At this rose a great shout.
"I thank you, my friends," he continued. "My desire is that every soul upon land of mine should carry himself to Duncan MacPhail as if he were in blood that which he is in deed and in truth—my grandfather."
A second great shout arose, which wavered and sank when they saw the old man bow his head upon his hands.
He went on to speak of the privileges he alone of all his race had ever enjoyed—the privileges of toil and danger, with all their experiences of human dependence and divine aid; the privilege of the confidence and companionship of honorable laboring men, and the understanding of their ways and thoughts and feelings; and, above all, the privilege of the friendship and instruction of the schoolmaster, to whom he owed more than eternity could reveal.
Then he turned again to his narrative, and told how his father, falsely informed that his wife and child were dead, married Florimel's mother; how his mother, out of compassion for both of them, held her peace; how for twenty years she had lived with her cousin, Miss Horn, and held her peace even from her; how at last, when, having succeeded to the property, she heard he was coming to the House, the thought of his nearness, yet unapproachableness—in this way at least he, the child of both, interpreted the result—so worked upon a worn and enfeebled frame that she died.
Then he told how Miss Horn, after his mother's death, came upon letters revealing the secret which she had all along known must exist, but after which, from love and respect for her cousin, she had never inquired.
Last of all, he told how, in a paroxysm of rage, Mrs. Catanach had let the secret of his birth escape her; how she had afterward made affidavit concerning it; and how his father had upon his deathbed, with all necessary legal observances, acknowledged him his son and heir.
"And now, to the mighty gladness of my soul," he said, looking on Florimel at his side, "my dearly-loved and honored sister—loved and honored long before I knew she was my own—has accepted me as her brother, and I do not think she greatly regrets the loss of the headship of the house which she has passed over to me. She will lose little else. And of all women, it may well be to her a small matter to lose a mere title, seeing she is so soon to change her name for one which will bring her honor of a more enduring reality. For he who is about to become her husband is not only one of the noblest of men, but a man of genius whose praises she will hear on all sides. One of his works, the labor and gift of love, you shall see when we rise from the table. It is a portrait of your late landlord, my father, painted partly from a miniature, partly from my sister, partly from the portraits of the family, and partly, I am happy to think, from myself. You must yourselves judge of the truth of it. And you will remember that Mr. Lenorme never saw my father: I say this, not to excuse, but to enhance his work.
"My tenants, I will do my best to give you fair play. My friend and factor, Mr. Crathie, has confided to me his doubts whether he may not have been a little hard: he is prepared to reconsider some of your cases. Do not imagine that I am going to be a careless man of business. I want money, for I have enough to do with it, if only to set right much that is wrong. But let God judge between you and me.
"My fishermen, every honest man of you is my friend, and you shall know it. Between you and me that is enough. But for the sake of harmony and right and order, and that I may keep near you, I shall appoint three men of yourselves in each village to whom any man or woman may go with request or complaint. If two of those three men judge the matter fit to refer to me, the probability is that I shall see it as they do. If any man think them scant of justice toward him, let him come to me. Should I find myself in doubt, I have here at my side my loved and honored master to whom to apply for counsel, knowing that what oracle he may utter I shall receive straight from the innermost parts of a temple of the Holy Ghost. Friends, if we be honest with ourselves, we shall be honest with each other.