the mortials
I'll baronite him;--I wull,' said John, seizing his hat and stalking off
through the back kitchen after his friend.

CHAPTER XXXIV - RUBY RUGGLES OBEYS HER GRANDFATHER

The next day there was a great surprise at Sheep's Acre farm, which
communicated itself to the towns of Bungay and Beccles, and even
affected the ordinary quiet life of Carbury Manor. Ruby Ruggles had
gone away, and at about twelve o'clock in the day the old farmer
became aware of the fact. She had started early, at about seven in the
morning; but Ruggles himself had been out long before that, and had
not condescended to ask for her when he returned to the house for his
breakfast. There had been a bad scene up in the bedroom overnight,
after John Crumb had left the farm. The old man in his anger had tried
to expel the girl; but she had hung on to the bed-post and would not
go; and he had been frightened, when the maid came up crying and
screaming murder. 'You'll be out o' this to-morrow as sure as my name's
Dannel Ruggles,' said the farmer panting for breath. But for the gin
which he had taken he would hardly have struck her;--but he had
struck her, and pulled her by the hair, and knocked her about;--and in
the morning she took him at his word and was away. About twelve he
heard from the servant girl that she had gone. She had packed a box
and had started up the road carrying the box herself. 'Grandfather
says I'm to go, and I'm gone,' she had said to the girl. At the first
cottage she had got a boy to carry her box into Beccles, and to
Beccles she had walked. For an hour or two Ruggles sat, quiet, within
the house, telling himself that she might do as she pleased with
herself,--that he was well rid of her, and that from henceforth he
would trouble himself no more about her. But by degrees there came
upon him a feeling half of compassion and half of fear, with perhaps
some mixture of love, instigating him to make search for her. She had
been the same to him as a child, and what would people say of him if
he allowed her to depart from him after this fashion? Then he
remembered his violence the night before, and the fact that the
servant girl had heard if she had not seen it. He could not drop his
responsibility in regard to Ruby, even if he would. So, as a first
step, he sent in a message to John Crumb, at Bungay, to tell him that
Ruby Ruggles had gone off with a box to Beccles. John Crumb went
open-mouthed with the news to Joe Mix