V. — REID'S
By noon Hogarth knew the news: his hundred and fifty at Reid's were gone; and he owed for the Michaelmas quarter—twenty-one pounds five, his only chattels of value being the thresher, not yet paid for, half a rick, seed, manure, and “the furniture”. If he could realize enough for rent, he would lack capital for wages and cultivation, for Reid's had been his credit-bank.
After dinner he stood long at a window, then twisted away, and walked to Thring, where he captained in a football match, Loveday watching his rage, his twisting waist, and then accompanying him home: but in the dining-room they found the lord-of-the-manor's bailiff; and Loveday, divining something embarrassing, took himself away.
The same evening there were two appraisers in the house, and the bailiff, on their judgment, took possession of the chattels on the holding except some furniture, and some agricultural “fixtures”. The sale was arranged for the sixth day.
From the old Hogarth the truth could no longer be hidden...
Two days he continued quiet in the old nook by the hearth, apparently in a kind of dotage doze; but on the third, he began to poke about, hobbled into the dairy, peered into the churn, touched the skimmer.
“You'll have to wear the cap”, Margaret heard him mutter—“or be turned out”.
As if taking farewell, he would get up, as at a sudden thought, to go to visit something. He kept murmuring: “I always said, Get a bit of land as your own, but I never did; the days went by and by....”