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What could he and his simple Grace do to countervail the passions of such as those two sophisticated beings versed in the world's ways, armed with every apparatus for victory? In such an encounter the homely timber-dealer felt as inferior as a bow-and-arrow savage before the precise weapons of modern warfare. Grace came out of the house as the morning drew on.
Inquiry soon brought Roger the sailor to the door of Wall, the timber-dealer referred to, but it was some time before he was able to gain admission to the lodging of his sister, the people having plainly received directions not to welcome strangers.
Workmen had been painting, papering, and whitewashing this set of rooms in the wedded pair's absence; and so scrupulous had been the timber-dealer that there should occur no hitch or disappointment on their arrival, that not the smallest detail remained undone.
Apart from his lover-like anxiety to possess her, the few golden hundreds of the timber-dealer, ready to hand, formed a warm background to Grace's lovely face, and went some way to remove his uneasiness at the prospect of endangering his professional and social chances by an alliance with the family of a simple countryman. The interim closed up its perspective surely and silently.
The trencher, at first of bread, then of wood, after a while of pewter, and eventually of pottery, porcelain or china-earth, as it was called, and the precious metals, afforded abundant scope for the fancy of the artist, even in the remote days when the material for it came from the timber-dealer, and sets of twelve were sometimes decorated on the face with subjects taken from real life, and on the back with emblems of the purpose to which they were destined.
Splint, a great shipbuilder and timber-dealer of Plymouth, of my claim to the Hackton timber, that he agreed to purchase it off-hand at about one-third of its value, and handed me over five thousand pounds: which, being pressed with debts at the time, I was fain to accept. HE had no difficulty in getting down the wood, I warrant.
As he turned he saw the anxious faces of two women at one of the kitchen windows, and the blood flew to his pinched face. "Here, come back here and talk man-fashion!" shouted the timber-dealer. "You couldn't make no more fuss if I come to seize your farm. I'll make it eighty, an' I'll tell you jest one thing more: if you're holdin' out, thinkin' I'll give you more, you can hold out till doomsday."
"Eighteenpence a thousand," she said, reluctantly. "Who are you making them for?" "Mr. Melbury, the timber-dealer, just below here." "And how many can you make in a day?" "In a day and half the night, three bundles that's a thousand and a half." "Two and threepence." The barber paused.
Luke was a timber-dealer, or merchant, a calling that generally leads to substantial profit as wealth is understood in country places. lie bought up likely timber all over the neighbourhood: he had wharves on the canal, and yards by the little railway station miles away. He often went up to "Lunnon," but if it was ninety miles, he was sure to be back in time to whistle.
Winterborne saw that something had gone wrong with his former friend, and throwing down the switch he was about to interweave, he responded only too readily to the mood of the timber-dealer. "Is she ill?" he said, hurriedly. "No, no." Melbury stood without speaking for some minutes, and then, as though he could not bring himself to proceed, turned to go away.
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