“It’s I, Isaac,” said Harry, “angry enough if that would do me any good.”
“It’s you, Mr. Harry! that was what I thought. No, it does little good; but so long as you wear it off in the feet of ye, my lad, and keep it out o’ th’ other end—”
“It’s very easy talking! Keep it out of the other end! I would like to know for my part,” cried the young man, glad of utterance, “why old folks should go against young folks in the way they do. It’s like a disease, as if they couldn’t help it. The more reasonable a thing is, the more they don’t see it. It’s enough to make a fellow break with everything, and take himself off to the end of the earth.”
“There might be sense in that—if the ends of th’ earth would take ye from yoursel’, Mr. Harry. But that’s queer talking for the like of you that have always had your own gate.” He had come close up to the young man and was gazing keenly up at him. “Have you no had your ain gate? I dreamt it then. T’ auld maister was o’ that mind.”
“Uncle Henry?—Isaac, you’re a good old fellow—you’ve always been kind to me; but don’t talk nonsense, if you please. Uncle Henry of that mind! did he ever let me do anything I wanted to do? from the day I went to him till the day I left.”
“Tut, tut, Mr. Harry, he always wished you weel—always weel; and if you have patience, you’ll get it all, every penny; just have patience,” the new-comer said, patting Harry’s arm coaxingly. And then he drew a little closer, still with his fingers on Harry’s arm. “And where may you be going, my braw lad, at this hour of the night with your face turned from home?”
“Going? what does it matter where I am going. I don’t mind if it was into the river there, or out of the world. Well, if you will have it, I’m going to the ‘Red Lion’ to rest a bit and come to myself.”
At this Isaac shook his head; he went on shaking it as if he had been a little mechanical figure, which could not stop itself if once started. “T’auld maister would never have allowed that,” he said.
“What do I care for the auld master? I’m my own master, and nobody shall stand in my way,” cried Harry, putting his hand in his turn on Isaac’s arm, and swinging him out of the path. He was impatient of the interruption. “I’ll go where I have a mind and bide where I have a mind, and I would like to know who’ll stop me,” he cried.
Isaac thus suddenly wheeled about and taken by surprise, went spinning across the road, recovering himself with an effort. But he did not show any anger. He stood looking after the young man as soon as he had recovered his balance with a “Tck—tck—tck” of his tongue against the roof of his mouth. “It’s my duty to see after him,” old Isaac said, at length, slowly shuffling along in the young man’s steps. There was a certain satisfaction in his tone. The “Red Lion” was forbidden ground—still if there was a motive, a suitable reason for it. “Ay, ay,” said Isaac to himself, “a plain duty; so far as I can tell, there’s never a one to look the gate he’s going but only me.”