“He’s a rare good sort,” murmured our hero, after Brickett had taken his departure; “one of the best and most cheery of landlords I ever met with.”
Having given expression to this sentiment, Peace sat down at one of the side tables in front of the refreshment bar, and was for some time apparently lost in thought.
People passed to and fro, but he was so abstracted as to be heedless of all that was passing around.
It was singular, but it was nevertheless true that the very name of the village of Broxbridge or the remembrance of its associates seemed to have a depressing effect upon him.
He liked Brickett, and to a certain extent liked also many of those who frequented the parlour of the “Lion,” and he had been fortunate and prosperous while in the village, but despite all this perhaps the very last thing he would think of would be paying it another visit.
Peace was of a jealous disposition. He could not bear to think of his treatment at the hands of the girl Nelly.
In addition to this another, and a higher order of female, had in an earlier day treated him with scorn.
Aveline Maitland, to whom he had made honourable proposals at Sheffield, had cast him on one side to become the wife of his old schoolfellow, Tom Gatliffe.
By an exceeding strange concurrence of circumstances, had been attached to the village in which Nelly dwelt, and indeed where she had been born and brought up.
This was the reason for his hating the very name of Broxbridge, and at the bottom of his heart sat despair and humiliation.