It was when I was approaching the end of my seventeenth year that I
began to think of the future more nearly. My father had suffered
long--though Mistress Pennyquick and I had known nothing of it, he
being so reticent--from a disease which nowadays physicians call
angina pectoris, a disease that grips a man by the chest, as 'twere
his breastbones are ground together, with breathlessness and
exquisite pain. As he grew older, the attacks recurred more
frequently and with greater violence, and after one of them, the
first I had seen with my own eyes, he sent for Mr. Vetch, the
attorney, and was closeted with him a great while in his room.
Mistress Pennyquick's face was very grave when she spoke to me
about it afterwards.
"'Tis a bad sign when a man sends for his lawyer, Humphrey," she
said. "I can't abide 'un, for they always make me think of my
latter end. Your father have made his will, I'll be bound, and I
wish he spoke more free of things. But there, 'tis always the way;
empty barrels make the most noise, as the saying is, and I will
groan with the toothache while the poor master will suffer his
agonies without a word."
One night as we were sitting reading, my father had an attack which
terrified us. All at once, without a moment's warning, he dropped
his book, and stood up, bending forward, his face blue, his eyes
almost starting from his head. We hastened to him, but he motioned
us away, and then Mistress Pennyquick bade me ride for Mr.
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