We were passing through the fields towards the Court: the Squire was taking him to see the Sterlings, and he had said he would rather walk than drive. The hedges were breaking into green: the fields were yellow with buttercups and cowslips. This was on the Monday. The sun shone and the breeze was soft. Mr. Marks sniffed the air as he went along.
“Six months of this would make a new man of me,” we heard him say to himself in a low tone.
“Take it,” cried the Squire.
Mr. Marks laughed, sadly enough. “You might as well tell me, sir, to—to take heaven,” he said impulsively. “The one is no more in my power than the other.—Hark! I do believe that’s the cuckoo!”
We stood to listen. It was the cuckoo, sure enough, for the first time that spring. It only gave out two or three notes, though, and then was silent.
“How many years it is since I heard the cuckoo!” he exclaimed, brushing his hand across his eyes. “More than twenty, I suppose. It seems to bring back my youth to me. What a thing it would be for us, sir, if we could only go to the mill that grinds people young again!”
The Squire laughed. “It is good of you to talk of age, Marks; why, I must be nearly double yours,” he added—which of course was random speaking.
“I feel old, Mr. Todhetley: perhaps older than you do. Think of the difference in our mode of life. I, tied to a desk for more hours of the twenty-four than I care to think of, my brain ever at work; you, revelling in this beautiful, healthy freedom!”
“Ay, well, it is a difference, when you come to think of it,” said the Squire soberly.
“I must not repine,” returned Marks. “There are more men in my case than in yours. No doubt it is well for me,” he continued, dropping his voice, with a sigh. “Were your favoured lot mine, sir, I might find so much good in it as to forget that this world is not our home.”