"Yes, you have. Although you quarrel with Deoffam, it is the change to it—the air of the place—that has renewed your health, you ungrateful boy!"
Mr. Ashley's eyes were bent lovingly on Henry's as he said it. Henry seized his father's hands, his half-mocking tone exchanged for one of earnestness.
"Not ungrateful, sir—far from it. I know the value of my dear father: that a kinder or a better one son could not possess. I shall grumble on to my life's end. It is my amusement. But the grumbling is from my lips only: not from my fractious spirit, as it was in days gone by."
"I have remarked that: remarked it with deep thankfulness. You have acquired a victory over that fractious spirit."
"For which the chief thanks are due to William Halliburton. Sir, it is so. But for him, most probably I should have gone, a discontented wretch, to the—let me be poetical for once—silent tomb: never seeking out either the light or the love that may be found in this world."
Mr. Ashley glanced at his son. He saw that he was contending with emotion, although he had reassumed his bantering tone.
"Henry, what light—what love?"
"The light and the love that a man may take into his own spirit. He—William—told me, years ago, that I might make even my life a pleasant and a useful one; and measureless was the ridicule I gave him for it. But I have found that he was right. When William came to the house one night, a humble errand-boy, sent by Samuel Lynn with a note—do you remember it, sir?—and offered to help me, dunce that I was, with my Latin exercise—a help I graciously condescended to accept—we little thought what a blessing had entered the dwelling."
"We little thought what a brave, honest, indomitable spirit was enshrined in the humble errand-boy," continued Mr. Ashley.
"He has got on as he deserved. He will be a worthy successor to you, sir: a second Thomas Ashley; a far better one than I should ever have been, had I possessed the rudest health. There's only one thing more for William to gain, and then I expect he will be at rest."