guarded. Perhaps some family instinct, at variance with the coat he wore these days, had prompted Will, at his father’s death, to keep as bailiff one of the few “levellers” who were to be found in this loyal corner[37] of the north. If so, he should have stood by his choice; but instead he yielded to childish and unreasoning passion.

[37]

“D’ye think I’m missing my bed at this time o’ night to hear your ranting politics? It would be a poor king that couldn’t prick your windbag for you, Eli. Stick to your ledgers and the workmen——”

“It’s them I’m trying to stick to,” broke in Eli, with that impassive dead-weight of unbelief which is like a buckler to some men. “The workmen are all gone daft about some slip o’ Belial they call Stuart Charlie. Squire Demaine has been among and about them, talking of some moonshine about a Rising; and Sir Jasper Royd has been among ’em; and, what with one and t’ other, the men are gone daft, I tell you. They talk in daylight o’ what they dursen’t whisper to the dark a few months since; they’re off to the wars, they reckon, and you can whistle, maister, for your carpenters and painters.”

Underwood fidgeted up and down the room, and Eli watched him furtively. The bailiff, apart from his negative creed that every man was probably a little worse than his neighbour, and princes blacker than the rest, was singularly alive to his own interests. He had a comfortable billet here, and was aware of many odd, unsuspected channels by which he could squeeze money from the workmen busy with the new wing of the house; it did not suit his interests that the master should ride out to lose his head in company with Sir Jasper and Squire Demaine.

“Stick to the chap that’s sitting on a throne, maister. That’s my advice,” he said, gauging the other’s irresolution to a nicety. “Weights are heavy to lift, especially when they’ve been there for a long while.”

Will Underwood found his better self for a moment. He remembered the way of Sir Jasper, the look on Nance’s face as she bade him ask for her kerchief when he was ready to go out on a loyal errand. A distaste of Eli seized him; there was no single line of the man’s squat body, no note of his voice, that did not jar on him.

[38]“Your tongue’s like a file, Eli,” he snapped. “You forget that I’m a King’s man, too—a Stuart man.”

[38]

“Nay, not so much o’ one,” broke in 

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