I should be doing a great injustice to Colin were I to disguise from the reader the satisfaction which, notwithstanding all drawbacks, he could not fail to feel from the, to him, magnificent prospects that Mr. Lupton's discourse opened before him. To think that, from a poor and helpless farmer's boy, he should thus suddenly and unexpectedly have risen, as it were, to the rank of a squire's son, with the certainty of a great fortune to be bestowed upon him, and such a fine old house as Kiddal Hall in which to enjoy it, and to pass the remainder of his days! What a triumph, too, did it not give him over all the paltry and tyrannical souls who about his native place had made his life miserable, and even done as much as lay in their power to hunt him out of existence. These feelings were far less the result of vindictiveness than of that just sense of retribution which may be said to exist in every honest breast. These matters being thus disposed of, Colin seized his opportunity to re-introduce the question regarding old Jerry Clink. “With respect to him,” replied Mr. Lupton, “though I am astonished to find he is still alive, instead of hearing, as I had anticipated, that his body had been picked up off Lime-house, I am too sensible of his feelings, and the cause of them, to entertain against him any ideas of retaliation. My own security is all I must provide for,--that I am bound to do; and, so long as that can be insured, I shall take no farther notice of the past. We have both been wrong already, and had better on both sides avoid wronging each other any farther.” Colin expressed his hopes that, bad as matters now appeared to stand, everything might yet be accommodated in a manner which would leave all parties the happier for their forgiveness, and the wiser from the troubles they had undergone. “It is hopeless,” answered Mr. Lupton. “The man whose sense of injury, and determination to have revenge, can so vividly outlive the wear of so many years, is not, I am afraid, of a sufficiently ductile metal to be ever formed into a kinder shape. Unless some altogether unforeseen circumstance should happily come between to reverse the present tendency of events, it is to me a distinct and evident truth, that either that old man or I will eventually prove the death of the other.” This opinion he uttered in such a serious and almost prophetical tone, as left upon the mind of his hearer an impression which all his own most sanguine hopes and predictions were insufficient to eradicate. CHAPTER III. _Wherein Peter Veriquear makes love to Miss Sowersoft, and becomes involved in trouble.--Mr. Palethorpe's reconciliation with his mistress._