TWO:She groped her way to the chimney-piece and found a candle and a tinder-box. The next minute a tiny throbbing flame fought unsuccessfully with the darkness which still massed in the corners and among the cumbrous bits of furniture. Naomi's new kid shoes were hurting her, and she bent down to untie them; but even as she bent, her eyes were growing used to the dim light, and she noticed something queer about the room. She lifted her head and saw that the outlines of the[Pg 76] dressing-table and bed were rough ... the scent of dry grass suddenly revolted her.
TWO:"Of course I know the Fair has no legal title to this ground, but one must respect public feeling. I will sell you the forty acres adjoining the crest with pleasure, Mr. Backfield, they are no use to me, and you certainly seem to do wonders with the land when you get itbut[Pg 396] the Place itself must be preserved for the people. I'm sure you understand."Sometimes she would have anxious moments, a strange sense of fear. "I'm a bad woman," she would[Pg 350] repeat to herself, and she would dread the thought of her sister Tilly. But the terrors did not last, they were driven away by the remembrance of what her life had been before she met Joeits drabness, its aimless toil, its lassitude, its humiliations. She would have been a fool to spurn her golden chance when it came. It had been her only chance; after all it was not as if she ever could have married. She had had to choose between the life she had led up to that August evening and the life she was leading now, and she could not regret her choice.
"You wudn't daur do that if I hadn't been saved!" he shouted."Our cousin will have to crave hospitality, when he returns home," said Richard, addressing the Earl of Oxford, who stood beside him."And thus they could serve the Lord's anointed!" said Turner, compassionately, as he looked on the livid and swollen face and trembling limbs of him, whom he had ever, till now, seen with the beauty of holiness giving dignity to his fine countenance, and with the vigour of manhood exhibited in every motion of his muscular form. "Hark!" added the smith, starting"there is a scuffle outside! Tom Merritt will have enough of them." For an instant he paused, and then, snatching up one of the cords that had tied the monk, he severed it with his axe from the ring in the wall, and passing one end round the monk's arm, fastened the other round his own waist. "Now you will have no trouble in holding by mekeep close. Here, father, could you not hold this? it might keep off some scurvy knave," drawing a sharp wood-knife from his belt, and placing it in the monk's tremulous hand. Turner then ordering the few who were with him to cover the retreat, to keep compact as they followed, and to strike at all within reach, with a keen-edged battle-axe in his right hand, and a formidable club, pointed with steel and firmly bound with iron, in his left, he hurried from the dungeon."What!" said the overbearing Leicester, looking fiercely at the ex-foreman"didn't I tell you that I was to be the King of Norfolk, and Wat Tyler""You thought you could not do better than wed her son through gratitude. That was welland so this good squire of ours could not expect to find much favour in your eyes. But, do you not know, you should not have wedded without my consent?"