Chapter 6

SUMMARY OF EVENTS DURING THE MASTER'S SECOND ABSENCE.

Of the heavy sickness which declared itself next morning I can
think with equanimity, as of the last unmingled trouble that befell
my master; and even that was perhaps a mercy in disguise; for what
pains of the body could equal the miseries of his mind? Mrs. Henry
and I had the watching by the bed. My old lord called from time to
time to take the news, but would not usually pass the door. Once,
I remember, when hope was nigh gone, he stepped to the bedside,
looked awhile in his son's face, and turned away with a gesture of
the head and hand thrown up, that remains upon my mind as something
tragic; such grief and such a scorn of sublunary things were there
expressed. But the most of the time Mrs. Henry and I had the room
to ourselves, taking turns by night, and bearing each other company
by day, for it was dreary watching. Mr. Henry, his shaven head
bound in a napkin, tossed fro without remission, beating the bed
with his hands. His tongue never lay; his voice ran continuously
like a river, so that my heart was weary with the sound of it. It
was notable, and to me inexpressibly mortifying, that he spoke all
the while on matters of no import: comings and goings, horses -
which he was ever calling to have saddled, thinking perhaps (the
poor soul!) that he might ride away from his discomfort - matters
of the garden, the salmon nets, and (what I particularly raged to
hear) continually of his affairs, cyphering figures and holding
disputation with the tenantry. Never a word of his father or his
wife, nor of the Master, save only for a day or two, when his mind
dwelled entirely in the past, and he supposed himself a boy again
and upon some innocent child's play with his brother. What made
this the more affecting: it appeared the Master had then run some
peril of his life, for there was a cry - "Oh! Jamie will be
drowned - Oh, save Jamie!" which he came over and over with a great
deal of passion.

This, I say, was affecting, both to Mrs. Henry and myself; but the
balance of my master's wanderings did him little justice. It
seemed he had set out to justify his brother's calumnies; as though
he was bent to prove himself a man of a dry nature, immersed in
money-getting. Had I been there alone, I would not have troubled
my thumb; but all the while, as I listened, I was estimating the
effect on the man's wife, and telling myself that he fell lower
every day. I was the one person on the surface of the globe that
comprehended him, and I was bound there should be yet another.
Whether he was to die there and his virtues perish: or whether he
should save his days and come back to that inheritance of sorrows,
his right memory: I was bound he