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'Tush, the ring! Tom Faggus cried, with a contempt that moved me: 'I would never have stopped a man for that. But the necklace, you great oaf, the necklace is worth all your farm put together, and your Uncle Ben's fortune to the back of it; ay, and all the town of Dulverton. 'What, said I, 'that common glass thing, which she has had from her childhood! 'Glass indeed!
Uncle Ben went fast asleep on my back, being jaded and shaken beyond his strength, for a man of three-score and five; and as soon he felt assured of safety he would talk no more. And to tell the truth he snored so loudly, that I could almost believe that fearful noise in the fog every night came all the way from Dulverton.
'I was riding on from Dulverton, he resumed, with great severity, yet threatening me no more, which checked me more than fifty threats: 'and it was late in the afternoon, and I was growing weary. My horse was scared, and leaped aside; for a northerly wind was piping, and driving hunks of foam across, as children scatter snow-balls.
But the roads were soft and very deep, and the sloughs were out in places; and the heavy coach broke down in the axle, and needed mending at Dulverton; and so they lost three hours or more, and would have been wiser to sleep there. But her ladyship would not hear of it; she must be home that night, she said, and her husband would be waiting.
This being so, we cannot do better than seek a measure of quietude and repose along the banks of the Exe, a river which, rising on Exmoor, gives name to Exeter, Exminster, and Exmouth. Although rising in Somerset, the river may fittingly be claimed as a Devonian one, as it enters the county a little below Dulverton, where it receives the waters of the Barle.
Now when I came in, before one o'clock, after seeing to the cattle for the day was thicker than ever, and we must keep the cattle close at home, if we wished to see any more of them I fully expected to find Uncle Ben sitting in the fireplace, lifting one cover and then another, as his favourite manner was, and making sweet mouths over them; for he loved our bacon rarely, and they had no good leeks at Dulverton; and he was a man who always would see his business done himself.
For he begged her to see to his young grand-daughter, until he could find opportunity of fetching her safely to Dulverton. Mother was overjoyed at this, as she could not help displaying; and Ruth was quite as much delighted, although she durst not show it.
'Help, good friend, whoever thou art, he gasped, but could not look at me, because his neck was jerked so; 'God hath sent thee, and not to rob me, because it is done already. 'What, Uncle Ben! I cried, letting go the horse in amazement, that the richest man in Dulverton 'Uncle Ben here in this plight! What, Mr. Reuben Huckaback!
Uncle Ben went fast asleep on my back, being jaded and shaken beyond his strength, for a man of three-score and five; and as soon he felt assured of safety he would talk no more. And to tell the truth he snored so loudly, that I could almost believe that fearful noise in the fog every night came all the way from Dulverton.
For nothing could be easier than to cheat Lorna about the cost, until time should come for her paying me. And this was better than to cheat her for the benefit of our family. For this end, and for many others, I set off to Dulverton, bearing more commissions, more messages, and more questions than a man of thrice my memory might carry so far as the corner where the sawpit is.
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