I was still and for a long time subject to attacks,
when the pain was intolerable and was like steel driven into my heart,
always followed by violent palpitations, which would last for hours.
But I found that exercise on foot or horseback made me no worse, and I
became more and more venturesome, spending most of my time out of
doors, although often troubled with the thought that my passion for
Nature was a hindrance to me, a turning aside from the difficult way I
had been striving to keep.
Then my elder brother returned, an event of the greatest importance in
my life; and as he had not been expected so soon, I was for a minute
in doubt that this strange visitor could be my brother, so greatly had
he altered in appearance in those five long years of absence, which
had seemed like an age to me. He had left us as a smooth-faced youth,
with skin tanned to such a deep colour that with his dark piercing
eyes and long black hair he had looked to me more like an Indian than
a white man. Now his skin was white, and he had grown a brown beard
and moustache. In disposition, too, he had grown more genial and
tolerant, but I soon discovered that in character he had not changed.
As soon as an opportunity came he began to interrogate and cross-
question me as to my mind--life and where I stood, and expressed
himself surprised to hear that I still held to the creed in which we
had been reared.
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