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All I meant was regarding her life here. She has died too soon." "Perhaps through my living too long. I have had a bitter experience on that score this last month, Diggory. But come in; I have been wanting to see you." He conducted the reddleman into the large room where the dancing had taken place the previous Christmas, and they sat down in the settle together.
By this time a change had come over the game; the reddleman won continually. At length sixty guineas Thomasin's fifty, and ten of Clym's had passed into his hands. Wildeve was reckless, frantic, exasperated. "'Won back his coat," said Venn slily. Another throw, and the money went the same way. "'Won back his hat," continued Venn. "Oh, oh!" said Wildeve.
Down they sat again, and recommenced with single guinea stakes; and the play went on smartly. But Fortune had unmistakably fallen in love with the reddleman tonight. He won steadily, till he was the owner of fourteen more of the gold pieces. Seventy-nine of the hundred guineas were his, Wildeve possessing only twenty-one. The aspect of the two opponents was now singular.
It had not been comprehended by the reddleman that at half-way through the performance the game was continued with the money of another person; and it was an error which afterwards helped to cause more misfortune than treble the loss in money value could have done.
Venn looked coolly towards Wildeve, and, without a word being spoken, he deliberately sat himself down where Christian had been seated, thrust his hand into his pocket, drew out a sovereign, and laid it on the stone. "You have been watching us from behind that bush?" said Wildeve. The reddleman nodded. "Down with your stake," he said. "Or haven't you pluck enough to go on?"
Miss Vye was not to be seen by anybody just then; and the reddleman waited in the window-bench of the kitchen, his hands hanging across his divergent knees, and his cap hanging from his hands. "I suppose the young lady is not up yet?" he presently said to the servant. "Not quite yet. Folks never call upon ladies at this time of day." "Then I'll step outside," said Venn.
The reddleman spoke huskily, and looked into the garden. "Who gave her away?" "Miss Vye." "How very remarkable! Miss Vye! It is to be considered an honour, I suppose?" "Who's Miss Vye?" said Clym. "Captain Vye's granddaughter, of Mistover Knap." "A proud girl from Budmouth," said Mrs. Yeobright. "One not much to my liking. People say she's a witch, but of course that's absurd."
"Don't make sport of me, Miss Vye," he said. "It isn't true?" "Certainly not." She was thus convinced that the reddleman was a mere pis aller in Mrs. Yeobright's mind; one, moreover, who had not even been informed of his promotion to that lowly standing.
Wildeve rattled the box, and threw a pair of sixes and five points. He clapped his hands; "I have done it this time hurrah!" "There are two playing, and only one has thrown," said the reddleman, quietly bringing down the box. The eyes of each were then so intently converged upon the stone that one could fancy their beams were visible, like rays in a fog.
"But there's good art in me? If I couldn't make a little wind go a long ways I should seem no younger than the most aged man, should I, Timothy?" "And how about the new-married folks down there at the Quiet Woman Inn?" the other inquired, pointing towards a dim light in the direction of the distant highway, but considerably apart from where the reddleman was at that moment resting.
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