THREE:
THREE:
THREE:"You always wur queer about Boarzell. But your f?ather 'ud turn in his grave to think of you sending off Blackman.""Then he ?un't fit to work on my land. I ?un't a charity house. I can't afford to kip a man wud no backbone and no wits. I've bin too kind as it isI shud have got shut of him afore he burnt my pl?ace to cinders."
THREE:"Your servant, ma'am," he said, as he opened the gate; and she answered classically:
THREE:
THREE:"Handshut!"
THREE:
THREE:"Aye," said Calverley, with a smileif the curve of a bloodless lip could be so designated"aye, you name her rightly, Byles: she is a fox, and like a fox shall she die,hunteddriventortured. Byles, have you never heard it said that this woman was a witch?"Odiam Farm was on the northern slope of Boarzellsixty acres, mostly grass, with a sprinkling of hops and grain. There was a fine plum orchard, full of old gnarled trees, their branches trailing with the weight of continued crops. The house itself was red and weather-stung as an August pippin, with strange curves in its gable-ends, which had once been kilns. It was one of those squat, thick, warm-tinted houses of Sussex which have stood so long as to acquire a kind of [Pg 18]naturalisation into the vegetable kingdomit was difficult to imagine it had ever been built, it seemed so obviously a growth, one would think it had roots in the soil like an oak or an apple tree.
THREE:"Yes, Edith Holgrave told me to give ten drops out of that little bottle," (pointing to the empty phial,) "and Igavebut, oh! Master Calverley, I forgot""I am angry with you just because I pity you. It's a shame that I should have to pity youyou're such a splendid man. It ought to be impossible to pity you, but I doI pity you from my soul. Think what you're missing. Think what your children might have been to you. How you might have loved that dear stupid Roberthow proud you might have been of Albert, and of Richard leaving you for a professional career ... and poor little George, just because he was weak and unlike the rest, he might have been more to you than them all. Then there's your brother Harry"