The other, after concealing himself in like manner for a few days, came to me, apparently in great contrition of spirit, and almost persuaded me that his brutal conduct on that eventful evening arose rather from grief than joy. He had been so much affected by my death, he assured me, as scarce to know what he did when swallowing a glass of brandy his brother gave him; that, he declared with half a dozen tears, had set him crazy, and he knew not what he had done--only he recollected something about going to the chamber, where, he believed, he had behaved very badly; for which he begged my forgiveness, and hoped I would not think his conduct was owing to any want of affection. I had proof enough that the villain was telling me falsehoods, and I knew that if either should, in a moment of soberness and compunction, breathe a single sigh over my death-bed, he was not the one. In truth, they were both bad; both, perhaps, irreclaimable; but while the conduct of Abbot gave me most pain, that of Ralph filled me with constant terror. Nothing but the daily excitement of speculation and gain could have made tolerable an existence cursed by incessant griefs and forebodings. It may be supposed that I frequently took the young men to task for their excesses. I might as well have scolded the winds for blowing, or the waters for running. It is true that Ralph heard me commonly with great patience, and sometimes with apparent contrition; but at times a scowl came over his dark features that frightened me into silence; and once, giving way to his fierce temper, he told me that if there was any thing amiss or disreputable in his conduct, it was the consequence of mine; that I, instead of granting him the means for reasonable indulgence, and elevating him to the station among honourable and worthy men to which my wealth gave him a claim, and which he had a right to expect of me, had kept him in a state of need and vassalage intolerable to any one of his age and spirit. As for Abbot, this kind of recrimination was a daily thing with him. I scarce ever saw him except when inflamed with drink; and on such occasions he was wont to demand money, which being denied, he would give way to passion, and load me with reproaches still more bitter of spirit and violent of expression than those uttered by Ralph. Nay, upon my charging him with being an abandoned profligate and ruined man, he admitted the fact, and swore that I was the author of his destruction; that my niggardliness had deprived him of the opportunities that gave other young men professions and independence; that I had brought him up in idleness and ignorance, and, by still refusing him his rights, was consigning him to infamy and an early grave.