"The baggering foxes have picked up one or two of my chickens of late," he said.
"Don't be too hard on them. They're a fine, fearless people and it's cruel work standing before hounds on an empty belly. No security. Many soft-billed birds are dropping dead out of the trees by night—just for hunger and cold. No mercy shown; none expected. Only a man here and there knows the meaning of mercy. But the creatures have their bit of luck, Robert. Terror of death cannot fret them and sense of wrong can't wound their hearts. Great privileges you see. And how's your fine wife? A better wife than daughter, I hope?"
"Don't say that, father. Our thoughts are often along with you. Avis and me would be terrible glad to comfort you if we could."
"Judith Huxam, my children's grandmother, once said that I should call upon the hills to cover me. She said right. I have. But they refuse. A very respectable thing to worship the Lord, Bob Elvin; only take heed to stop at that. Don't try and follow Him, or do what He tells you, else you'll be locked up, or get into the workhouse. Worship at a distance. There may be better bread than is made of wheat, but human nature can't digest it—can't digest the teaching of Christ. It's no good. The lawyers and the politicians, the traders and the soldiers, and the sailors and even the parsons—such as are honest—they'll all tell you it won't work."
"Come on, father; don't sit here no more. Jump up on my cob and I'll walk beside you."
"I'm going to give Owley to your wife. It was ordained from the first, and my Margery agreed it should be so."
"You have, master. A very grand start in life you've offered us."
"Did my late wife know about it?"
"Yes, Mrs. Bullstone knew all about it."
"Good. I killed her, Bob. If I'd fired a gun into her heart, I couldn't have killed her surer. A pretty awful thing; but have no fear I'm not going to pay for it. When a man commits murder, they ought not to put him away: they ought to keep him alive, as long as ever they can, and let his sin gnaw into him, like a cancer, inch by inch. All sin's a cancer: it eats the heart, but it leaves the core to go on throbbing, so that the sinner may suffer as long as his flesh and bones hang together."