“Here’s the turn at last to Cressley Common; there’s no talking comfortably among these trees; it’s so dark, anyone might be at your elbow and you know nothing about it—and so the old man is very angry.”
“Never saw a fellow so riled,” answered Harry; “you know what he is when he is riled, and I never saw him so angry before. If he knew I was here—but you’ll take care of me?”
“It’s very kind of you, old fellow; I won’t forget it, indeed I won’t, but I ought to have thought twice: I ought not to have brought poor Alice into this fix; for d⸺ me, if I know how we are to get on.”
“Well, you know, it’s only just a pinch, an ugly corner, and you are all right—it can’t last.”
“It may last ten years, or twenty, for that matter,” said Charlie. “I was a fool to sell out. I don’t know what we are to do; do you?”
“You’re too down in the mouth; can’t ye wait and see? there’s nothing yet, and it won’t cost ye much carrying on down here.”
“Do you think, Harry, it would be well to take up John Wauling’s farm, and try whether I could not make something of it in my own hands?” asked Charles.
Harry shook his head.
“You don’t?” said Charlie.
“Well, no, I don’t; you’d never make the rent of it,” answered Harry; “besides, if you begin upsetting things here, the people will begin to talk, and that would not answer; you’ll need to be d⸺d quiet.”
There was here a pause, and they walked on in silence until the thick shadows of the trees began to break a little before them, and the woods grew more scattered; whole trees were shadowed in distinct outline, and the wide common of Cressley, with its furze and fern, and broad undulations, stretched mistily before them.
“About money—you know, Charlie, there’s money enough at present and no debts to signify; I mean, if you don’t make them you needn’t. You and Alice, with the house and garden, can get along on a trifle. The tenants give you three hundred a year, and you can manage with two.”
“Two hundred a year!” exclaimed Charlie, opening his eyes.
“Ay, two hundred a year!—that girl don’t eat sixpenn’orth in a day,” said Harry.
“Alice is the best little thing in the world, and will look after everything, I know; but there are other things beside dinner and breakfast,” said Charles, who did not care to hear his wife called “that girl.”
“Needs must when the Devil drives, my boy; you’ll want a hundred every year for contingencies,” said Harry.
“Well, I suppose so,” Charles winced, “and all the more need for a few more hundreds; for I don’t see how anyone could manage to exist on such a pittance.”
“You’ll have to contrive though, my lad, unless they’ll manage a post obit for you,” said Harry.
“There is some trouble about that, and people are such d⸺d screws,” said Charles, with a darkening face.
“Al’ays was and ever will be,” said Harry, with a laugh.
“And it’s all very fine talking of a ‘hundred a year,’ but you know and I know that won’t do, and never did,” exclaimed Charles, breaking forth bitterly, and then looking hurriedly over his shoulder.
“Upon my soul, Charlie, I don’t know a curse about it,” answered Harry, good-humouredly; “but if it won’t do, it won’t, that’s certain.”
“Quite certain,” said Charles, and sighed very heavily; and again there was a little silence.
“I wish I was as sharp a fellow as you are, Harry,” said Charles, regretfully.
“Do you really think I’m a sharp chap—do you though? I al’ays took myself for a bit of a muff, except about cattle—I did, upon my soul,” said Harry, with an innocent laugh.
“You are a long way a cleverer fellow than I am, and you are not half so lazy; and tell me what you’d do if you were in my situation?”
“What would I do if I was in your place?” said Harry, looking up at the stars, and whistling low for a minute.
“Well, I couldn’t tell you off hand; ’twould puzzle a better man’s head for a bit to answer that question—only I can tell you one thing, I’d never agone into that situation, as ye call it, at no price; ’twouldn’t ’av answered me by no chance. But don’t you be putting your finger in your eye yet a bit; there’s nothing to cry about now that I knows of; time enough to hang your mouth yet, only I thought I might as well come over and tell you.”
“I knew, Harry, there was something to tell,” said Charles.
“Not over much—only a trifle when all’s told,” answered Harry; “but you are right, for it was that brought me over here. I was in Lon’on last week, and I looked in at the place at Hoxton, and found just the usual thing, and came away pretty much as wise as I went in.”
“Not more reasonable?” asked Charles.
“Not a bit,” said Harry.
“Tell me what you said,” asked Charles.
“Just what we agreed,” he answered.
“Well, there was nothing in that that was not kind and conciliatory, and common sense—was there?” pleaded Charles.
“It did not so seem to strike the plenipotentiary,” said Harry.
“You seem to think it very pleasant,” said Charles.
“I wish it was pleasanter,” said Harry; “but pleasant or no, I must tell my story straight. I ran in in a hurry, you know, as if I only wanted to pay over the twenty pounds—you mind.”
“Ay,” said Charles, “I wish to heaven I had it back again.”
“Well, I don’t think it made much difference in the matter of love and liking, I’ll not deny; but I looked round, and I swore I wondered anyone would live in such a place when there were so many nice places where money would go three times as far in foreign countries; and I wondered you did not think of it, and take more interest yourself, and upon that I could see the old soger was
