"Meddling knave!" said he, "why did you interfere? The woman was dead—what more would you have? Did you understand it to be the custom of the lord of Sudley to war with dead enemies?"
This mortification only added fuel to the steward's wrath, and he determined to carry on, with all the vigour of soul and purse, an action which he had already commenced against his enemy.
Towards the end of June the sessions commenced at Gloucester, and Holgrave once more stood in the hall of justice—not as a looker on, but as an actor. Although, at the present period, the charge would have assumed a truly formidable shape, yet the deed was not then accounted even as maihem—for the simple reason, that the loss of an ear did not prevent a man from performing military duties.
But in this instance the offence was aggravated, at least in the eye of the law, by the manner and occasion. The law had not as yet contemplated the evasion of its decisions, by the disinterment of the bodies of criminals, and, consequently, there was no provision for punishing the deed. It was, however, taken into account in the verdict, and the damages were proportionably heavy. Holgrave, as may readily be imagined, had not a coin to meet the demand, and his crops, which had grown and flourished, as if by miracle—for they had been little indebted to his attention—were now condemned to be cut down, and put up for sale to pay the damages. The yeoman had often looked upon his plentiful fields with a feeling of pleasure: not that his mind had latterly been in a mood to find pleasure in the prospect of gain; but his house and his land were mortgaged, (for his mother,) and even in the darkest and most troubled scene, there is a beauty, a redeeming brightness, encircling the domestic hearth,—nay, perhaps, the heart clings more closely to home, and treasures, more fondly, the little nameless pleasures, and even the cares and anxieties of domestic life, in proportion to the bleakness of the prospect without.
His farm itself was at length forfeited, and Holgrave took shelter for the moment at old Hartwell's. The hut his father had reared when he married his mother, was still standing; the roof had fallen in, the ivy had grown over its walls; but even yet it sometimes sheltered the wandering mendicant, and often would the blaze of a large wood fire look cheerily through the shattered casement and the broken door, and shed an air almost of comfort over the bare walls. Holgrave remembered the ruin, as he was considering where he could abide until Margaret, who was far advanced in the family way, should be enabled to travel farther. His resolution was instantly formed; and refusing the assistance offered by Hartwell, and some other neighbours, and as decidedly rejecting the idea they proposed, of striving to regain possession of his house, he requested Lucy Hartwell to look to Margaret for a day or two, while he sought out a place to shelter them; and then, without mentioning his purpose, quitted the house.
It was late in the afternoon ere Holgrave resolved to put the hut that had sheltered him when a boy, in a state to receive him now; but there were several hours of daylight before him, and even when the day should close, the broad harvest moon would afford him light to prolong his labour. The rushes that grew by the Isborne, the clay from the little spot of ground attached to the hut, and the withered and broken branches that lay thickly strewn over the adjoining forest, gave him ample materials for his purpose.
Holgrave set about his task with that doggedness of purpose which persons of his disposition display when compelled to submit. His misfortunes had in some measure subdued a pride that could never be entirely extinguished;—it might be likened to a smothered fire, still burning, although diffusing neither heat nor light, but ready upon the slightest breath to burst forth in flame. Even here he was interrupted by a visitor.
"Good even, Stephen," said Wat Turner, the parish smith, in as kind a tone as his abrupt manner could assume; "you are hard at work, master—are you going to set the old cot to rights?"
Holgrave answered carelessly, and without looking at the smith, continued his work.
"I think you are doing well, Stephen, not to allow the idle vagabonds to house here any longer. By St. Nicholas! when these holes are stopped up, and the thatch is put to rights, and the casement whole, and a couple of hinges put to the door, it will be a place fit for any man. When I go home I will send my son Dick, and the knave Tom, to help you."