"But I do though, Mr Reid, and that most distinctly. It is he, and no other, I assure you, who has done you this friendly service."
"Then, if it be so, I know not what to say to it, Mr Langridge. I can say nothing. I trust, however, I shall not be found wanting on the score of gratitude. I can say no more. But will you be so good as inform me, if you can, how the good man has come to do me so friendly a service? Who on earth, or what is he?"
"Sit down, sit down, Mr Reid, and I'll answer all your questions—I'll tell you all about him," replied Mr Langridge.
Mr Reid having complied with this invitation, the latter began:—
"The history of the old stone-breaker, my good sir, is a very short and a very simple one. It contains no vicissitude, and to few, besides ourselves, would be found possessing any particular interest. Your friend was, in his youth, a soldier, and served, I believe, in the American war. At his return home on the conclusion of that war, he was discharged, still a young man, and shortly after married a woman with a fortune" (smilingly) "of some five-and-twenty or thirty pounds. With this sum the thrifty pair purchased two or three cows, and commenced the business of cowfeeders. They prospered; for they were both saving and industrious, and, in time, realized a considerable sum of money, which they went on increasing. This they invested in house property from time to time, till their possessions of this kind became very valuable.
"For upwards of forty years they continued in this way, when Mrs Lumsden died, leaving her husband a lonely widower; for they had no children. On the death of the former, the latter, who was now an old man, and unequal to conducting, alone, the business in which his wife's activity and industry had hitherto aided him, sold off his cows, and proposed to live in retirement on the rents of his property; and this he did for some time. Accustomed, however, to a life of constant labour and exertion, the old man soon found the idleness on which he had thrown himself, intolerably irksome. He became miserable from a mere want of having something to do. While in this state of ennui, chancing one day to stroll into the country, (this is what he told me himself,) he saw some labouring men knapping stones by the way-side; and strange as the fancy may seem, he was instantly struck with a desire of taking to this occupation. He did so, and has, from that day to the present, now upwards of ten years, pursued it with as much assiduity as if it was his only resource for a subsistence. He has, as I already told you, no family of his own; neither has he, I believe, any relation living; or, if there be, they must be very remote; and, as he strictly confines his expenditure to his daily earnings as a stone-breaker—some ninepence a-day, I believe—his wealth is rapidly increasing, and is, at this moment, no trifle, I assure you. Now, my good sir, when I tell you that I am the law agent of this strange, eccentric person, and that I manage all his business for him, I have told you everything about him that is worth mentioning."
"There is just one thing, Mr Langridge," said Mr Reid, who had been an attentive listener to the tale just told him, "that wants explanation: can you give me the smallest shadow of a reason for the part he has acted towards me?"
"Nay, there you puzzle me; I cannot. It appears as unaccountable to me as to you, although I have known Mr Lumsden now for upwards of fifteen years."
"Did you ever know him do a thing of this kind before?"
"Never! and I must say candidly, that, although he is by no means deficient in kindness of heart, notwithstanding his rough exterior, I did not believe him capable of such an act of generosity."