Falkner by Mary Shelley

"On the following day the journey was performed; and it had been arranged that Gerard should rest on the subsequent one; the third being fixed for his attendance in the House of Lords. Sir Boyvill had been informed how sullenly (that was the word they used) the boy had received the information conveyed him by his tutor. He would rather have been excused saying a word himself to his son on the subject; but this account, and the boy's request to see him, forced him to change his purpose. He did not expect opposition; but he wished to give a right turn to Gerard's expressions. The sort of cold distance that separation and variance of feeling produced, rendered their intercourse little like the tender interchange of parental and filial love.

"Gerard, my boy,' Sir Boyvill began, 'we are both sufferers; and you, like me, are not of a race tamely to endure injury. I would willingly have risked my life to revenge the ruin brought on us; so I believe would you, child as you are; but the skulking villain is safe from my arm. The laws of his country cannot even pursue him; yet, what reparation is left, I must endeavour to get.'