It was so now with Zita.
She was startled from her reverie of self-torment by a shock in the boat. She looked up, startled, and saw before her a man with long arms and large hands, dark-haired and dark-eyed. He was handsome, but his face bore an expression of sour discontent. The thin lips were indicative of a sharp and querulous temper, and the checks seemed as though they could not dimple into laughter.
'What are you doing in the lighter?' asked the man, whom Zita recognised as Ephraim Beamish, the orator.
'I suppose I have as much right to be in the boat as you,' answered the girl peevishly.
'No doubt. We neither have any right anywhere. We are both poor. I know who you are—the Cheap Jack girl. I hear you have been taken into Prickwillow. Wish you happiness. It is not the place I should care to be in. Drownlands is not the man to clothe the poor, house the wanderer, feed the hungry, without expecting his reward—and that here. He does nothing of good to any one but to serve his own ends. He has just had me turned out.'
'Turned out of what?'
'Turned out of my mill, out of my employ, out of my livelihood. I have now to run about the fens, in ice and snow. I have no home. I am a gentleman, however, for I have no work. The rats may shelter in the barn, the mice may nest in the stack, but I must be without a roof to cover my head, without work to engage my hands, and without bread to put into my mouth. And all for why? Because I have been bold to speak the truth. Truth is like light. Men hate it and turn their eyes from it. Them as speaks the truth gets persecuted, and I am one of these.'
'You can obtain work elsewhere,' said Zita, displeased at having her imaginary troubles broken in on by some one with a real grievance.
'No, I cannot,' answered Beamish; 'the owners of property hang together like bees when they swarm. If you disturb one, the whole hive sets on you and stings you to death.'
'Well,' said Zita irritably, 'you need not tell me all this. I cannot assist you.'