“And can you not fancy, Garnet, that my son, whatever he is, may also be dear to me?”
“I should have said so, I must have thought so, but for the way you have treated him.”
Bull Garnet knew well enough that he was a hot and hasty man; but he seldom had felt that truth more sharply than now, when he saw the result of his words. Nevertheless, he faltered not. He had made up his mind to deliver its thoughts, and he was not the man to care for faces.
“Sir Cradock Nowell, I am a violent, hot, and passionate man. I have done many things in my fury which I would give my life to undo; but I would rather have them all on my soul than such cold–blooded, calm, unnatural cruelty as you have shown to your only—I mean to your own—son. I suppose you never cared for him; suppose! I mean of course you did not.”
He looked at Sir Cradock Nowell, with thunder and hail in his eyes. The old man could not glance it back; neither did he seem to be greatly indignant at it.
“Then—then—I suppose you donʼt think—you donʼt believe, I mean, Garnet—that he did it on purpose?”
Mr. Garnet turned pale as a winding–sheet, and could not speak for a moment. Then he looked away from Sir Cradockʼs eyes, and asked, “Is it possible that you have ever thought so?”
“I have tried not,” answered Sir Cradock, with his wasted bosom heaving. “God knows that I have struggled against it. Garnet, have pity upon me. If you have any of our blood in you, tell me the truth, what you think.”
“I not only think, but know, that the devil only could have suggested such an idea to you. Man, for the sake of the God that made you, and made me as well as your brother, and every one of us brethren, rather put a pistol to your heart than that damned idea. In cold blood! in cold blood! And for the sake of gain! A brother to—do away with—a brother so! Oh, what things have come upon me! Where is my God, and where is yours?”
“I am sure I donʼt know,” replied the old man, gazing round in wonderment, as if he expected to see Him—for the scene had quite unnerved him—“I suppose He is—is somewhere in the usual place, Mr. Garnet.”