"The committee is adjourned," answered Adam very haughtily. "And for the benefit of those who have so little education, and who envy those who may be better endowed in that respect, I may remark that c[oe]teris paribus means—it means, in the manner in which I employed it, that the question of a hay-wain shall be decided at the next meeting. And that is all I have to say, except that I expect an apology."
"And all I have to say is that you won't get one," answered Mr. Weekes very rudely.
The company rose, and a date having been appointed for future deliberations, every man prepared to go on his way.
Jarratt Weekes refused to apologize, despite efforts on the part of Prout and Norseman to make him do so. He persisted in the display of a very ferocious temper, and expressed grave doubt as to whether he should again join the committee. None pressed him to do so.
"A beautiful meeting," said Mr. Huggins to Mr. Taverner, who saw him home. "I'm sure I hope I shall be spared to see many more such afore the great day cometh."
CHAPTER X
"DARLING BLUE-EYES!"
Daniel Brendon asked Sarah Jane to marry him on an afternoon in November, when the wind blew like a giant from the west, and the life of the Moor slept.
They sat in a nook of Great Links Tor, looked at the world outspread beneath them, and listened to the hiss of the wind, as it flogged heath and stone and chattering rushes. A million tiny clouds dappled the sky with pure pearl, and far beneath this apparently motionless cloth of silver was woven another cloud-pattern of darker tone, where tattered vapour fled easterly across heaven before the roaring breeze. This rack sank to earth's surface, swept the Moor, and, when it reached the crowns of the land, swallowed them. Thus a world of wild movement and music filled the lower air and throbbed upon the wilderness, while the upper chambers of the sky were bright and still. Some faint sunlight pierced the cirrus, but its radiance was caught by the turmoil below and hardly reached these lovers, where they sat sheltered from the riotous breath of the wind.