says; but, any way, it was done by him. And then there's Elizabeth, and she not married, and not likely to be. You understand what I mean, Mr. Tincroft?"
John didn't understand; and he hinted as much.