“And of course I must sell the place. Think
what it would be to you! I shouldn’t like
it to go into his Lordship’s hands. It’s
all through Bean I know, but his Lordship has had
a down on me ever since he came to the property.
It’s as true as true about my old woman’s
geese. There’s forty acres of it. What
would you say to 40 pounds an acre?”
The idea of having the two extra fields made Larry’s
mouth water, in spite of all his misfortunes.
The desire for land among such as Larry Twentyman
is almost a disease in England. With these two
fields he would be able to walk almost round Dillsborough
Wood without quitting his own property. He had
been talking of selling Chowton within the last week
or two. He had been thinking of selling it at
the moment when Mr. Masters rode up to him. And
yet now he was almost tempted to a new purchase by
this man. But the man was too utterly a blackguard,—was
too odious to him.
“If it comes into the market, I may bid for
it as well as another,” he said, “but
I wouldn’t let myself down to have any dealings
with you.”
“Then, Mr. Larry, you shall never have a sod
of it,” said Goarly, dropping himself over the
fence on to his own field.
A few minutes afterwards Larry met Bean, and told
him that Goarly had been in the wood. “If
I catch him, Mr. Twentyman, I’ll give him sore
bones,” said Bean. “I wonder how he
ever got back to his own place alive that day.”
Then Bean asked Larry whether he meant to be at the
meet to-morrow, and Larry said that he thought he should.
“Tony’s almost afraid to bring them in
even yet,” said Bean; “but if there’s
a herring left in this wood, I’ll eat it myself—
strychnine and all.”
After that Larry went and looked at his horses, and
absolutely gave his mare “Bicycle” a gallop
round the big grass field himself. Then those
who were about the place knew that something had happened,
and that he was in a way to be cured. “You’ll
hunt to-morrow, won’t you, Larry?” said
his mother affectionately.
“Who told you?”
“Nobody told me;—but you will, Larry;
won’t you?”
“May be I will.” Then, as he was
leaving the room, when he was in the door-way, so
that she should not see his face, he told her the
news. “She’s going to marry the squire,
yonder.”
“Mary Masters!”
“I always hated him from the first moment I
saw him. What do you expect from a fellow who
never gets a-top of a horse?” Then he turned
away, and was not seen again till long after teatime.
“Is it tanti?”
Reginald Morton entertained serious thoughts of cleansing
himself from the reproach which Larry cast upon him
when describing his character to his mother.
“I think I shall take to hunting,” he said
to Mary.
“But you’ll tumble off, dear.”
“No doubt I shall, and I must try to begin in
soft places. I don’t see why I shouldn’t
do it gradually in a small way. I shouldn’t
ever become a Nimrod, like Lord Rufford or your particular
friend Mr. Twentyman.”
