It struck him that his relations with women had been singularly unfortunate. Caro, Tilly, Rose, Alice, had all been failuresindeed he had come to look back on Naomi as his only success. Women were all the same, without ambition, without self-respect, ready to lick the boots of the first person who stroked them and was silly enough not to see through their wiles."Yes," replied Holgrave; "and enough too, I think, for any reasonable man at one time."The anthem crashed gaily into their sorrow, and grasping the hymn-sheet they sang together.
Boarzell, not Alice, should be his. He muttered the words aloud as he strained his eyes into the darkness, tracing the beloved outline. He despised himself for having wavered even in thought. Through blood and tearsothers' and his ownhe would wade to Boarzell, and conquer it at last. From that night all would be changed, the past should be thrust behind him, he would pull himself together, make himself a man. Alice must go where everything else had gonemother, wife, children, friends, and love. Thank God! Boarzell was worth more to him than all these."Yes, yes, you shall have money, Oakley, and I tell you, that if you could manage to send me intimation, from time to time, of the plots they are forming, you shall have as much as you desire.""Ye may tell King Richard that the Commons will meet him; but mind ye, and tell him to have no lords, nor men of law, nor any of that brood of bishops with him, if he wishes them to wear their heads;mind ye that, sir pursuivant."On the day the prohibitory writ left London, a small iron box, with a superscription, addressed to Thomas Calverley, was left by a stranger at Sudley Castle, and immediately after, by another messenger, a packet, in which, within many envelopes, a key was concealed. Calverley, naturally concluding that this key belonged to the box he had just received, with a variety of perplexing conjectures, unlocked it, and beheld the crimson damask dress of a pursuivant, on which the royal arms were embroidered in gold, and beneath the dress a purse of gold coin and a scroll of parchment, on which the following was written, evidently in a disguised hand:Something almost like a sob shook Reuben. Then, ashamed of his weakness, he raised his head, and saw that behind Boarzell the night had lifted, and a cowslip paleness was creeping into the sky. The great dark hump of the Moor showed clearly against it with its tuft of firs. A faint thrill stole through Reuben's tired limbs. Boarzell was always there to be loved and fought for, even if he had no heart or arm but his own. Gradually hope stirred as the dawn crept among the clouds. The wind came rustling and whiffling to him over the heather, bringing him the rich damp smell of the earth he loved.
