“The Prince, at parting—heaven knows he has little enough himself—gave me twenty gold crowns, which he said was my share of prize-money for our captures,” said Edmund, “but this is the last of them.”
“And I don’t know how we can get any,” said Rose. “We never see money. Our tenants, if they pay at all, pay in kind—a side of bacon, or a sack of corn; they are very good, poor people, and love our mother heartily, I do believe. I wish I knew what was to be done.”
“Time will show,” said Edmund. “I have been in as bad a case as this ere now, and it is something to be near you all again. So you like this place, do you? As well as our own home?”
Rose shook her head, and tears sprang into her eyes. “Oh no, Edmund; I try to think it home, and the children feel it so, but it is not like Woodley. Do you remember the dear old oak-tree, with the branches that came down so low, where you used to swing Mary and me?”
“And the high branch where I used to watch for my father coming home from the justice-meeting. And the meadow where the hounds killed the fox that had baffled them so long! Do you hear anything of the place now, Rose?”
“Mr. Enderby told us something,” said Rose, sadly. “You know who has got it, Edmund?”
“Who?
“That Master Priggins, who was once justices’ clerk.”
“Ha!” cried Edmund. “That pettifogging scrivener in my father’s house!—in my ancestors’ house! A rogue that ought to have been branded a dozen years ago! I could have stood anything but that! Pretty work he is making there, I suppose! Go on, Rose.”
“O Edmund, you know it is but what the King himself has to bear.”