Margaret did not immediately accede to his wish, and the monk looked at her with a strange inquisitivenesssomething crossed his mind, but what could he suspect? He again asked Margaret, but she still hesitated. He started from his seat, and paced up and down the floor. He then stopped suddenly before the bed. Margaret had laid down the infant, and had covered it with the bed-clothes.
"'O why, because sickness hath wasted my body,If he lost Alice now he might be losing her for a dream,[Pg 329] a bubble, a will-o'-the-wisp. Surely he would be wise to pull what he could out of the wreck, take her, and forget all else. Only a fool would turn away from her now, and press forward. In the old days it had been different, he had been successful thennow he was a failure, and saw his chance to fail honourably. Better take it before it was too late.
FORE:And she had never really loved him. That was another of the things she saw clearly. She had married him because his strength and good looks, his ardent wooing, had turned her head, because she had been weak and he had been masterful. But she had never loved him."But don't you think he does?"
ONE:A week or two before they arrived Reuben went to Playden, and looked over the house. It was a new one, on the hill above Star Lock, and it was just what he would have expected of Richard and Annegimcrack. He scraped the mortar with his finger-nail, poked at the tiles with his stick, and pronounced the place jerry-built in the worst way. It had no land attached to it, eitheronly a silly garden with a tennis court and flowers. Richard's success struck him as extremely petty compared with his own."Nobut we'll have to stay. F?ather will make us."
TWO:"The Bar," repeated Tilly vaguely."Yes, Isabella; but, by my faith, it seems they are such sturdy knaves in that forest, that even the promise of reward has no effect upon them."
THREE:"The Bar," repeated Tilly vaguely.
FORE:"Look here," she said suddenly, "I'm going to prove[Pg 283] the truth of what I told you just now. I'm going to make that boy kiss me.""Well, say ityou w?an't be far wrong. Wot sort o' chap am I to have pride? My farm's ruined, my wife's run away, my children have left mewot right have I to be proud?"
But there was one stall that particularly attracted the eyes of the fair-folks, by the spices, silks, damasks, fine cloth, gold and silver cords and ornaments, furs, &c. it displayed. The owner of this stall was evidently a peddling Genoese merchant, or, as they were then called, galleymen. These foreigners generally bore a bad characterthey were looked upon with suspicion; but, although suspected and disliked, they sold their merchandize, passed their base coin, and returned to Genoa to purchase, with English gold, fresh cargoes for Britain. They somehow or other sold their goods cheaper than the native dealers, and their coin, if even bad, would generally circulate through a few hands before it could be detected, and, consequently, those who purchased were seldom the losers.Towards the end of February there was a period of intense cold, and some heavy falls of snow. Snow was rare in that south-east corner, and all farm-work was to a certain extent dislocated. Reuben would have liked to spread blankets over his corn-fields and put shirts on his cattle. Adverse weather conditions never failed to stir up his inborn combativeness to its fiercest. His sons trembled as his brain raged with body-racking plans for fighting this new move of nature's. Richard was glad to be away from farmyard exertions, most of which struck him as absurd. He was now busy with the last of his lambing, the snow blew against the hut from the north-east, piling itself till nothing was to be seen from that quarter but a white lump. Inside was a crimson stuffiness, as the fumes of the brazier found their way slowly out of the little tin chimney. Sometimes before the brazier a motherless lamb would lie."A cowman's girl!" he groaned, "at Eggs Hole, too, where they d?an't know plums from damsons! Marry her! I'd sooner have Albert and his wenches."
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