Old Lord Fearing, the head of the Fearing Clan, lay on a sick bed and was not expected to recover. The news spread all over the Valley of Humiliation and there was much talk and conjecture.

It must be confessed at once that the news caused no very great sorrow. In his own home the old man had been a tyrant to family and servants alike; a despot over his numerous tenants, a miserly, grasping landlord, hard-hearted and without pity toward those who were in distress or unable to pay their rent. That he was very rich nobody doubted. That nobody else ever got any good or enjoyment out of his wealth was equally apparent, and there was nothing to indicate that he did either.

For a number of years he had been a widower. All his sons had left the parental roof and his tyrannous control as soon as possible, and his daughters, with the most eager alacrity, had also married and taken their departure. He lived, therefore, in the old family residence, half manor house and half castle, dependent for his comfort on a housekeeper and a host of surly servants.

It was not to be supposed, after a lifetime of unbroken self-indulgence and tyranny toward others, that now, when the time at last had arrived for him to take his departure out of this world and to leave his castle and his wealth behind him, that the old man should face the inevitable either with calmness, courage, or peace. From the moment that the awful realization broke upon him that the time which he had dreaded all his life had now arrived and that here he was, actually lying upon his deathbed, never again to leave the great, gloomy bedroom until he was carried out in a coffin—from that moment he became the prey of the most harrowing and tormenting fears. And there was not one single, loving heart among all his hired servants to minister to him with love and compassion or to soothe and comfort his terrors.

It is true that his two elder sons and his married daughters had been informed of his illness and of the fact that recovery was not expected, and they had traveled to the castle; not in order to surround him with loving attention, but to be present dutifully at the last ceremonies and to accompany his body to the grave, and, in the case of his eldest son, to step with dignity into the father’s shoes. The old man was only too well aware of these facts, and they added to his agony.