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"Potatoes ain't quite up to last year, but the corn crop's a record breaker." "Mis' Hornblower's knee trouble her much?" "Well, no, not to say trouble." Mr. Hornblower plucked his beard with his disengaged hand and cast a thoughtful glance at his companion. "She's a little oneasy in her mind though, Mis' Hornblower is. She's got an idea in her head and it keeps her as oneasy as a flea.
"They are not in this parish." "No, but they turn up here the ladies, at least at all the services at odd times that Bindon has begun with." "Ah! by the bye, is Herbert Bowater come?" "Yes, the whole family came over to his installation in Mrs. Hornblower's lodgings." "I saw him this morning, poor old Herbs," added Frank, "looking uncommonly as if he felt himself in a strait waistcoat."
"During this state of affairs, Skipper Hornblower's fame sounded far and wide, and many were the stories told of his smuggling exploits, and how Squire Burgle always kept a large stock of British goods on hand, which he never sold cheaper than any body else, though he got richer.
"But Ruth was talking to her mother-in-law," she objected, off her guard for the instant, since only the death of Mrs. Hornblower senior, had ended the hostilities between herself and her son's wife. Then regretting her tactless words, she hastened to say, "Don't you think that when a man gets to Mr. Hornblower's age, he does better in work he's used to than if he tries his hand at something new?
"I've got a word to say to you, Lena," remarked the reconstructed Mr. Hornblower. "Women are all right when they keep their place. After this I want to have it understood I'm not going to have any interference in my business." He walked to the door and turned for a parting defiance. "Damned if I will." Mrs. Hornblower's attack of hysterics occupied Persis till noon.
"Come, Jenny," said Julius, feeling that the moment for interruption had come, "it is time we should be off. Methinks there are sounds as if the whole canine establishment at Mrs. Hornblower's were prancing up to meet us."
The next Smooth saw, the Squire was letting fly at Hornblower's head the law-book; which rather summary demonstration was replied to by a stream of tobacco juice, with which Hornblower blinded the Squire, setting him nearly frantic. By the way, the law-book missed its intended object, and stormed the end of Uncle Seth Sprague's nose, nearly knocking off an inch or two.
As nature, ever erring, should be generous to nature, so also did I interrupt here by offering to plead Hornblower's case; to which meritorious object I commenced taking off my coat. "'Swearin' ain't judiciary, Squire! says I. "'Tain't none a' your business, he rejoined, letting his anger get above his caution.
"The lavender foulard, to be sure." He cut himself an enormous slice from the boiled beef and bowed his head over his plate, as if offering thanks for an excuse to retire gracefully from the conversation. But this did not agree with Mrs. Hornblower's intentions. "Tired, ain't you, Robert?" Her solicitude was so marked as to suggest an ulterior motive.
He sank into a chair, clasped his hands over his face for a moment, then surveyed them all one by one, and said, "You told me she was here." "She is with her brother Herbert, at Mrs. Hornblower's lodgings. No, you must wait, Archie; he has barely in the last few hours, by God's great mercy, taken a turn for the better in this fever, and I don't see how she can leave him."
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