“Do you think, Harry, it would be well to take up John Wauling’s farm, and try whether I could not make something of it in my own hands?” asked Charles.
Harry shook his head.
“You don’t?” said Charlie.
“Well, no, I don’t; you’d never make the rent of it,” answered Harry; “besides, if you begin upsetting things here, the people will begin to talk, and that would not answer; you’ll need to be d——d quiet.”
There was here a pause, and they walked on in silence until the thick shadows of the trees began to break a little before them, and the woods grew more scattered; whole trees were shadowed in distinct outline, and the wide common of Cressley, with its furze and fern, and broad undulations, stretched mistily before them.
“About money—you know, Charlie, there’s money enough at present and no debts to signify; I mean, if you don’t make them you needn’t. You and Alice, with the house and garden, can get along on a trifle. The tenants give you three hundred a year, and you can manage with two.”
“Two hundred a year!” exclaimed Charlie, opening his eyes.
“Ay, two hundred a year!—that girl don’t eat sixpenn’orth in a day,” said Harry.
“Alice is the best little thing in the world, and will look after everything, I know; but there are other things beside dinner and breakfast,” said Charles, who did not care to hear his wife called “that girl.”
“Needs must when the Devil drives, my boy; you’ll want a hundred every year for contingencies,” said Harry.