The young man started as if he had been stung.
‘What has brought you here, Watt? No good, I fear.’
‘O my dear Jasper, there you are out. Goodness personified has brought me here—even your own pious self, sitting Bible-reading to two pretty girls. How happy could I be with either! Eh, Jasper?’
‘What do you want with me?’ asked Jasper, reddening; ‘I detest your fun.’
‘Which is it?’ taunted the mischievous boy. ‘Which—the elder, plain and dark; or the younger, beautiful as dawn? or—like the patriarch Jacob—both?’
‘Enough of this, Watt. What has brought you here?’
‘To see you, of course. I know you think me void of all Christianity, but I have that in me yet, I like to know the whereabouts of my brother, and how he is getting on. I am still with Martin—ever on the move, like the sun, like the winds, like the streams, like everything that does not stagnate.’
‘It is a hard thing for me to say,’ said Jasper, ‘but it is true. Poor Martin would be better without you. He would be another man, and his life not blighted, had it not been for your profane and mocking tongue. He was a generous-hearted fellow, thoughtless, but not wicked; you, however, have gained complete power over him, and have used it for evil. Your advice is for the bad, your sneers for what is good.’
‘I do not know good from bad,’ said the boy, with a contemptuous grin.