Perhaps it had never struck the Squire before how much he was to be envied; but Marks put it strongly. “You’d find crosses and cares enough in my place, I can tell you, Marks, of one sort or another. Johnny, here, knows how I am bothered sometimes.”
“No doubt of it,” replied Marks, with a smile. “No lot on earth can be free from its duties and responsibilities; and they must of necessity entail care. That is one thing, Mr. Todhetley; but to be working away your life at high pressure—and to know that you are working it away—is another.”
“You acknowledge, then, that you are working too hard, Marks,” said the Squire.
“I know I am, sir. But there’s no help for it.”
“It is a pity.”
“Why it should begin to tell upon me so early I don’t know. There are numbers of other men, who work as long and as hard as I do, and are seemingly none the worse for it.”
“The time will come though when they will be, I presume.”
“As surely as that sun is shining in the sky.”
“Possibly you have been more anxious than they, Marks.”
“It may be so. My conscience has always been in my work, to do it efficiently. I fear, too, I am rather sensitively organized as to nerves and brain. Upon those who are so, I fancy work tells sooner than on others.”