“Bah!” said Mr Raydon, furiously. “How can I think otherwise, when I see you holding half-secret meetings with that man Gunson, who returns in force to destroy this place? Well, my lad, I wish you joy of your share, but, mark my words, this gold-seeking is miserable gambling, the work of men who will not see that the real way to find gold is in genuine honest work. Take the gold-seekers all round, and they would have made more of the precious metal by planting corn than by this digging and washing in the river-beds.”
“Then you will not believe me, sir?”
“I cannot, my lad, after what I have seen,” he said. “Your conduct has not seemed to me manly and frank.”
“I have tried to be, sir,” I cried.
“And failed, boy. The temptation of the gold has proved to be too much for you.”
I stood silent now, for I could not speak. I wanted to say a great deal, but there was a swelling in my throat—a hot feeling of indignation and misery combined kept me tongue-tied, and above all there was a guilty feeling that he was just.
“As for you,” Mr Raydon continued, turning to Esau, “I shall not waste words upon you. Of course you agreed with your companion, but you would both have done better for yourselves as lads, and earned better positions in life, by being faithful to me, than by letting yourselves be led away by this miserable temptation.”
“I ain’t done nothing,” said Esau; “I only—”
“That will do,” cried Mr Raydon, fiercely, cutting him short. “Now go.”
“All right, sir,” said Esau; and now I found my tongue again.