"It never answers," said Captain Morgan, "to give an opinion without knowledge of the facts. You are a clever fellow, Roland, but not so clever as that comes to. You will find, Hester, that round every human creature you come across, there is some kind of a world hanging 'bound with gold chains about the feet of——' That is the most uncomfortable metaphor I know. I wonder what Mr. Tennyson could have been thinking of? Did he think that this round world was hanging on like a big ball, hampering the going of God, do you suppose? But there is something of that kind, true enough, with men."
"If you mean that for me," said the old lady, smiling, "you are wrong, Rowley. God knows my heart yearns after them all, great and small, and it is the greatest refreshment and no hampering, to hear about them all—their pleasures and their troubles. What hurts me is to keep it all in and ask no questions, as so often I have to do."
The old captain shook his head. He kept on shaking it gently.
"We have argued that question a great many times," he said, "but I am not convinced."
What was evident was, that he intended this conversation which had been so animated and pleasant to come to an end. He could not surely be unkind? But he placed himself, as it were, in the midst of the current, and stopped its flowing. A sensation of vexed displeasure and disappointment with her old friend whom she loved rose in Hester's mind. Was it like him to reject the kindness of kin, to limit his wife in her affections, to turn a cold shoulder on his grandson? And yet all these things he seemed to do. "Roland" on the other side (she knew no other name for him), had been silenced. He had scarcely attempted to speak since the old man took that place in front of the fire, from which his shadow fell like a dark pillar across the room, dividing the side on which Mrs. Morgan sat with Hester beside her, from the other on which was the new being with whom Hester had already formed an almost intimate acquaintance she felt, though she did not know his name and had not seen his face. This very uncertainty pleased her imagination, and inclined her to the new-comer. But it was embarrassing to find herself in the midst of a scene, where so many confusing uncomprehended elements were at work, and where something which was not family harmony and peace lay evidently under the surface. When she rose up to go away, the unknown rose too; but the captain was on the alert.
"You can now go back to your gossip," he said, "my dear: for I mean to see Hester round the corner."
"No, Captain Morgan. It is very damp, and your rheumatism——"
"Bah! my rheumatism. There are worse things than my rheumatism," he said, bustling to get his coat.
"Might I not replace you, grandfather? It would be a pleasure, and I have no rheumatism."