SCENE IV
Just before dark on the following day a man descended from a down train at the Clinton Magna station. The porters knew him and greeted him; so did one or two labourers outside, as he set off to walk to the village, which was about a mile distant.
"Well, John, so yer coom back," said one of them, an old man, grasping the newcomer by the hand. "An' I can't say as yer looks is any credit to Frampton—no, that aa can't."
John, indeed, wore a sallow and pinched air, and walked lamely, with a stick.
"Noa," he said peevishly; "it's a beastly place is Frampton; a damp,
nassty hole as iver I saw—gives yer the rheumaticks to look at it.
I've 'ad a doose of a time, I 'ave, I can tell yer—iver sense I went.
But I'll pull up now."
"Aye, this air 'll do yer," said the other. "Where are yer stoppin'?
Costrells'?"
John nodded.
"They don't know nothin' about my comin', but I dessay they'll find me somethin' to sleep on. I'll 'ave my own place soon, and some one to look arter it."
He drew himself up involuntarily, with the dignity that waits on property. A laugh, rather jeering than cordial, ran through the group of labourers.
"Aye, yer'll be livin' at your ease," said the man who had spoken first. "When will yo' give us a drink, yer lardship?"