I held on my
way for a mile or more. You may have observed, ladies, that I limp
in my walk? It is the effect of an old wound. But, I declare to
you, my limp was nothing to the thought I dragged with me--the
recollection of the Major's face and the expression that had come
over it when I had first confessed my errand. All his subsequent
kindness, his sympathy, his hospitality, his frank and easy talk,
could not wipe out that recollection. I had sold something which for
years it had been my pride to keep. I had forced it on an unwilling
buyer. I had taken the money of a poor man, and had given him in
exchange--what? You remember, ladies, those words of Shakespeare--
good words, although he puts them into the mouth of a villain--that:
"' . . . He who filches from me my good name
Robs me of that which not enriches him
And makes me poor indeed.'
"No one had filched my honour--I had sold it to a good man, but yet
without enriching him, while in the loss of it I knew myself poor
indeed. At the second milestone I turned back, more eager now to
find the Major and get rid of the money than ever I had been to
obtain it.
"My face was no sooner turned again towards the cottage than I broke
into a run, and so good pace I made between running and walking that
it cannot have been more than an hour from my leaving the garden
before I arrived back at the head of the lane.
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