United States or Canada ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
"Gently, Mr. Stephen gently, I implore you!" interposed Mr. Jose. Roger did not seem to hear, and the woman made no resistance. He led her through the hall, across the threshold of Steens, and up the courtlage path. At the gate, as he pushed it wide for her, his grip on her wrist relaxed, and, releasing her, he stood aside. She paused for one instant, and gently inclined her head.
From youth up he had been badly used. His father, Humphrey Stephen, owned Steens, and was a man of substance; a yeoman with money and land enough to make him an esquire whenever he chose. Sometimes the second son would follow him to college and proceed to Holy Orders, but oftener he had to content himself as apprentice to an apothecary or an attorney.
They had overtaken indeed a few stragglers on the road: a knot of boys had kept pace with them and halted a furlong behind, climbing the hedges and waiting to see the fun. But Steens itself stood apparently desolate. In the fields around not even a stray group of sightseers could Sir John perceive.
Also she knew, as well as her commoner neighbours, that the situation at Steens must be a difficult one. Therefore Lady Piers entered the morning-room with a face not entirely cordial, and, finding the pretty widow in tears, bowed and said, "Good-morning, Mrs. Stephen. What can I do for you?" "He's turned me out!" Mrs. Stephen sobbed. "Indeed!" Lady Piers was not altogether surprised.
During his mother's lifetime, and because she could not do without him, he had slept at Steens and walked to and from his shop in Helleston; but on the day after the funeral he packed and left home, taking with him old Malachi, a family retainer whom Humphrey had long ago lamed for life by flinging a crowbar at him in a fit of passion.
But disregarding the rank, he strode on and on, scything down the grass his grass, grown on his earth, reaped with his sweat. The hay had been gathered and stacked, and the stacks thatched; and still Roger lived on at Steens unmolested. He began to feel that the danger had blown over, and for this security old Malachi was responsible.
Sir James reached his house and spent a week in drawing up a report alleging that he and his twenty soldiers had been met by a crowd of over a thousand people, all partisans of Stephen; and that on attempting a forcible entry of Steens he had been murderously fired upon, with the loss of two killed and one wounded.
The men withdrew most obligingly, collecting their breakfast cans, helping their wives and children over the hedge, laughing all the while. They scattered over the fields in front of Steens and sat down again in groups to watch. To disperse them farther with his handful of soldiers would be waste of time, and the Sheriff turned his attention to the house, which faced him grim and silent.
But the Rembrandts are there, and there are the Potters, the Rubenses, the Van Dycks, the Jan Steens his Oyster Feast is here the landscape and marine painters, not to mention the portraiture, the Murillo, Palma Vecchio, and the Titian. The single Roger van der Weyden, an attribution, is a Crucifixion, and hangs near the Memlig. It is an interesting picture.
Word Of The Day