He was a small yeoman, who had
risen in the war time, well to do in the world, but always
hankering after the old tradition that the lands were ours.
This Hatton got hold of him; he did his work well, I have
heard;--certain it is my father spared nothing. It is twenty-
five years come Martinmas since he brought his writ of right;
and though baffled, he was not beaten. But then he died; his
affairs were in great confusion; he had mortgaged his land for
his writ, and the war prices were gone. There were debts that
could not be paid. I had no capital for a farm. I would not
sink to be a labourer on the soil that had once been our own.
I had just married; it was needful to make a great exertion.
I had heard much of the high wages of this new industry; I
left the land."
"And the papers?"
"I never thought of them, or thought of them with disgust, as
the cause of my ruin. Then when you came the other day, and
showed me in the book that the last abbot of Marney was a
Walter Gerard, the old feeling stirred again; and I could not
help telling you that my fathers fought at Azincourt, though I
was only the overlooker at Mr Trafford's mill."
"A good old name of the good old faith," said the Religious;
"and a blessing be on it.
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