human
Yes, it's all there, right enough, said Reynold, leaning on the gate.
gpt
An excellent view. All there, from the Place where my people spent their money, to the workhouse, where----By Jove! his voice dropped suddenly,
human
I'm not Rothwell enough to have a right to be taken into the Mitchelhurst workhouse! They'd send me on somewhere, I suppose. I wonder which they would call my parish!
gpt
Are you sorry?
human
Sorry not to be in the workhouse? indicating it with a slight movement of his finger.
gpt
No, not particularly.
human
I didn't mean that, said the girl, a little shortly.
gpt
I meant, of course, are you sorry you are not a Rothwell?
human
I don't know.
gpt
You didn't like the house this morning, and you didn't like the old hall just now, so I thought most likely you wouldn't care for this.
human
Well, it isn't beautiful, he replied, without turning his head.
gpt
Do you care much about it, Miss Strange? Why should anybody care about it? There are wonderful places in the world--beautiful places full of sunshine. Why should we trouble ourselves about this little grey and green island where we happened to be born? And what are these few acres in it more than any other bit of ploughed land and meadow?
human
I thought you didn't care for it, said Barbara, sagely.
gpt
I thought you scorned it.
human
Scorn it--I can't scorn it! It isn't mine! He turned away from it, as if in a sudden movement of impatience, and lounged with his back to the gate.
gpt
It's like my luck!
human
What is like your luck?
gpt
I may as well be honest, he said.
human
Honest with myself--if I can! Look there--I have mocked at that place all my life; for very shame's sake I have kept away from it because I had vowed I didn't care whether one stone of it was left upon another. What was it to me? I am not a Rothwell. I'm Reynold Harding, son of Sidney Harding, son of Reynold Harding--there my pedigree grows vague. My grandfather is an important man--we can't get beyond him. He died while my father was in petticoats. He was a pork-butcher in a small way. I believe he could write his name--_my_ name--and that he always declared that his father was a Reynold too. But we don't know anything about my great-grandfather--perhaps he was a pork-butcher in a smaller way. My uncle Robert went to London as a boy and made all the money, pensioned his father, and afterwards educated his half-brother Sidney, who was twenty years younger than himself. He would have made my father his partner if he had lived. If my father had lived I might have been rich. As it is, I'm not rich, and I'm not a Rothwell.
gpt
Well, you look like one! said Barbara. She was not very wise. It seemed to her a cruel thing that this earlier Reynold should have been a pork-butcher--a misfortune on which she would not comment. She looked up at the younger Reynold with the sincerest sympathy shining in her eyes, and in an unreasoning fashion of her own took part with him and with the old family, as if his grandfather were an unwarranted intruder who had thrust himself into their superior society.
human
You look like one!
gpt
And after all, she said, pursuing her train of thought,
human
True. But that is a kind of thing which doesn't do by halves.
gpt
And you wouldn't come to Mitchelhurst before?
human
No; but the thought of the place was pulling at me all the time. I couldn't get rid of it. And so--here I am! And I have seen the dream of my life face to face--it's behind my back just at this minute, but I can see it as well as if I were looking at it. I'm very grateful to you for showing me this view, Miss Strange, but you'll excuse me if I don't turn round while I speak of it?
gpt
Oh, yes,
human
You see, he explained,
gpt
I want to say the kind of thing one says behind a--a landscape's back.
human
I'm sorry to hear it,