"And for your'n too, master," said Worts, "for yeu'll allays have the best egg still. The young master, he'll only be a working for yeu." There was comfort in this thought; and Tappitt, when he went into his dinner, was able to carry himself like a man. The tidings which had reached Mrs. Tappitt as to Rowan having been seen on that evening walking on the Cawston road with his face towards Bragg's End were true. On that morning Mr. Honyman had come to him, and his career in life was at once settled for him. "Mr. Tappitt is quite in time, Mr. Honyman," he had said. "But he would not have been in time this day week unless he had consented to pay for what work had been already done; for I had determined to begin at once." "The truth is, Mr. Rowan, you step into an uncommon good thing; but Mr. Tappitt is tired of the work, and glad to give it up." Thus the matter was arranged between them, and before nightfall everybody in Baslehurst knew that Tappitt and Rowan had come to terms, and that Tappitt was to retire upon a pension. There was some little discrepancy as to the amount of Tappitt's annuity, the liberal faction asserting that he was to receive two thousand a year, and those of the other side cutting him down to two hundred. On the evening of that day--in the cool of the evening--Luke Rowan sauntered down the High Street of Baslehurst, and crossed over Cawston bridge. On the bridge he was all alone, and he stood there for a moment or two leaning upon the parapet looking down upon the little stream beneath the arch. During the day many things had occupied him, and he had hardly as yet made up his mind definitely as to what he would do and what he would say during the hours of the evening. From the moment in which Honyman had announced to him Tappitt's intended resignation he became aware that he certainly should go out to Bragg's End before that day was over. It had been with him a settled thing, a thing settled almost without thought ever since the receipt of Rachel's letter, that he would take this walk to Bragg's End when he should have put his affairs at Baslehurst on some stable footing; but that he would not take that walk before he had so done. "They say," Rachel had written in her letter, "they say that as the business here about the brewery is so very unsettled, they think it probable that you will not have to come back to Baslehurst any more." In that had been the offence. They had doubted his stability, and, beyond that, had almost doubted his honesty. He would punish them by taking them at their word till both should be put beyond all question. He knew well that the punishment would fall on Rachel, whereas none of the sin would have been Rachel's sin; but he would not allow himself to be deterred by that consideration. "It is her letter," he said to himself, "and in that way will I answer her. When I do go there again they will all understand me better."