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"Houseman is, in all ways," said he, with great and bitter vehemence, "unredeemed, and beyond the calculations of an ordinary wickedness; we knew each other from our relationship, but seldom met, and still more rarely held long intercourse together. After we separated, when I left Knaresbro', we did not meet for years.
"Ha!" said the rider, shading his eyes with his hand, as he returned the gaze of the Gipsy "is it you, Bess Airlie: your welcome is like the owl's, and reads the wrong way. But I must not stop. This takes to Knaresbro' then?"
"You spoke just now," said Walter, who had not very patiently suffered the Curate thus to ride his hobby, "of Eugene Aram; you knew him well?" "Nay: he suffered not any to do that! He was a remarkable youth. I have noted him from his childhood upward, long before he came to Knaresbro', till on leaving this place, fourteen years back, I lost sight of him.
Previous to Walter's departure from Knaresbro' to Grassdale, and immediately subsequent to the discovery at St. Robert's Cave, the coroner's inquest had been held upon the bones so mysteriously and suddenly brought to light.
"'Tis to you then; came to you this morning, only somehow or other, I forgot to give it you till now!" "Ha! a letter to me?" said Houseman, seizing the epistle in question. "Hem! the Knaresbro' postmark my mother-in-law's crabbed hand, too! what can the old crone want?" He opened the letter, and hastily scanning its contents, started up. "Mercy, mercy!" cried he, "my child is ill, dying.
All that was turbulent, if not all that was unquiet, in my recollections, had died away. Time had lulled me into a sense of security. I breathed more freely. I sometimes stole from the past. Since I had quitted Knaresbro' chance had thrown it in my power frequently to serve my brethren not by wisdom, but by charity or courage by individual acts that it soothed me to remember.
I devoted the lowliest part of my knowledge to the procuring the bare means of life, and the grandest, the knowledge that pierced to the depths of earth, and numbered the stars of heaven why, that was valueless, save to the possessor. "In Knaresbro', at this time, I met a distant relation, Richard Houseman.
Houseman shortly afterwards left the country. He has never returned to the town since, though his daughter lives here with his wife's mother, and has occasionally gone up to town to see him." "And Aram he also left Knaresbro' soon after this mysterious event?" "Yes! an old Aunt at York, who had never assisted him during her life, died and bequeathed him a legacy, about a month afterwards.
The Gipsy drew back, and gazed on the countenance of the rider, on which the red glare of the pine-brand shone full. "To Knaresbro', Richard, the dare-devil? Ay, and what does the ramping bird want in the ould nest? Welcome back to Yorkshire, Richard, my ben cove!"
The horseman turned round as he saw them. "Pray, gentlemen," said he, in a tone of great and evident anxiety, "how far is it to Knaresbro'?" "Don't answer him, your honour!" whispered the Corporal. "Probably," replied Walter, unheeding this advice, "you know this road better than we do. It cannot however be above three or four miles hence."
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