“Well, is that all?”
“And enough,” cried Learmont, angrily. “Have I ever resisted your demands?”
“No.”
“Have I ever limited your calls upon my purse?”
“No; but how d—d moderate I’ve been—think of that.”
“But—but Britton—there was a time when you were not deaf to all reason; hear me now.”
“You cannot complain of me, so long as I freely administer to your real and fancied wants. Wherefore, then, should I run a fearful and terrible risk daily from your excesses? You admit—you must admit—that I, to the very spirit and letter, fulfil my contract with you; and yet I run a fearful risk—a risk which can do you no manner of good. What, if you were to die, Andrew Britton? You are a man of wild excesses; I say, if you were to die? Is the end of all my compliances with your demands to be my destruction, when you can desire no more? Speak! How do you warrant me against so hard a condition?”
“I don’t warrant you at all,” said Britton. “Recollect you forced me to it. What was I? The smith of Learmont. I toiled day and night; and they called me ‘a savage’ and why? because I was in your toils—I did a piece of work for you that—”
“Hush! Hush!” gasped Learmont.
“Oh, you are delicate, and don’t like it mentioned. I am not so nice—I murdered for you squire, and you know it. What was my reward? Toil—toil—and you know that too. You taunted me with my guilt and crime. Once, squire, when I threw in your teeth, that the same halter that was made for me, would fit your worshipful neck, you told me that I flattered myself, for that the word of a right worshipful squire, would outweigh the oath of a smith, and cursed me for a fool, but I believed you, and put up with it, till that sneaking hound, Gray, came to me.”