“Yes, good woman, you, at least, are not a stranger to me; you may do me partial justice; when others revile me possibly your feelings may lead you to say something in my defense.”
“That I will; that I would!” said Katy, eagerly. “I will defend you, Harvey, to the last drop; let me hear them that dare to revile you! You say true, Harvey, I am partial and just to you; what if you do like the king? I have often heard it said he was at the bottom a good man; but there’s no religion in the old country, for everybody allows the ministers are desperate bad!”
The peddler paced the floor in evident distress of mind; his eyes had a look of wildness that Katy had never witnessed before, and his step was measured, with a dignity that appalled the housekeeper.
“While my father lived,” murmured Harvey, unable to smother his feelings, “there was one who read my heart, and oh! what a consolation to return from my secret marches of danger, and the insults and wrongs that I suffered, to receive his blessing and his praise; but he is gone,” he continued, stopping and gazing wildly towards the corner that used to hold the figure of his parent, “and who is there to do me justice?”
“Why, Harvey! Harvey!”
“Yes, there is one who will, who must know me before I die! Oh! it is dreadful to die, and leave such a name behind me.”
“Don’t talk of dying, Harvey,” said the spinster, glancing her eye around the room, and pushing the wood in the fire to obtain a light from the blaze.
The ebullition of feeling in the peddler was over. It had been excited by the events of the past day, and a vivid perception of his sufferings. It was not long, however, that passion maintained an ascendency ever the reason of this singular man; and perceiving that the night had already thrown an obscurity around objects without doors, he hastily threw his pack over his shoulders, and taking Katy kindly by the hand, in leavetaking,—
“It is painful to part with even you, good woman,” he said, “but the hour has come, and I must go. What is left in the house is yours; to me it could be of no use, and it may serve to make you more comfortable. Farewell—we shall meet hereafter.”
“In the regions of darkness!” cried a voice that caused the peddler to sink on the chest from which he had risen, in despair.