ONE:However, though he had never deceived himself that Rose's sympathetic tendernesses meant any real sharing of his ambition, he was soon convinced that to marry her[Pg 253] would be materially to help himself in the battle which was now dragging a little on his side. He wanted ready moneyher settlements would provide that; and her heirship of Lardner held out dazzling hopes for the future. He wanted childrenwhere could he find a healthier mother? He wanted to raise the dignity of Odiam, and could hardly have thought of a better means than marriage with the niece of one of the wealthiest and most important farmers in the parish. To crown all, he gave himself an adorable woman, young, lovely, tender, and gay. This consideration could not have dragged him contrary to his ambition, but combined with it, it could give to an otherwise very practical and material plan all the heats of passion and the glories of romance.
ONE:"Realf of Grandturzel has got his bit all safe."Though they were technically a Couple, they never spoke of love. They never even kissed or held each other's hands, however tenderly the velvet darkness called. He told her about his work at Odiamabout the little calf that was born that day, or the trouble he had had, patching the rent in the pigsty, or how the poultry had not taken well to their new food, but preferred something with more sharps in it. She in her turn would tell him how she had washed little Georgie's shirttaking advantage of a warm day when he could run about nakedhow her mother had lamentable hard pains all down her back, how her father had got drunk at the harvest supper and tried to beat her.
ONE:"That's what strikes me as so pathetic."John Ball saw at a glance that the man was above the vulgar, and rejoicing that he could add one intelligent being to the illiterate mass who had become converts to his doctrines, he gladly accepted the offer of an ally who promised to be so serviceable; and, apprehensive that as the hour for a simultaneous rising had not yet come, a further display might rather injure than benefit the cause, pronounced a benediction over the multitude, and promising to appear soon among them again, desired each man to go to his regular business, and remain quiet till the appointed hour. He then took the arm of his new colleague, and hurried him to a secret opening in an adjacent quarry.
