Zack spoke to him before long from the inner room.
“I’m sure you must have done reading your letter by this time, Mat. I’ve been thinking, old fellow, of the talk we used to have, about going back to America together, and trying a little buffalo hunting and roaming about in the wilds. If my father takes me into favor again, and can be got to say Yes, I should so like to go with you, Mat. Not for too long, you know, because of my mother, and my friends over here. But a sea voyage, and a little scouring about in what you call the lonesome places, would do me such good! I don’t feel as if I should ever settle properly to anything, till I’ve had my fling. I wonder whether my father would let me go?”
“I know he would, Zack.”
“You! How?”
“I’ll tell you how another time. You shall have your run, Zack,—you shall have your heart’s content along with me.” As he said this, he looked again at Mr. Thorpe’s letter to his son, and took it up in his hand this time.
“Oh! how I wish I was strong enough to start! Come in here, Mat, and let’s talk about it.”
“Wait a bit, and I will.” Pronouncing those words, he rose from his chair. “For your sake, Zack,” he said, and dropped the letter into the fire.
“What can you be about all this time?” asked young Thorpe.
“Do you call to mind,” said Mat, going into the bedroom, and sitting down by the lad’s pillow—“Do you call to mind me saying, that I’d be brothers with you, when first us two come together? Well, Zack, I’ve only been trying to be as good as my word.”
“Trying? What do you mean? I don’t understand, old fellow.”