It would, he said, be selling a bit of himself; and if there was value in it, it would increase, not diminish, by holding till the country was opened up.

When he was dead, his heirs, be they who they might (this he said mysteriously), could do as they would.
As for him, he would take a man back from this part of the country to work in Alec's place.

His cough, he said, had been worse since he had been beguiled into leaving his wilderness to travel with Alec; the pure air of the solitude would be better than doctors for him.
The journey into which Alec had beguiled him had already had three results: he had sold his lumber at a good price; had found out, by talking with business men at Quebec, what the real value of his land probably was, and would be; and had been put by Dr.Nash into a right way of thinking concerning his disease and its treatment, that would stand him in good stead for years to come; but none of these goodly results did he mention when he summed up the evils and discomforts of the trip in Alec's hearing.

If his irascible talk was the index to his mind, certainly any virtue Alec had exercised toward him would need to be its own reward.
He offered to pay Alec his wages up to the time of their arrival in Chellaston, because he had looked after him in his feebleness, and he talked of paying "The Principal" for his board during his sojourn there.
When they treated these offers lightly, he sulked, mightily offended.

He would have given his life, had it been necessary, for either of the brothers, because of the succour they had lent him; nay more, had they come to him in need a lifetime afterwards, when most men would have had time to forget their benefaction many times over, John Bates would have laid himself, and all that he had, at their disposal; but he was too proud to say "thank you" for what they had done for him, or to confess that he had never been so well treated in his life before.
During his first days in Chellaston he was hardly able to leave his own room; but all the time he talked constantly of leaving the place as soon as he was well enough to do so; and the only reason that he did not bring his will to bear upon his lagging health, and fix the day of departure, was that he could not compel himself to leave the place where Sissy was.