“It was a hard choice ye put upon him,” said Bates, solemnly.

“You think it was?  Well!” The young man gave a boisterous laugh.

“For, in the first place, it’s not his fault, but your own entirely, if ye go to the bad.”

“I’ve not gone to the bad; but if I had, if I’d gone straight there, it would have been his fault.”

“’Twould just have been your own.  There’s just one man that’s responsible for your actions, and that’s yourself.  If your brother was a compete blackguard, instead of a good man, that’s no excuse for you.  God never put any man into this world and said, ’Be good if some other man is.’”

“When a man sets up to preach, and then throws away his influence over his own brother for a little finery opposition, it’s more than being a blackguard.  What does a man mean by standing up to preach if he doesn’t mean that he’s taking some responsibility for other people?”

“Well, but it wasn’t he that threw away his influence over you; it was you.  He never said ‘Don’t be influenced any more by me.’  If ye thought he was an angel before then, more fool ye were, for no man is an angel.  What business had you to make all the influence of his godly life condeetion on his doing right, or what you thought right, on a certain point of opinion?”

“He’s living a lie, I tell you.”

“I’m not sure but he’s right not to have blazoned it.  I’m not sure but I’d have done the same myself.”

“Well, as you just remarked, men are not angels.  That you would have done it doesn’t prove anything.”

Next morning Trenholme, whose half-awaked mind had not yet recurred to the night’s dispute stepped out of the house into a white morning fog, not uncommon in fierce weather when holes for fishing had been made in the ice of the lake.  The air, seemingly as dry as smoke, but keen and sweet, was almost opaque, like an atmosphere of white porcelain, if such might be.  The sun, like a scarlet ball, was just appearing; it might have been near, it might have been far; no prospect was seen to mark the distance.  Trenholme was walking round by the white snow path, hardly discerning the ox-shed to which he was bound, when he suddenly came upon the dark figure of Bates, who was pitching hay for his Cattle.  Bates let down his fork and stood in his path.

“For God’s sake, Mr. Trenholme,” said he, “let your brother know where you are.”

Trenholme started:  Bates’s figure stood not unlike some gnarled thorn that might have appeared to take human shape in the mist.

“For God’s sake, man, write!  If ye only knew what it was to feel the weight of another soul on ye, and one that ye had a caring for!  Ye’re easy angered yourself; ye might as easy anger another, almost without knowing it; and if he or she was to go ye didn’t know where, or perhaps die, be sure ye would blame yourself without heeding their blame.”

Bates’s voice was trembling.  The solemnity of his mien and the feminine pronoun he had let slip revealed to Trenholme the direction his thoughts had taken.