carriage wheels?"

"No, Sir William--but--"

"There /are/ sounds in my ear; my senses grow dim," said my uncle,
unheeding her: "would that I might live another day; I should not like
to die without seeing him. 'Sdeath, Madam, I do hear something
behind!--Sobs, as I live!--Who sobs for the old knight?" and my uncle
turned round, and saw me.

"My dear--dear uncle!" I said, and could say no more.

"Ah, Morton," cried the kind old man, putting his hand affectionately
upon mine. "Beshrew me, but I think I have conquered the grim enemy now
that you are come. But what's this, my boy?--tears--tears,--why, little
Sid--no, nor Rochester either, would ever have believed this if I had
sworn it! Cheer up, cheer up."

But, seeing that I wept and sobbed the more, my uncle, after a pause,
continued in the somewhat figurative strain which the reader has
observed he sometimes adopted, and which perhaps his dramatic studies
had taught him.

"Nay, Morton, what do you grieve for?--that Age should throw off its
fardel of aches and pains, and no longer groan along its weary road,
meeting cold looks and unwilling welcomes, as both host and comrade grow
weary of the same face, and the spendthrift heart has no longer quip or
smile wherewith to pay the reckoning? No, no: let the poor pedler
shuffle off his dull pack, and fall asleep. But I am glad you are come:
I would sooner have one of your kind looks at your uncle's stale saws or