either
never heard of their evil character, or considered that it gave them all
the more claims upon his Christian care; and the end of it was, that this
rough, untamed, strong giant of a heathen was loyal slave to the weak,
hectic, nervous, self-distrustful parson. Gregson had also a kind of
grumbling respect for Mr. Horner: he did not quite like the steward's
monopoly of his Harry: the mother submitted to that with a better grace,
swallowing down her maternal jealousy in the prospect of her child's
advancement to a better and more respectable position than that in which
his parents had struggled through life. But Mr. Horner, the steward, and
Gregson, the poacher and squatter, had come into disagreeable contact too
often in former days for them to be perfectly cordial at any future time.
Even now, when there was no immediate cause for anything but gratitude
for his child's sake on Gregson's part, he would skulk out of Mr.
Horner's way, if he saw him coming; and it took all Mr. Horner's natural
reserve and acquired self-restraint to keep him from occasionally holding
up his father's life as a warning to Harry. Now Gregson had nothing of
this desire for avoidance with regard to Mr. Gray. The poacher had a
feeling of physical protection towards the parson; while the latter had
shown the moral courage, without which Gregson would never have respected
him, in coming right down upon him more than once in the exercise of
unlawful pursuits, and simply and boldly telling him he was doing wrong,
with such a quiet reliance upon Gregson's better feeling, at the same
time, that the strong poacher could not have lifted a finger against Mr.
Gray, though it had been to save himself from being apprehended and taken
to the lock-ups the very next hour. He had rather listened to the
parson's bold words with an approving smile, much as Mr. Gulliver might
have hearkened to a lecture from a Lilliputian. But when brave words
passed into kind deeds, Gregson's heart mutely acknowledged its master
and keeper. And the beauty of it all was, that Mr. Gray knew nothing of
the good work he had done, or recognized himself as the instrument which
God had employed. He thanked God, it is true, fervently and often, that
the work was done; and loved the wild man for his rough gratitude; but it
never occurred to the poor young clergyman, lying on his sick-bed, and
praying, as Miss Galindo had told us he did, to be forgiven for his
unprofitable life,