“A struggling prairie farmer,” said Witham quietly. “The son of an English country doctor, who died in penury, and one who, from your point of view, could never have been entitled to more than courteous toleration from any of you.”
He stopped, but—for the astonishment was passing—there was negation in the murmurs which followed, while somebody said, “Go on!”
Dane stood up. “I fancy our comrade is mistaken,” he said. “Whatever he may have been, we recognize our debt to him. Still, I think he owes us a more complete explanation.”
Then Maud Barrington, sitting where all could see her, signed imperiously to Alfreton, who was on his feet next moment, with Macdonald and more of the men following him.
“I,” he said with a little ring in his voice and a flush in his young face, “owe him everything, and I’m not the only one. This, it seems to me, is the time to acknowledge it.”
Barrington checked him with a gesture. “Sit down, all of you. Painful and embarrassing as it is, now we have gone so far, this affair must be elucidated. It would be better if you told us more.”
Witham drew back a chair, and when Courthorne moved, the man who sat next to him laid a grasp on his arm. “You will oblige me by not making any remarks just now,” he said dryly. “When Colonel Barrington wants to hear anything from you he’ll ask you.”
“There is little more,” said Witham. “I could see no hope in the old country, and came out to this one with one hundred pounds, a distant connexion lent me. That sum will not go very far anywhere, as I found when, after working for other men, I bought stock and took up Government land. To hear how I tried to do three men’s work for six weary years, and at times went for months together half-fed, might not interest you, though it has its bearing on what came after. The seasons were against me, and I had not the dollars to tide me over the time of drought and blizzard until a good one came. Still, though my stock died, and I could scarcely haul in the little wheat the frost and hail left me, with my worn-out team, I held on, feeling that I could achieve prosperity if I once had the chances of other men.”
He stopped a moment, and Macdonald poured out a glass of wine and passed it across to him in a fashion that made the significance of what he did evident.
“We know what kind of a struggle you made by what we have seen at Silverdale,” he said.