here. Therefore 'tis well to say 'Friend' outwardly, though you say 'Troublehouse' within."
"Well—perhaps it is best to be silent; but I can't go further than that. I can't flatter, and if my place here is only to be kept by smoothing him down, my place must be lost."
A horseman, whom they had for some time seen in the distance, now appeared close beside them.
"There's Mr. Boldwood," said Oak. "I wonder what Troy meant by his question."
Coggan and Oak nodded respectfully to the farmer, just checked their paces to discover if they were wanted, and finding they were not, stood back to let him pass on.
The only signs of the terrible sorrow Boldwood had been combating through the night and was combating now were the want of colour in his well-defined face, the enlarged appearance of the veins in his forehead and temples, and the sharper lines about his mouth. The horse bore him away, and the very step of the animal seemed significant of dogged despair. Gabriel, for a minute, rose above his own grief in noticing Boldwood's. He saw the square figure sitting erect upon the horse, the head turned to neither side, the elbows steady by the hips, the brim of the hat level and undisturbed in its onward glide, until the keen
