“I got some to bind lady Ann's prayer-book.”
“She's taken him in! By Jove, she's done him, the fool! She's been keeping him up to it, to enrage me and get rid of him!” said the baronet to himself.
“What do you want them for?” he asked, a little calmer.
“To work at my trade. If you turn me out, I must go back to that.”
“Damn your soul! it never was, and never will be anything but a tradesman's! Damn my soul, if I wouldn't rather make young Manson my heir than you!—No, by Jove, you shall not have your damned tools! Leave the house. You cannot claim a chair-leg in it!”
Richard bowed, and went; got his hat and stick; and walked from the house with about thirty shillings in his pocket. His heart was like a lump of lead, but he was nowise dismayed. He was in no perplexity how to live. Happy the man who knows his hands the gift of God, the providers for his body! I would in especial that teachers of righteousness were able, with St. Paul, to live by their hands! Outside the lodge-gate he paused, and stood in the middle of the road thinking. Thus far he had seen his way, but no farther. To which hand must he turn? Should he go to his grandfather, or to Barbara?
He set out, plodding across the fields, for Wylder Hall. There was no Miss Brown for him now. Miss Wylder, they told him, was in the garden. She sat in a summer-house, reading a story. When she heard his step, she knew, from the very sound of it, that he was discomposed. Never was such a creature for interpreting the signs of the unseen! Her senses were as discriminating as those of wild animals that have not only to find life but to avoid death by the keenness of their wits. She came out, and met him in the dim green air under a wide-spreading yew.
“What is the matter, Richard?” she said, looking in his face with anxiety. “What has gone wrong?”
“My father has turned me out.”
“Turned you out?”