I shall write down no more of this lovers' quarrel, which began in this wise.
During the interval which has been occupied by several of our preceding chapters, and while our friend Tincroft was pursuing his investigations in Sussex, and afterwards quietly settling himself down at Queen's, poor Walter was fretting and fuming under the smart of wounded love, and nursing his wrath against the unhappy damsel, who was as yet unconscious that she had given such grievous offence to her lover. This wrath increased in strength as week after week passed without a reply from Mr. Rubric to the letter which, as our readers are aware, that gentleman had not received.
"I won't write to her again till these stories have been properly contradicted and cleared up," said he to himself.
And the blank silence on his part was met by a corresponding determination on that of his betrothed, who said within herself, as weeks slipped by and no letter reached High Beech Farm—for her at least, "So, my gentleman is in the sulks, is he? I shall wait till he is out of them, then; for I am not going to write to him again till he has written to me."
Poor Sarah had, in fact, enough to think about and to do without writing love-letters. The busy harvest-time gave her abundant employment as a farmer's daughter; and the culminating ruin which hung over her home occupied more and more of her thoughts, as she more clearly saw that that ruin could not be much longer staved off. While good average crops, as we have seen, were being gathered in all the country round, Mark Wilson's farm presented as miserable a specimen of bad husbandry and neglect as could have been met with in a day's march. Poor lean crops overrun with weeds were the rule from one end of the arable land to the other; and Sarah well knew—for who could help knowing?—that the small amount of money the corn would bring in, when thrashed, would not be a tithe that was wanted to clear her father from his accumulated and constantly accumulating difficulties.
And as to Mark, he was becoming more and more infatuated in his vicious course; and it was openly talked about now that at Christmas time the squire would distrain for his rent, and that at Ladytide, when the lease was out, Mark Wilson would have to turn out of High Beech, beggared by his own folly and sin.
No wonder, then, that seeing all this before her, Sarah had but little mind for thinking on anything besides.
Walter might have reflected on all this; but he did not. He must have known how near his uncle's ruinous course was drawing to an end; but his knowledge made but little difference to his state of feeling at that time. There is a form of arrogant egotism not unfrequently to be witnessed. Do we not know that there are persons who, though in some respects estimable, set themselves and their own fancied demands upon others, as above all other considerations, small or large?
"Oh yes," says one; "I knew your son was seriously ill, and you feared he would not recover; but that was no reason why I shouldn't have been attended to directly I wrote to you."
"To be sure," says another, "I daresay you were overwhelmed with family cares at that time, and didn't know which way to turn to make the most of the little time on your hands at that juncture; but I'll never forgive you, if you don't write a humble apology for neglecting to walk three miles out and home, and waste half a day, when I invited you, and indeed made a point of requesting you to come to my house."