Lady Selina replied scornfully:
“You shall have it, I promise you. So you, you have raised my own people against me?”
“Aye.”
He spoke impersonally, as if he were aware that he had but served as an instrument. And he continued in a low voice, pathetically apathetic:
“I ha’ waited fifteen year for this hour—fifteen year.”
Agatha stood beside him, still defiant. Nick, unnoticed, save by Grimshaw, crept furtively to the fireplace, apparently astonished and distressed to find no fire in it. Grimshaw leapt to the conclusion that the softy had been brought to the Vicarage purposely. Presently he would serve as an object-lesson, a notable part of Timothy’s indictment.
“You can say what you have to say,” observed Lady Selina. “Apparently you are here to speak for some of your neighbours?” He nodded. “Very well—speak.”
Timothy prepared himself for a tremendous effort, how tremendous none can understand who is not intimately acquainted with the rustic mind, almost atrophied by disuse, when it attempts to measure itself against authority. Grimshaw, watching him closely, reflected that his attitude and expression were more eloquent than any speech could be. Bent and bowed by interminable toil, his gnarled hands trembling with agitation, he spoke very slowly:
“You might ha’ been burned this day along wi’ your gert house. . . .”
“True.”