Thus the old man sat, with a desperate courage worthy a better object, and mastered the furious excitement in his mind. But he was not thinking of the children as perhaps the reader of this story may suppose. He was not resisting the thrill of natural interest, the softening of heart which might have attended that sudden arrival. He did not even realize the existence of the children. His thoughts were of conflicts past, and of the opponent against whom he had striven so often: the opponent whom he could not altogether dismiss or get rid of, his rival, his heir, his successor, his son. There was nothing he had wished as a father, as a Musgrave, as the head of a great county family, which this man had not done his best to undo: and as he had by ill-fortune thirty years the advantage of his father, there was no doubt that he would, some time or other, undo and destroy to an extent of which he was incapable now; unless indeed he was prevented in the most disgraceful way, incapacitated by public conviction of crime--conviction, which was only too probable, which hung over his banished head and prevented his return home. What would there be but pain in the thought of such a son--an opponent if he were innocent, if he were guilty a disgrace to the family name? The more completely the Squire could banish this thought from his mind, the happier he was; and he had banished it with wonderful success for many years past. He had done all he could to evade the idea that he himself would one day be compelled to die. Many men do this who have no painful consciousness of the heir behind who is waiting to dispossess them; and Mr. Musgrave had, to a great degree, attained tranquillity on this point. The habit of living seems to grow stronger with men as they draw near the end of their lives. It has lasted so long; it has been so steady and uninterrupted, why should it ever cease? But here was the death’s-head rising at the feast; the executioner giving note of his presence behind backs. John! he had dismissed him from his mind. He had exercised even a kind of Christianity in forgetting him. But here he was again, incapable of being forgotten. What a tremor in his blood--what undue working of all that machinery of the heart which it was so essential to keep in calm good order had this interruption caused! he who had no vital energy to spare; who wanted it all for daily comfort and that continuance which with younger people is so lightly taken for granted. How much of that precious reserve had been consumed by this shock! It had been done on purpose, perhaps, to try what the effect of such a shock upon his nerves and fibres would be.