hard by? She sold me apples; rather
pretty,' said Gower.

'A fine grown girl now--Madge Winch; a comely wench she is. It breaks
her sister Sarah's heart. They both manage the little shop; they make
it prosper in a small way; enough, and what need they more? Then
Christopher Ines has on one of his matches. Madge drives her cart out,
if it 's near town. She's off down into Kent to-day by coach, Sarah
tells me. A great nobleman patronizes Christopher; a Lord Fleetwood,
a lord of wealth. And he must be thoughtful for these people: he sent
Sarah word that Christopher should not touch drink. You may remember
a butcher Ines in the street next to us. Christopher was a wild lad,
always at "best man" with every boy he met: went to sea--ran away. He
returned a pugilist. The girl will be nursing him now. I have spoken to
her of him; and I trust to her; but I mourn her attachment to the man
who drinks.'

'The lord's name?' said Gower.

'Lord Fleetwood, Sarah named him. And so it pleases him to spend his
money!'

'He has other tastes. I know something of him, sir. He promises to be a
patron of Literature as well. His mother was a South Wales woman.'

'Could he be persuaded to publish a grand edition of the Triads?' Mr.
Woodseer said at once.

'No man more likely.'

'If you see him, suggest it.'

'Very little chance of my meeting him again. But those Triads! They're
in our blood. They spring to tie knots in the head. They push me to
condense my thoughts to a tight ball. They were good for primitive
times: but they--or the trick of the mind engendered by them--trip
my steps along the lines of composition. I produce pellets instead of
flowing sheets. It'll come right. At present I 'm so bent to pick and
perfect, polish my phrase, that I lose my survey. As a consequence, my
vocabulary falters.'

'Ah,' Mr. Woodseer breathed and smote. 'This Literature is to be your
profession for the means of living?'

'Nothing else. And I'm so low down in the market way of it, that I could
not count on twenty pounds per annum. Fifty would give me standing, an
independent fifty.'

'To whom are you crying, Gower?'

'Not to gamble, you may be sure.'

'You have a home.'

'Good work of the head wants an easy conscience. I've too much of you in
me for a comfortable pensioner.'

'Or is it not, that you have been living the gentleman out there, with
just a holiday title to it?'

Gower was hit by his father's thrust. 'I shall feel myself a