"In vain you tell your parting lover
You wish fair winds may waft him over.
Alas! what winds can happy prove
That bear me far from her I love?
Alas! what dangers on the main
Can equal those that I sustain
From stinted love and cold disdain?" etc.
Griffith beat time with his hand awhile, and his face softened and beautified as the melody curled about his heart. But soon it was too much for him. He knew the song,—had sung it to Kate Peyton in their days of courtship. A thousand memories gushed in upon his soul and overpowered him. He burst out sobbing violently, and wept as if his heart must break.
"Alas! what have I done?" said Mercy; and the tears ran from her eyes at the sight. Then, with native delicacy, she hurried from the room.
What Griffith Gaunt went through that night, in silence, was never known but to himself. But the next morning he was a changed man. He was all dogged resolution,—put on his clothes unaided, though he could hardly stand to do it, and borrowed the landlord's staff, and crawled out a smart distance into the sun. "It was kill or cure," said he. "I am to live, it seems. Well, then, the past is dead. My life begins again to-day."
Hen-like, Mercy soon learned this sally of her refractory duckling, and was uneasy. So, for an excuse to watch him, she brought him out his money and jewels, and told him she had thought it safest to take charge of them.
He thanked her cavalierly, and offered her a diamond ring.
She blushed scarlet, and declined it; and even turned a meekly reproachful glance on him with her dove's eyes.
He had a suit of russet made, and put away his fine coat, and forbade any one to call him "Your worship." "I am a farmer, like yourselves," said he; "and my name is—Thomas Leicester."