He could now and with a clear conscience. In those quiet moments he
had taken the great resolution. The debt should be paid back, and with
interest; not at five per cent., but at a rate beyond the creditor's
power of reckoning. For the interest to be guarded for her should be
her continued belief in the man she loved. Yes, _but if George were
innocent_? Why, then, the sacrifice would be idle; that was all.
He swallowed the wine, and stood up.
"Must you be going? I wanted a chat with you about Oxford," grumbled
Sir Harry; but noting the lad's face, how white and drawn it was, he
relented and put a hand on his shoulder. "Don't take it too seriously,
my boy. It'll blow over—it'll blow over. Honoria likes you, I know.
We'll see what the trollop says; and if I get a chance of putting in a
good word, you may depend on me."
He walked with Taffy to the door—good, easy man—and waved a hand from
the porch. On the whole he was rather glad than not to see his young
friend's back.
* * * * *
From his smithy window Mendarva spied Taffy coming along the road, and
stepped out on the green to shake hands with him.
"Pleased to see your face, my son! You'll excuse my not askin' 'ee
inside; but the fact is"—he jerked his thumb toward the smithy—"we've
a-got our troubles in there."
It came on our youth with something of a shock, that the world had room
for any trouble beside his own.
"'Tis the Dane. He went over to Truro yesterday to the wrastlin', an'
got thrawed. I tell'n there's no need to be shamed. 'Twas Luke the
Wendron fella did it—in the treble play—inside lock backward, and as
pretty a chip as ever I see." Mendarva began to illustrate it with foot
and ankle, but checked himself and glanced nervously over his shoulder.
"Isn' lookin', I hope? He's in a terrible pore about it. Won't trust
hissel' to spake and don't want to see nobody. But, as I tell'n, there's
no need to be shamed; the fella took the belt in the las' round and
turned his man over like a tab. He's a proper angletwitch, that Wendron
fella. Stank 'pon en both ends, and he'll rise up in the middle and
look at 'ee. There was no one a patch on en but the Dane; and I'll back
the Dane next time they clinch. 'Tis a nuisance, though, to have'n like
this—with a big job coming on, too, over to the light-house."