"Noand mark you, nor am I. It 'ud have been worse for me if I'd stayed. I'm miserable in a different way from what I was theresomehow the life's easier. I'm not happy, but I'm jolly. I'm not good, but I'm pleasant-like. It's all a change for the better. See?"
"I'll write wot I please, surelye," growled Albert, trying rather unsuccessfully to resume his swagger."I do not see my way to helping Flightshot while I have so many other calls upon me. Richard is still unsettled, and unable entirely to support himself. I should be a poor friend indeed if after having induced my protg to abandon his home and rely on me, I should forsake him before he was properly established. Be a man, Ralph, and refuse to sell any more land to that greedy, selfish, unscrupulous old Backfield."
ONE:"Not so fast, Master Calverley. Did you ever send in the direction of Dean Forest?"
THREE:"I'm driving home in my gig with a rug and hood," continued the young man, "so I've no need of a great-coat as well.""Did you mention your discovery to any one?"
THREE:"I'm out of practice, or I shouldn't have skinned myself like thisah, here's Coalbran's trap. Perhaps he'll give you a lift, ma'am, into Peasmarsh."
THREE:The act was not really so revolutionary as might at[Pg 157] first appear, for up to the very steps of the Manor he kept on telling himself that he would put it back. But somehow he did not do sowhen he handed the coat to the man-servant the pocket-book was still in his stable-smelling corduroys.
"Steward," said Isabella, turning quickly to Calverley, "see that the vassals have obeyed your orders. Remember, the varlet must be found!" And, as Calverley withdrew, she said to De Boteler with a thrill of apprehension, "Roland, do you not remember the words of the monk when our first darling was lying a corpse? 'The blight has fallen on the blossombeware of the tree!'" De Boteler's countenance changed while she spoke, from anger to thoughtfulness."Stephen Holgrave, my lord, has not yet finished his fealty."At nights he slept upstairs in one of the attics, which always smelt of apples, because it was next to the loft where the apples were stored. He was happy there, in spite of some dark hours when the deadlock of his married life kept him awake. He wondered if there was a woman in the world who could share his ambitions for Odiam. He expected not, for women were an ambitionless race. If Naomi had had a single spark of zeal for the great enterprise in which he and she were engaged, she would not now be lying exhausted by her share in it. He had honoured her by asking her to join him in this splendid undertaking, and all she had done had been to prove that she had no fight in her."He means to be complimentary," said Richard.
