“Ay. Well, look at it, girl. There’s five thousand acres and a bit over; and there’s two hundred and ninety people living on it—there’s barely one of them I don’t know. I’ve looked after them, but I’ve not cosseted them, and don’t you cosset them. And it’s not only the people; there’s not a field I don’t know nor a bit of coppice that I can’t see, nor a slate roof that I have not slated, and the Lord knows how much of it I’ve drained. It’s been ours, the heart of it since Queen Bess, and part of it since Mary; sometimes logged with debt, and then again cleared. I came into it logged, and I’ve cleared it. It’s come down, sometimes straight, sometimes sideways, but always in a man’s hands. Well, it will soon be in a girl’s. In two or three years, more or less, it will be yours, my girl. And do you mark what I say to you this day. You’re the heir of tail, and I couldn’t take it from you, if I would—but do you mark me!” He found her hand and gripped it so hard as to give her pain, but she would not wince. “Don’t you part with an acre of it! Not with an acre of it! Not with an acre of it! Do you hear me, girl; or I think I’ll turn in my grave! If you are bidden to do it when your son comes of age, you think of me and of this day, and don’t put your hand to it! Hold to the land, hold to the land, and they as come after you shall hold up their heads as we have held ours! It isn’t money, it isn’t land bought with money, it’s the land that’s come down, that will keep Griffins where Griffins have been. When I am gone do you mark that! Whatever betide, let ’em say what they like, don’t you be one of those that sell their birthright, the right to govern, for a mess of pottage!”
“I will remember, sir!” she said with tears. “I will, I will indeed!”
“Ay, never forget it, don’t you forget this day. I ha’ brought you up the hill on purpose to show you that. For fifty years I have spared and lived niggardly and put shilling to shilling to clear that land and to drain it and round it—and may be, for Acherley is a random spendthrift, I’ll yet add that strip of his to it! I’ve lived for the land, that those who come after me may govern their corner as Griffins have governed it time out of mind. I’ve done my duty by the people and the land. Don’t you forget to do yours.”
She told him earnestly that she never would—she never would. After that he was silent awhile. He let her hand go. But presently, and without warning, “Why don’t you ha’ the lad?”
Josina was surprised and yet not surprised; or if surprised at all, it was at her own calmness. Her color ebbed, but she neither trembled nor faltered. She had not even to summon up the thought of Clement. The charge to which she had just listened clothed her with a dignity which the prospect, spread before her eyes and insensibly raising her mind to higher issues, helped to support. “I couldn’t, sir,” she said quietly. “I do not love him.”
“Don’t love him?” the Squire repeated—yet not half so angrily as she expected. “What’s amiss with him?’”
“Nothing, sir. But I do not love him.”
“Love? Bah! Love’ll come! Maids ha’ naught to do with love! When they’re married love’ll come fast enough, I’ll warrant! The lad’s straight and comely and a proper age—and what else do you want? What else do you want, eh? He’s of your own blood, and if he’s wild ideas ’tis better than wild oats, and he’ll give them up. He’s promised me that, or I’d never ha’ said yes to him! Why, girl!” with sudden exasperation, “’twas only the other day you were peaking and puling for him! Peaking and puling like a sick sparrow, and I was saying, no! And now—why, damme, what do you mean by it?”
“It was all a mistake, sir,” she said with dignity. “I never did think of him, or wish for him. It was a mistake.”
“A mistake! What do you mean?”