Dreghorn died, leaving Halket as one of his
trustees, for behoof of his wife, in whom the great plantation vested.
If we add yet another lustrum, we find the Scot--fortunate, save for one
misfortune that made him a joyless worshipper of gold--purchasing from
the widow, who wished to return to England, the entire plantation under
the condition of an annuity.
And Halket was now rich, even beyond what he had ever wished; but the
chariot-wheels of Time would not go any slower--nay, they moved faster,
and every year more silently, as if the old Father had intended to cheat
the votary of Mammon into a belief that he would live for ever. The
lustrums still passed: another five, another, and another, till there
was scope for all the world being changed, and a new generation taking
the place of that with which William Halket and Mary Brown began. And he
was changed too, for he began to take on those signs of age which make
the old man a painted character; but in one thing he was not changed,
and that was the worshipful stedfastness, the sacred fidelity, with
which he still treasured in his mind the form and face, the words and
the smiles, the nice and refined peculiarities that feed love as with
nectared sweets, which once belonged to Mary Brown, the first creature
that had moved his affections, and the last to hold them, as the object
of a cherished memory for ever.
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