Which, think thee," added I--and now I cannot
forgive myself for saying it--"which, think thee, would do least
harm in going?" "I know which would do most good," he answered,
with a harsh laugh in his throat. Yet his blue eyes looked kindly
at me, and now he began to nod pleasantly. I thought him a little
mad, but yet his speech had seemed not without dark meaning. "Thee
has had a visitor," I said to him presently. He laughed in a
snarling way that made me shrink, and answered: "He wanted this and
he wanted that--his high-handed, second-best lordship. Ay, and he
would have it, because it pleased him to have it--like his father
before him. A poor sparrow on a tree-top, if you tell him he must
not have it, he will hunt it down the world till it is his, as
though it was a bird of paradise. And when he's seen it fall at
last, he'll remember but the fun of the chase; and the bird may get
to its tree-top again--if it can--if it can--if it can, my lord!
That is what his father was, the last Earl, and that is what he is
who left my door but now.
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