All this, then, was harmless enough. Religion was not mentioned in the
hearing of the servants, neither the old nor the new; they talked, all
three of them, and the squire loudest of all, though with pauses of
pregnant silence, of such things as children might have heard without
dismay.
Yet to the servants who came and went, it was as if their master were
another man altogether, and his hall some unknown place. There was no
blessing of himself before meat; he said something, indeed, before he
sat down, but it was unintelligible, and he made no movement with his
hand. But it was deeper than this ... and his men who had served him for
ten or fifteen years looked on him as upon a stranger or a changeling.
CHAPTER VII
I
The same Easter Day at Padley was another matter altogether.
As early as five o'clock in the morning the house was astir: lights
glimmered in upper rooms; footsteps passed along corridors and across
the court; parties began to arrive. All was done without ostentation,
yet without concealment, for Padley was a solitary place, and had no
fear, at this time, of a sudden descent of the authorities. For form's
sake--scarcely for more--a man kept watch over the valley road, and
signalled by the flashing of a lamp twice every party with which he was
acquainted, and there were no others than these to signal. A second man
waited by the gate into the court to admit them. They rode and walked in
from all round--great gentlemen, such as the North Lees family, came
with a small retinue; a few came alone; yeomen and farm servants, with
their women-folk, from the Hathersage valley, came for the most part on
foot.
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