“Neither do I. I’m glad to hear ’ee say so, wife,” returned the farmer. “Very glad. The gell must ha’ gone stark crazy, I do believe. Why, a better fellow than Fortescue never breathed—there’s no man can hold a candle to him for jokes and stories.”
“I believe him to be a very good fellow, and should be sorry to find myself mistaken.”
Mr. Fortescue entered at that moment—he was looking pale, and his eyes were gentle and almost pathetic.
Richard Ashbrook was a handsome man enough, but there was something so unmistakably physical about him. His face was red, and streamed with that which is praiseworthy and even scriptural upon the brow of a man who works for his bread, but which is certainly not poetical.
Then his hair was ruffled, and his garments, the offspring of the village sheers, were clumsily put on.
Patty looked at their visitor, who, with features so distingué, with clothes that fitted him like a glove, with perfumes encircling him, appeared to her like the genii of a romance.
The contrast between him and her husband was most marked, which no one could fail to notice.
Mrs. Ashbrook loved her partner quite as much, if not more, than women are accustomed to do, but it must be confessed, however, that she was not insensible to flattery and attention.
The visitor at Stoke Ferry was scrupulously polite and respectful in his manner towards the farmer’s wife.
It was his purpose to lure her from her fealty to her liege lord by slow degrees.