Ross Poldark by Winston Graham Read Free Book Online

on the ground. At sight of him Jud began to curse and sweat and threaten. But after a moment a look of puzzlement crept across his face.
    “… Dear life!… Is it you, Mister Ross?”
    “From the grave,” said Ross. “And there's a horse to be seen to. Up, before I kill you.” By the collar of his shirt he lifted the man to his feet and thrust him forward towards the door.

CHAPTER THREE

1
    A WET OCTOBER EVENING IS DEPRESSING, BUT IT DRAPES SOME SOFT SHADOWS on the rough edges of ruin and decay. Not so the light of morning.
    Even at the height of his mining, Joshua had always had a few fields under care, the house had been clean and homely, well furnished, and well stocked considering the district. After a tour which lasted from eight until ten, Ross called the Paynters out of the house and stood with legs apart looking at them. They shuffled and were uneasy under his gaze.
    Jud was four inches the shorter of the two. He was a man in the early fifties to whom bow legs gave a look of horsiness and bulldog strength. During the last ten years satirical nature had tonsured his head like a friar. He had lived in this district all his life, first as a tributer at Grambler Mine, then at Wheal Grace, where Joshua took to him in spite of his weaknesses.
    Prudie Jud had picked up at Bedruthan ten years ago. Their first meeting was one of the things that Jud held his tongue about even in his cups. They had never married, but she had taken his name as a matter of course. She was now forty, six feet in height, with lank Spanish hair incurably lousy; and wide shouldered, with a powerful body which bulged everywhere it aesthetically shouldn’t.
    “You’re tired after a hard morning's work,” said Ross.
    Jud looked at him uneasily from under hairless brows. With Joshua he had always had to mind his Ps and Qs, but of Ross he had never been at all afraid. A harum-scarum, highly strung, lanky youngster—there was nothing in him to fear. But two years of soldiering had changed the boy.
    “Tes as clean as a new-scrubbed place can be,” said Jud on a grudging note. “We been at un for two hour solid. Splinters I got in me and from the old floor,drat un. Blood-poisoned I shall be maybe. Runs from your and to your arm, it do. Up yer veins, and then phit— ye’re dead.”
    Ross turned his sleepy but unquiet eyes on Prudie. “Your wife has not suffered from her wetting? As well not to forget the feel and taste of water. Very little is used in gaol.”
    Jud looked up sharply. “Who says gaol? Prudie an’t going to gaol. What she done?”
    “No more than you have. A pity you can’t share the same cell.”
    Prudie sniggered. “You will ’ave yer jest.”
    “The jest,” said Ross, “was yours last night and for fifty nights before.”
    “You can’t get neither of us convicted fur bein’ a bit tiddley,” said Jud. “Tedn’t law. Tedn’t right. Tedn’t just. Tedn’t sense. Tedn’t friendly. Leave alone all we’ve done for you.”
    “You were my father's personal servant. When he died, you were left in a position of trust. Well, you may have a guinea for every field you find that isn’t choked with weed and lying fallow, the same for a barn or a stable that is not falling down for need of a timely repair. Even the apples in the orchard are mouldering amongst the dead leaves for lack of someone to gather them—”
    “Twur a poor summer for frewt. Down come the apples rottin’ away wi’ wasps in un. Shockin’ twas. You can’t do nothing to an apple when thur's a drane in un. Not except kill the drane and eat the apple, an’ thur's a limit t’what two bodies can eat.”
    “Twas a nice chanst I didn’ swaller one of they wasps,” said Prudie. “Thur was I munching away as clever as you like. Then sharp, just as I has me teeth in un, I hears a ‘vuzz-vuzz.’ And, my ivers, there ’e is! You can’t see the front end, but the back end is there wavin’ about like a lamb's tail, all ’is legs a-going and