“Well, Bridger, what do you want?”
“Please, Squire, I came to know if I was really to go to-morrow?”
“Are you accustomed to hear me say things I don’t mean? I told you that if you did not send away your daughter within a week I should dismiss you and your sons from my service.”
The gamekeeper looked down, revolving these words in his mind: even then he could not bring himself to believe that they were spoken in grim earnest; he felt that if only he could make Mr. Castillyon understand how impossible was what he asked, he would surely allow him to stay.
“There’s nowhere Fanny can go. If I send her away, she’ll go to the bad altogether.”
“You doubtless know that Mrs. Castillyon has promised to provide for her. I have no doubt there are homes for fallen women where she can be looked after.”
“Paul,” cried Grace indignantly, “how can you say that!”
Bridger stepped forward and faced the Squire; he looked into his eyes with surly indignation.
“I’ve served you faithfully, man and boy, for forty years, and I was born in that there cottage I live in now. I tell you the girl can’t go; she’s a good girl in her heart, only she’s ’ad a misfortune. If you turn us out, where are we to go? I’m getting on in years, and I shan’t find it easy to get another job. It’ll mean the workus.”
He could not express himself, nor show in words his sense of the intolerable injustice of this thing; he could only see that the long years of loyal service counted for nothing, and that the future offered cold and want and humiliation. Paul stood over him cold and stern.