They had gone down upon the open ground where the seven thorns, which gave the house it’s name, stood in a cluster, ghostly in the white moonlight, some of them so old that they were propped up by staves and heavy pieces of wood. Patty had moved on in the fervour of her speech, notwithstanding that she angrily rejected his request to take a turn. With the blackness of that shade between them and the house, they might have been miles, though they were but a few yards, from the house, with its murmuring sound of voices and its lights. “Look here!” said Patty, quickly. “No man shall ever come after me that goes boozing like you do at beer from morning to night.” Patty, though she generally spoke very nicely, thanks to the Catechism and the rector’s favour, was after all not an educated person, and if she said “like you do,” it was no more than might be expected from her ignorance. She flung away the arm which he had stolen round her, and withdrew to a distance, facing him with her head erect. “You’re a dreadful one for beer, Mr. Gervase,” she said; “it’s that you come to our house for, it isn’t for me. If there was no Patty, you’d want a place to sit and soak in all the same.” “That’s a lie!” said the young man; “and I don’t take more than I want when I’m thirsty. It’s only you that are contrary. There’s that Roger; you let him have as much as you like----” “What Roger?” cried Patty, with a flash of her eyes, which was visible even in the moonlight. “If it’s Mr. Pearson you mean, he never looks at beer except just to stand pots round for the good of the house----” “If that’s what pleases you, Patty, I’ll--I’ll stand anything--to anybody--as long as--as long as----” Poor Gervase thrust the hand which she would not permit to hold hers, into his pocket, searching for the coin that he had not. At which his tormentor laughed. “As long as you’ve anything to pay it with,” she said. “And you have not--and that makes all the difference. Roger Pearson--since you’ve made so bold as to put a name to him--has his pockets full. And you’re running up a pretty high score, Mr. Gervase, I can tell you, for nobody but yourself.” “I don’t know how he has his pockets full,” Gervase said, with a growl; “it isn’t from the work he does--roaming the country and playing in every match----” “You see he _can_ play,” said Patty, maliciously; “which some folks couldn’t do, not if they was to try from now to doomsday.” “But it don’t get him on in his business, or make money to keep a wife,” said the young man with a flash of shrewdness, at which Patty stared with astonishment, but with a touch of additional respect. “Well, Mr. Gervase,” she said, making a swift diversion; “I shall always say it’s a shame keeping you as short as you are of money; and you the heir of all.”