What then was before him? Old age? What was old age without friends, without children, without love, without respect and with memory--that last joy of a man's declining days--like a poisoned river running through a wasted land?
Was there nothing before him then? Yes, there was one thing--one only--and as he lay in that room alone with his head over his hands on the table, he had the trembling, thrilling, palpitating sense of supernatural wings hovering above him, and of an awful voice that seemed to say, "THE WAGES OF SIN IS DEATH!"
At that moment he became aware of other voices--more human and homely voices--murmuring about him, and one of them said, "He has fallen asleep, poor gentleman," and another, "He has drunk too much, perhaps." Then a hand touched him on the shoulder and somebody cried in his ear:
"Hadn't you better go to bed, sir?"
It was his mother, with Magnus behind her, and looking at both he could see that they supposed he was intoxicated. In the wild laboring of heart and brain, it suited him that they should continue to think so, and indeed the strain of nerve had been so hard that when he rose to his feet he staggered like a drunken man.
"Heigho! What's this?" he laughed. "Your brennie-vin must be pretty heady, landlady. But no matter! It will be a good nightcap and make me sleep the sounder. I'm tired, very tired, but I'm going to have a long sleep at last--a long, long sleep at last."
"But to-morrow will be New Year's Day," said Anna. "The bells ring at daybreak, and the Sheriff will be here soon after, so you'll have to be stirring early if you want to be ready for the auction."
"Why, so I shall--I had forgotten all about it--and since we can not agree about the girl I must buy the farm whatever happens. I told you I wanted it for a particular purpose, but I didn't say what it was. It's my secret, landlady, but I don't mind telling you. I want it for my mother."
"Your mother?"
"That's so! She was born in these parts, and the poor old thing would like to end her days here."