ONE:"I don't often come here," she said"this is a bit too classy for me. I go mostly to the coffee stalls down by the harbour. You mustn't think as I'm coining money at this, you know. I work mostly among the[Pg 403] fishermen, and they're a seedy lot. I started up town, but I'm not so young as I was, and sometimes even at the harbour I find it unaccountable hard to git off.""Margaret, do you know me?"
THREE:The next year, Richard and Anne Backfield took a house at Playden for week-ends. Anne wanted to be near her relations at the Manor, and Richard, softened by prosperity, had no objection to returning to the scene of his detested youth.
Reuben thought long and anxiously about his brother. He did not speak much of him to his mother or Naomi, for he knew that they would not understand the problem that confronted him. He felt worn by the extra load of work, and his brain fretted, spoiling his good sleep. He[Pg 53] was back in his own room now, but he slept worse than in Harry's; he would lie awake fighting mentally, just as all day he had fought physicallylife was a continuous fight.He sat down beside her and took her hand.He then turned to the small householders and shop-keepers, dazzling them with visions of Gladstone's free breakfast tablehe even invited the more prominent ones to an untaxed breakfast in the Town Hall; whereat the Colonel, at Reuben's instigation, retaliated with a sumptuous dinner, which he said would be within the reach of every farmer when a moderate wheat-tax no longer forced him to undersell his harvests."Not much, 'squire.Stephen Holgrave, indeed, has got married, and, I'll warrant me, there will be a fine to do about it; for he has married a nief, and you know my lord is very particular about these matters:he told me, no longer ago than just before he went away this last time, that he would not abate a jot of his due, in the marriages or services of his bond-folk. To be sure the lass is sister of the monk who now shrieves the castle, and, as my lord thinks much of Holgrave, it may all blow over.""Butas experience has taught youthey won't. You can see now what your slave-driving's brought you toyou've lost your slaves.""Stand clear!who wants your tricks? I'm going to show him wot a man's wortha man wot's had his beard longer than this puppy's bin in the warld."
