“Passable,” was the indifferent reply. “Good crops no longer bring me the satisfaction they did, Squire. I’ve nobody to save for now. Will you spend a day with me before you go back, young gentlemen?” he went on, turning to us. “Come on Friday. It is pretty lonely there. It wants company to enliven it.”
And we promised we would go.
He said good-bye, and I went with him, to help him over the stile into the lane, on account of his stiffness—for that was the road he meant to take to Church Dykely. In passing the ricks he laid his hand on my shoulder.
“You won’t mind a lonely day with a lonely old man?”
“We shall like it, sir. We will do our best to enliven you.”
“It is not much that will do that now, Johnny Ludlow,” said he. “When a man gets to my age, and feels his health and strength failing, it seems hard to be left all alone.”
“No doubt it does, sir. I wish you had Fred back again!” I boldly added.
“Hush, Johnny! Fred is lost to me for good. He made his own bed, you know, and is lying on it. As I have to lie on mine—such as it is. Such as he left to me!”
“Do you know where Fred is, sir?”
“Do I know where Fred is?” he repeated in a tart tone. “How should I be likely to know? How could I know? I have never heard tidings of him, good or bad, since that wretched night.”