For God's sake don't go putting ideas into his head!"
At this outburst Mrs. Pendyce's face became rigid; only the flicker of
her eyelids betrayed how her nerves were quivering. Suddenly she threw
her hands up to her ears.
"Horace!" she cried, "do----Oh, poor John!"
The Squire had stepped hastily and heavily on to his dog's paw. The
creature gave a grievous howl. Mr. Pendyce went down on his knees and
raised the limb.
"Damn the dog!" he stuttered. "Oh, poor fellow, John!"
And the two long and narrow heads for a moment were close together.
CHAPTER V
RECTOR AND SQUIRE
The efforts of social man, directed from immemorial time towards
the stability of things, have culminated in Worsted Skeynes. Beyond
commercial competition--for the estate no longer paid for living on
it--beyond the power of expansion, set with tradition and sentiment, it
was an undoubted jewel, past need of warranty. Cradled within it were
all those hereditary institutions of which the country was most proud,
and Mr. Pendyce sometimes saw before him the time when, for services to
his party, he should call himself Lord Worsted, and after his own death
continue sitting in the House of Lords in the person of his son. But
there was another feeling in the Squire's heart--the air and the woods
and the fields had passed into his blood a love for this, his home and
the home of his fathers.
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