He
remembered how harshly he had spoken to it, how rudely he had tossed
it on his knee when it awoke him with its crying at night. He
remembered that the little one had been daily with him for now three
years, and that not a day had passed in which he had not spoken
loudly, fiercely to the child.
Yes, he remembered the heavy blows he had given it in bursts of
passion, blows deeply regretted the instant after, yet repeated on
the first temptation. He thought of it all; that his boy was but a
little child, and that he had spoken to it, and expected from it, as
if it were grown. All his passionate, cruel words and blows rushed
upon his memory; his rough replies to childish questions; his
unmanly anger at childish offences. He thought, too, how the little
boy had still followed him, because its father was all on earth to
him; how the little thing had said, he "was sorry," and had offered
a kiss even after some bitter word or blow altogether undeserved.
Leland remembered, too, as the morning air blew aside his hair, how
often he had shown the same miserable, nervous irritability to his
dog, his horse, his servants; even the branch of the tree that
struck him as he walked; yea, even to his own wife.
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