A flaggon of ale soon followed Black Jack, in which he drank Calverley's health with the familiarity of an old acquaintance, though this was the first time he had interchanged courtesies with the steward, who returned the compliment coldly, though not in that repulsive tone which forbids further intimacy."What! Margaret Holgrave?never"said Calverley, with such a look and tone, that the yeoman started, and felt convinced, that what he had heard whispered about the esquire's liking for Margaret was true: "but, however," added Calverley, in a moment recovering his self-possession, "do not despair, Byles. My lord tells me I shall replace old Luke as steward in a few months, and if I do, there is not a vassal I should be more inclined to favour than you; for I see, Byles, there is little chance of your doing good unless you have a friend; for you are known to the baron as an idle fellow, and not over-scrupulous of telling a falsehood. Nay, my man, don't start, I tell you the truth."
TWO:The thought of Tilly did not check the young man in this beggar-my-neighbour, for he knew that her father's ambition meant her slavery. So when Reuben added a prize Jersey heifer to his stock, Realf bought a Newlands champion milker, and when Reuben launched desperately on a hay-rope twister, Realf ran him up with a wurzel-cutter. Finally Reuben bought twenty acres, of Boarzell, in which Realf did not attempt to rival him, for he already had forty which he did not know what to do with. Reuben's strugglings with Boarzell struck him as pathetic rather than splendid, an aberration of ambition which would finally spoil the main scheme.
FORE:What business had old Lardner to have a natural son? Never had the laws of morality seemed to Reuben so august and necessary as then, or their infringement more contemptible. He was filled with a righteous loathing of this crapulous libertine who perpetuated the vileness of some low intrigue by bequeathing his worldly goods to his bastard. Meantime his virtuously married niece was put off with fifty pounds and some trashy furniture. Reuben fairly grovelled before the seventh commandment that afternoon.
FORE:"Well, I shan't go scolding you, lad," said Joseph Backfield, "fur I reckon you've bin punished enough. Though it wur unaccountable lucky you dudn't git anything worse. I hear as how Pix and Hearsfield are to be transported, and there'll be prison for some thirty more. Wot dud yer want to go mixing up in them things fur?"
FORE:Reuben brought Naomi and Harry into the middle of the Fair. Many people stared at them. It was Harry's first public appearance since his illness, and one or two comments louder than the general hum came to Naomi's ears and made them pink.When he left her, ten minutes later, she struck him as better. He could not quite smother the hope that Dr.[Pg 118] Espinette was mistaken and that she would recover with nursing and care. After all, even the doctor himself had said that one could never be certain. He felt his spirits revive, and called Beatup to go with him to the hop-fields.
FORE:It might be Rio de Janeiro."The hostile party reached the cottage, and the latch was quickly raised; but, finding it resist their attempts, the voice of Calverley, in an authoritative tone, pronounced
FORE:For the next two or three days the boy was desperate. His manhood was in a trap. He thought of a dozen plans for breaking free, but whichever way he turned the steel jaws seemed to close on him. What could he do? He was not strong and ruthless like his father, or he might have broken his way out; he was not clever like Richard, or he might have contrived it. Money, moneythat was what lay at the bottom of his helplessness. Even if he had a very little he could take Bessie away and marry her, and then they could both find work together on a farm. But he had not a penny. He tried to borrow some of Pete, but Pete showed him his empty pockets:
FORE:They did not murmur, for they had known no different life. They had never, like other girls, wandered with bevies of young people through the lanes at dusk, or felt in the twilight a man's hand grope for theirs. They had not had suitors to visit them on Sundays, to sit very stiff and straight in the parlour, and pass decorous remarks about the weather all the while their eyes were eating up a little figure from toe to hair."That's just the point, my gal. Where most f?alkses 'ud be throwing old kettles, I shall be growing wheat."
FORE:Whether Reuben would have succeeded or not is uncertain, for he was never put to the proof. The next day Albert was feverish and delirious, and the doctor had to be sent for. He cheerfully gave the eldest Backfield three months to livehis lungs were in a dreadful state, one completely gone, the other partly so. He[Pg 364] had caught a chill, too, walking in the dark and cold. There could be no thought of moving him.
THREE:"It would be well, my good friend, if all men observed their vows as religiously as you do.""Thought you'd be interested to hear. I remember as how you used to be unaccountable friendly wud them Jurys, considering the difference in your position."
The man did not reply, and Black Jack, congratulating himself that he had prudently kept his own counsel, endeavoured to turn the attention of the leaders from the consequences to the cause. Holgrave positively refused to sanction the contemplated firing: "No man," said he, "has a right to burn what does not belong to him." But he was only one man, and the sense of abstract justice was not sufficiently strong in those about him, to overbalance the advantages that might result from the deed. Certainly, to speak the truth, Turner hesitated some time before he assented, but the pithy language of Thomas Sack, and the covert insinuations of the lettered Oakley, overpowered his better judgment, and the thing was decided upon.He stood swaying before her on his heels, his hands in his trouser-pockets, his head a little on one side. Caro did not speakshe could not.