"Forgive me, Margaret," said he, "for what I have said. But oh," he continued, taking her hand, and pressing it passionately to his bosom, "You know not how much I love you!Come, sir, will you walk?" Then kissing the damsel's hand he relinquished it; and Margaret, with streaming eyes and a throbbing heart, watched till the two receding figures were lost in the distance.It was after ten o'clock when her father-in-law and his two silent boys climbed into their trap and started homewards over the clattering cobbles of Mermaid Street. In the trap the two silent boys found their tongues, and fell to discussing their brother Richard in awestruck voices. They whispered about his dinner, his wife, his hands, his eye-glasses, his voice, while old Dorrington picked his way up Playden Hill in the white starshine. Reuben heard them as if in a dream as he leaned forward over the reins, his eyes fixed on Capella, bright and cold above Bannister's Town. He had drunk more liberally and more variously than he had ever drunk in his life, but he carried his liquor well, and all[Pg 394] he was conscious of was a slight exaltation, a feeling of triumph, as if all these huddled woods, lightless farms, and cold winking stars were in some strange way his by conquest, the tokens of his honour. The wind lapped round him, baffing at his neckit sighed in the woods, and rocked them gently towards the east. In the south Orion hung above Stonelink, with Sirius at the end of his sword ... the constellation of the Ram was high....
FORE:Another succeeded, and met the same fatethen another, and another;but at length, overpowered by numbers, the gallant priest was bound, and placed before one of the retainers on horseback.
FORE:Outside in the yard, Handshut stood by the pump, apparently absorbed in studying the first lights of Triangulum as they kindled one by one in the darkening sky.
FORE:"Yes, I heard they dealt badly enough with him, because he would not betray poor Stephenand for giving the sacrament to that unfortunate scape-grace. They told me he was to be turned from the abbey to-day, so I sent Dick with a few groats to help him on a littlebut I don't know yet, whether the lad is come back, for I have not seen him."
FORE:"I once stayed on the Downs," said the girl in the embroidered frock, speaking dreamily, "and one twilight I seemed to hear elfin music on the hill. I tore off my shoes and let down my hair and I dancedI danced...."
FORE: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.
THREE:"Holgrave," resumed the steward, with an incredulous smile, "has no intention of shortening his life:" and then he strove, with all his eloquence, to persuade her it was a mere feint.
THREE:Reuben was paralysed with horror. In another minute they would break down his hedgea good young hedge that had cost him a pretty pennyand be all over his roots. For a moment he stood as if fixed to the spot, then suddenly he pulled himself together. At all costs he must save his roots. He could not tackle the women single-handed, so he must go for the madman.Then a gentle darkness stole upon her eyes, as her overworked machine of flesh and blood ran down and throbbed slowly into stillness and peace.
"Mine!" he repeated almost fiercely."The Baroness of Sudley," replied father John, "does not know the poor Cistercian monk. Were the bolts withdrawn, and that door left swinging upon its hinges, I would not leave my prison until the voice of the people bade me come forth. And know ye not, lady, that with what measure ye mete to others, the same shall be meted to you again. Did ye deal out mercy to Edith Holgrave? Did ye deal mercifully by Stephen, when ye gave him bondage as a reward for true faithand then stripes and a prison? And, as for me,can ye expect that the bondman's son is to set a pattern of mercy and forgiveness to the noble and the free?"They went up together to the huge low-raftered bedroom, which struck horribly cold."I am one," replied the monk, rising, and turning calmly to Lancaster, "whom injustice has thus forced"Reuben started."Thank you, sirthank you kindly."