“Well, I am not much of a swordsman. But if Sir Peter thinks—”
“That you have paid undue attention to his dear daughter—”
“You will sacrifice your virgin honor, eh?”
“Aunt Letitia, I trust I shall never act dishonorably by any woman.”
The dowager shut up her fan suddenly with a snap, yawned, and announced that she was going to her chamber.
“You are an incorrigible fool, Richard,” she said, contemptuously; “please ring for my maid. I see that it is quite useless to reason with such a saint.”
In one of the valleys of the forest of Pevensel lay the hamlet of the forest-folk, some half-dozen cottages of unhewn stone, their flagged roofs covered with moss and lichen. There were gardens about the scattered cottages, an orchard or two, and a few strips of cultivated land where trees had been grubbed up, and whin and heather routed. On the west the ground fell abruptly to the banks of a stream that flashed and glittered under the pine-boughs.
These forest-folk mingled but little with the hinds of the neighboring villages. They were all of Grimshaw stock, sprung from the loins of Isaac Grimshaw and his brother. There were Dan and David, sons to Isaac; old Ursula their aunt, and Bess, her foster-child; also Solomon, Isaac’s brother, who had caused ten youngsters to be brought into the world. Isaac, a white-haired septuagenarian with a lame leg and a pair of unfathomable gray eyes, gave law and order to the clan like a patriarch of old. Dan, Black Dan, as the others called him, upheld his father’s word with the brute strength of his untamed body.
Rude and unlettered as were these woodlanders, they came of finer stock than the oafs who toiled on the Sussex farms. The Grimshaws never seemed to lack for money, for Dan would drive his wagon into Rookhurst or Lewes thrice a year, and spend sums that a squire might have disbursed with pride. They were considered notorious smugglers, these men of Pevensel, though the burning of charcoal and the smelting of iron were the crafts they practised in pretence of an honest living. They had good stuff, solid furniture, broad beds, pewter, and fine crockery in their cottages. The men wore the best cloth, were well-armed, and never lacked for spirits and tobacco. The squalor and poverty of an average village contrasted with the clean comfort of the hamlet of Pevensel.