"And here wur I all this time guessing as it wur[Pg 79] cabbages acause of the leaves," old Ginner would finish, not to be outdone in badinage.She knew of his friendship with Anne Bardon, but had never expected it to bear such generous fruit.
"My lord," said Richard, "we are resolved to meet these bold men, and hear what they have to say. Shall you attend us, my lord of Canterbury?"The abbot looked frowningly on father John, as he again took up the pen. "My son, you are not serving the church by such pertinacity. This application will only expose one of its dignitaries to humiliation; however, I shall write to the Baron, since you desire it, and demand that the accused be transferred to the tribunal over which we preside."The year '71 was on the whole a bad one. The summer was parched, the autumn sodden, and the winter frozen. Reuben's oats after some excellent promises failed him abruptly, as was the way with crops on Boarzell. His wheat was better in quality but poor in quantity, his mangolds had the rot, and his hops, except for the old field by the lane, were brown and ragged with blight.As the summer wore on she grew steadily worse. She lay stiff and helpless, through the long August days, watching the sunlight creep up the wall, slip along the ceiling, and then vanish into the pale, heat-washed sky that gleamed with it even after the stars had come. She did not fret much, or think muchshe watched things. She watched the sunshine from its red kindling to its red scattering, she watched the moon slide across the window, and haunt the mirror after it had passedor the sign of the Scales dangling in the black sky. Sometimes the things she looked at seemed to fade, and she would see a room in which she and her husband were sitting or a lane along which they were walking ...[Pg 201] but just as she had begun to wonder whether she were not really still young and happy and married and this vision the fact and the sickness and loneliness the dream, then suddenly everything would pass away like smoke, and she would be back in her bed, watching the travelling sun, or the haunting moon, or the hanging stars.
