Cherry smiled, it was impossible to help it; but the parson’s story made him very sad. He knew well enough that it was a righteous retribution, that Roland’s ownership would be a miserable thing for every soul in Elderthwaite, and that the most purse-proud of strangers would do something to mend matters; and yet his heart ached at the downfall, and his quick imagination pictured vividly how completely the poor old parson would put himself in the wrong, and what a disastrous state of things would be sure to ensue.
“I’d try and not leave so much ‘restoration’ for any stranger to do,” he said.
“Eh, what’s the good?” said the parson. “She had better let it alone for the ‘new folks.’”
“Nay,” said Cherry, “you cannot tell if the ‘new folks,’ as you call them, will be inclined for anything of the sort, and all these changes may not take place for years. It doesn’t quite pay to do nothing because life is rather more uncertain to oneself than to other people.”
Cheriton spoke half to himself, and the parson went on with his own train of thought.
“Ay, I’ll stick to the old place, though I thought it a heavy clog round my neck once; and if you knew all the ins and outs of that transaction, you’d say, maybe, I ought to be kicked out of it now.”
“No, I should not,” said Cherry, who knew, perhaps, more of the Elderthwaite traditions than the parson imagined. “Things are as they are, and not as they might have been, and perhaps you could do more than any one else to mend matters.”
The parson looked into the fire, with an odd, half humble, half comical expression, and Cherry said abruptly,—
“Do you think Mr Seyton would sell Uplands to me?”
“To you? What the dickens do you want with it?”