"'Tis himsel' he hates and mortifies--the Lord forgive him!" cried Peggy. "Eyeh, Master Horry, if you knowed the wreck and the ruin that the devil, and pride, and ill-will have made of that man!" "I daresay he has not much pleasure in his life?" said Horace, half interrogatively. "Pleasure! I'm the auldest friend he has in this world, though I'm but a servant," said Peggy, her eyes dilating still more with tears, which did not flow, but only reddened and expanded the limits which they filled; "but there's scarce an hour in the day, nor a day in the year, but I would see him die sooner than live as he's living now." "You speak," said Horace, playing with his own self-terror, and turning a pale, ominous look upon her, before which she shrank instinctively, "as if you thought it would be a charity to rid him of his life." "Eh, Mr. Horry?--the Lord forgive ye! Would you put such an accursed thought on me?" cried Peggy, with an ebullition of violence as tearful and faltering as her kindness. "God help us, master and servant, two lone people, without comfort in this world! But it would be a new sight, and a strange sight, to see comfort come from _you_." "Why, Peggy, you said as much," said Horace, with momentary weakness. "Then, I tell you, sir, murder's no charity," said Peggy, sharply. "I've little pleasure in my life by what I had in my young days, but I would have died more cheerful then nor now; and the master takes grit care, moor care nor I ever knew him take before, of his health and strength, as behoves a man at his time of life. He's aye at his medicine-chest off and on; and has the doors bolted and pistols in his room, for fear of robbers, though I'm aye saying there's no robbers like to come here. He's afflicted his flesh in the times that are past, but he's a careful liver now." "That he may keep me a little longer out of my inheritance," said Horace, between his teeth. Peggy stopped short in the middle of the kitchen, where she had been hastily laying out a rapidly prepared meal for her master's son. "Keepin' ye out of what?" she said solemnly, and with a scared look in her eyes. "Of my inheritance--it's no use humbugging me any longer," said Horace--"I know it all." Peggy set down the dish she had in her hands, dropped upon the stool before the fire, and throwing her apron over her head, rocked herself for a few moments back and forward, in silence. "Amen! it ought to have comed sooner; it must have comed some time," said Peggy at last to herself; "but the Lord forgive me, didn't I say and prophesy that when wance the bairns knowed it the end would come? Oh, Mr. Horry! for the love of God and your mother, if you have any love in you, go your ways, and tarry not a moment in this doomed house."