"There's none—none more than another—I'll swear it."
"Seek a man with money and with a face like a barber's image and not over-much sense. That's the sort will win her; and that's the sort will suit her. And now I've done."
They walked together and said the same things over and over again, as people are prone to do in argument. Then they separated in heat, for the father lost patience and again declared his pleasure at this accident.
Whereon Mark cried out against him for a callous and brutal spirit, and so left him, and turned blindly homeward. He did not know what to do or how to fight this great tribulation. He could not believe it. He came back to Hawk House at last and found himself in an angle of the dwelling, out of the wind.
Here reigned artificial silence and peace. The great gale roared overhead; but beneath, in this nook, not a straw stirred. He stood and stared at his fallen hopes and ruined plans; while from a dry spot beside the wall, there came to him the sweet, sleepy chirruping of chickens that cuddled together under their mother's wings.
CHAPTER XIV
While the desolation of Mark Baskerville came to be learnt, and some sympathised with him and some held that Cora Lintern had showed a very proper spirit to refuse a man cursed with such a father, lesser trouble haunted Cadworthy Farm, for the parent of Rupert Baskerville declared himself to be suffering from a great grievance.
Vivian was an obstinate man and would not yield to his son's demand; but the situation rapidly reached a climax, for Rupert would not yield either.
Night was the farmer's time for long discussions with his wife; and there came a moment when he faced the present crisis with her and strove for some solution of the difficulty.