'For the sake of Ruth,' I answered; 'if you must have all the truth. Who is to mind her when you are gone?'
'But if you knew that I had gold, or a manner of getting gold, far more than ever the sailors got out of the Spanish galleons, far more than ever was heard of; and the secret was to be yours, John; yours after me and no other soul's--then you would wish me dead, John.' Here he eyed me as if a speck of dust in my eyes should not escape him.
'You are wrong, Uncle Ben; altogether wrong. For all the gold ever heard or dreamed of, not a wish would cross my heart to rob you of one day of life.'
At last he moved his eyes from mine; but without any word, or sign, to show whether he believed, or disbelieved. Then he went to a chair, and sat with his chin upon the ledger-desk; as if the effort of probing me had been too much for his weary brain. 'Dreamed of! All the gold ever dreamed of! As if it were but a dream!' he muttered; and then he closed his eyes to think.
'Good Uncle Reuben,' I said to him, 'you have been a long way to-day, sir. Let me go and get you a glass of good wine. Cousin Ruth knows where to find it.'
'How do you know how far I have been?' he asked, with a vicious look at me. 'And Cousin Ruth! You are very pat with my granddaughter's name, young man!'
'It would be hard upon me, sir, not to know my own cousin's name.'
'Very well. Let that go by. You have behaved very badly to Ruth. She loves you; and you love her not.'
At this I was so wholly amazed--not at the thing itself, I mean, but at his knowledge of it--that I could not say a single word; but looked, no doubt, very foolish.
'You may well be ashamed, young man,' he cried, with some triumph over me, 'you are the biggest of all fools, as well as a conceited coxcomb. What can you want more than Ruth? She is a little damsel, truly; but finer men than you, John Ridd, with all your boasted strength and wrestling, have wedded smaller maidens. And as for quality, and value--bots! one inch of Ruth is worth all your seven feet put together.'
Now I am not seven feet high; nor ever was six feet eight inches, in my very prime of life; and nothing vexes me so much as to make me out a giant, and above human sympathy, and human scale of weakness. It cost me hard to hold my tongue; which luckily is not in proportion to my stature. And only for Ruth's sake I held it. But Uncle Ben (being old and worn) was vexed by not having any answer, almost as much as a woman is.