Considerably disturbed in his mind, our friend walked slowly from the Manor House gates, and proceeded on his way to Low Beech. To tell the truth, his heart was heavy with what he had heard; and if he had put his thoughts into words, it would have been in something like the following soliloquy:
"I could never have thought it of Tom! What can have possessed him to barter away his own flesh and blood like that? It can't be the money. I'll never believe that he is turned covetous and money-loving. I think it must be because he is ambitious and proud. He always was proud, was Tom Grigson, and I used rather to admire him for it. He was proud of his family and his ancestry then, and now he has turned the other way, and is proud of his connection with trade, and is ambitious of being among the first and foremost of London's citizens, of credit and renown, as John Gilpin—I beg pardon, William Cowper—has it."
"That's all very well, I mean if it pleases him, but he need not be—Poor young Tom! So he is to go a-wooing, and to have a wife, whether he likes it or no, is he? No, I never could have thought it of Tom Grigson—the Tom I knew twenty years ago. And I don't think he seems over-satisfied with it himself."
"'Tis bad enough," we may suppose John going on, "bad enough to do mischief to our neighbours without intending it; but to be brewing a bitter brewst for one's own flesh and blood, with one's eyes open, is worse still, I think."
And so, grumbling to himself, as he would have said, John Tincroft presently arrived at Low Beech Farm, to find that Walter Wilson had walked out with his sister—intending to go to High Beech, to take leave of George's wife, Mm. Matthew thought. And they had been a mortal while gone, she added, grumblingly, thinking no doubt that Elizabeth's time was being grievously wasted.
"I'll go on thither," said John; "perhaps I may meet them on their return."
But he didn't meet them, and so he quietly and ruminatingly took the path which led from the Low to the High, and which so many, many years ago he had traversed to and fro, dreaming of things possible and impossible.
At length he arrived at High Beech Farm; but here again he was at fault. Neither Walter nor Elizabeth had been seen there that day. Invited to enter and rest in the parlour, John shied (remembering the knobby chairs, perhaps) and pleaded haste, also anxiety to find his friend Walter.
"Perhaps they have slipped into the garden," said Mrs. George, indifferently, for she and Elizabeth were not very dear friends; and as to Walter, whom she had never known till of late, there was no particular reason why she should love him.
"I'll go and look in the garden," said John; and he went—passing through the wicket-gate, and slowly walking up the filbert alley, with a comical kind of feeling, remembering the last time he was there, as recorded in these present memoirs.