His headache had passed off, and he felt a man again; so he sought the woman. She lived in a small old house wedged tight between two new ones; her window was dark, and her threshold silent, though he knocked again and again. He walked up and down once or twice in front of the cottage whistling "Ropes and Rum"perhaps she had gone to do some shopping; he saw himself sitting down to a feast of pickled herrings in her kitchen.
Supper was a quiet meal. Old Jury and his invalid wife sat at each end of the table, while Alice did most of the helping and waiting. They seemed a sorry three to Reuben, pale, washed out, and weakly, their eyes bright as birds' with the factitious light of their enthusiasms for things that did not matter. They ate without much appetite, picking daintily at their food, their knives never in their mouths. Reuben found himself despising them as he despised the Bardons.Reuben thought that he had efficiently broken his son's rebellion. All the next day Robert seemed utterly cowed. He was worn out by the misery of the last few hours, and by the blows which in the end had dulled all the sore activities of mind and soul into one huge physical ache. Reuben left him alone most of the day, smiling grimly to himself when he saw him. Robert spent several hours lying on the hay in the Oast barn, his mind as inert and bruised as his body. He had ceased to contrive or conjecture, even to dread."Ho, afeard of you, am I?and because you're a[Pg 205] youngster? I'll justabout show you wot a youngster's worth. A better man, are you?Put up your fists, and we'll see who's the better man."
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"Robin Wells!" repeated Holgrave, with a long inquiring look. "Noyou are safe! I hardly think the foul fiend himself would detect you. Now I call you to mindyour eyes and mouth are little Robin'sbut the brown skin and the black hair"He turned round."I call upon this assembly to witness, that I have, in the name of holy church, demanded the accusedthat I have demanded her in the name of the king, by virtue of his royal writ of prohibition, which has been basely purloinedand that, unmindful of that divine power, and despite the king's express command, Judge Skipwith, the servant of the one, and an unworthy son of the other, has contemptuously refused this demand. But," he added fiercely, as he again turned towards Skipwith, and shook his staff at the no less irritated judge, "the royal ermine is disgraced on the shoulders of such as theebeware that it is not speedily transferred to one more worthy to bear it. I say again, beware!"
