“Don’t, sir,” he cried, “for God’s sake, don’t do that! All the riches in the world wouldn’t pay a man for taking on like that. If you want money, you’re welcome to borrow some of mine as soon as ever I get the power to lend it. There’s more than I care to have, or could ever spend. You’ll be welcome to what you want, Mr. Lowther. I don’t set much account upon money, and I don’t think I ever shall; and the thoughts of this fortune don’t give me half the pleasure I’ve felt in the gift of a crown-piece long ago, when I was a little lad. I suppose it was because I thought then there was nothing in all the world that five shillings wouldn’t buy, and because I’m wiser now, and know there are some things a million of money can’t purchase. The news of this money has brought the thoughts of my father and my mother back to me, Mr. Lowther. I’d give every sixpence of it, if it could bring back the past, and pay out the bailiff’s man that was sitting by our kitchen-fire at home when my mother lay ill up-stairs. But it can’t do that. My father and mother both died poor, and all this money can’t buy back one of the sorrowful days they spent in the old farm, when things went from bad to worse, and debt and ruin came down upon us. I don’t seem to care for the money, Mr. Lowther; I am dazed and bewildered, somehow, by the greatness of the sum, but I don’t seem to care.” The ensign had calmed himself by this time. He got up and brushed the tears from his eyes, real tears of rage, envy, mortification, and despair. There was a faint blush upon his face, the one evidence of his shame which he could not suppress in a moment, but all other evidences of feeling had passed away. “You’re a good fellow, Tredethlyn,” he said, “an excellent simple-hearted fellow; as simple-hearted as a baby,--for who but a baby ever talked as you talk about this money? and I congratulate you upon your good luck. I see these lawyer fellows send you a bill for a couple of hundred; that’ll buy you off here pleasantly, and get you back to England. My advice to you is to get back as fast as ever you can, and enter into possession of your property. It seems a complicated kind of estate from what I can make out--mining property, and agricultural property, and shares in half the speculations of modern times,--but it’s a great estate, and that’s all you want to know. Go back; and as soon as ever I can get away from this accursed hole, I’ll look you up in London; and I--I _will_ borrow a little of that money you generously offer, and I’ll turn bear leader, and show you what life is in the upper circle, to which thirty thousand a year is the universal ‘open sesame.’” The ensign slapped his hand upon his servant’s shoulder with a jovial air, and spoke almost as gaily as if Oliver Tredethlyn’s fortune was to be in some way or other a stroke of good luck for himself.