“Well, then, whatever’s to do?” Bob peered at him curiously, struck by the mixture of longing and dogged resistance in his tone. “If it’s nobbut a matter of a pound or two, you can fetch up easy enough on yon. There’s a deal o’ folk’d lend you a hand, seeing how you’re placed. It’s more than time, too, you were starting on your own. It doesn’t do to stop in service over long. You get kind o’ fixed and feared o’ striking out.” “I’ll strike right enough, never you fret—I will that. But it’ll be in my own time....” “You can’t always suit things just to the tick.... Eh, I wish the chance had come my road, that’s all!” Bob sighed and frowned, depressed by the thought of what he had missed, and the folly which refused what he would so gladly have seized. “But it’s no use my thinking on’t, so that’s flat. Even if I could borrow the brass, I’d never catch up with it, I doubt, and there’s Marget to be suited in t’matter, as I said afore. Nay, I’m a broken reed, that’s what it is, and I mun just let be. It’s for you to say what you’ll do for the old man.” “I can’t do owt—yet,” Thomas repeated. “I mun ha’ time....” and pushed his chair further into the concealing gloom. He felt trapped in a cunning snare, all the more cunning and cruel because it was simply his own plan of life twisted and tangled out of shape. He had never dreamed that his future hung by a hair, but then he had never imagined that John might die, or that Agnes might so incredibly change her mind. He felt not only trapped but mocked, and the mockery hardened him in his resolve. Difficult as he was to turn, he might yet have been driven to yield, if the whole business had not worn so ironic a leer. The rough hand of fate was thrust in among his careful plans. His faithfulness and self-denial, his patience and hard work, were all to be shuffled and risked in a hurried moment like this. If only things had been right between him and his lass, how triumphantly simple the whole problem would have been! It was true that he would have liked another year to look round, but he would have let that go without hesitation for the chance of the farm. The place was in a bad state, of course, but that should mean an easier rental, and all the more credit to him when he pulled it round. He knew the little farm by stick and stone, and loved it well enough, too. He was content enough in his hired spot, but the marsh blood that was in him cried always to be settled within sight and sound of the sea. Even to-night, though his heart was pulling him back, and the marsh was a dripping waste with a trap at the farther end, he had drawn great breaths as the mountains dropped behind. To have had the old home with Agnes—why, it was better by far than he had planned! And in the event, as it had proved, how far it had fallen short!