ch a pickle, replied with a
burst of passionate swearing, and incontinently fainted. They held some
debate, but they were momently looking for a wind, they were highly paid
to smuggle him to France, and did not care to delay. Besides which, he
was well enough liked by these abominable wretches: they supposed him
under capital sentence, knew not in what mischief he might have got his
wound, and judged it a piece of good-nature to remove him out of the way
of danger. So he was taken aboard, recovered on the passage over, and
was set ashore a convalescent at the Havre de Grace. What is truly
notable: he said not a word to any one of the duel, and not a trader
knows to this day in what quarrel, or by the hand of what adversary, he
fell. With any other man I should have set this down to natural decency;
with him, to pride. He could not bear to avow, perhaps even to himself,
that he had been vanquished by one whom he had so much insulted and whom
he so cruelly despised.

CHAPTER VI

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 a while in his son's
face, and turned away with a singular 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 to and
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)