vacillation with a sense of repose. The disinherited son of a small
squire, equally disinclined to dig and to beg, was almost as
helpless as an uprooted tree, which, by the favour of earth and sky,
has grown to a handsome bulk on the spot where it first shot upward.
Perhaps it would have been possible to think of digging with some
cheerfulness if Nancy Lammeter were to be won on those terms; but,
since he must irrevocably lose _her_ as well as the inheritance, and
must break every tie but the one that degraded him and left him
without motive for trying to recover his better self, he could
imagine no future for himself on the other side of confession but
that of "'listing for a soldier"--the most desperate step, short
of suicide, in the eyes of respectable families. No! he would
rather trust to casualties than to his own resolve--rather go on
sitting at the feast, and sipping the wine he loved, though with the
sword hanging over him and terror in his heart, than rush away into
the cold darkness where there was no pleasure left. The utmost
concession to Dunstan about the horse began to seem easy, compared
with the fulfilment of his own threat. But his pride would not let
him recommence the conversation otherwise than by continuing the
quarrel. Dunstan was waiting for this, and took his ale in shorter
draughts than usual.

"It's just like you," Godfrey burst out, in a bitter tone, "to
talk about my selling Wildfire in that cool way--the last thing
I've got to call my own, and the best bit of horse-flesh I ever had
in my life. And if you'd got a spark of pride in you, you'd be
ashamed to see the stables emptied, and everybody sneering about it.
But it's my belief you'd sell yourself, if it was only for the
pleasure of making somebody feel he'd got a bad bargain."