Theodore Goodridge Roberts

“ The days of Caleb Stave are numbered. By his own black greed shall he be destroyed as surely as hell awaits him—as surely as he has proved faithless to every man who trusted him and blind and deaf to every one who ever asked mercy or succor of him."
"Who are you?" asked Griffon, strangely moved.
"A Berkshire man like yerself—aye, an' like Caleb Stave. Have ye forgot Pennyfold, the little farm on the downs? Griffon land, aye, but farmed by Pennies close onto two hundred years. Honest yeomen all—until the hunger for worldly place gripped my heart! I was an only child. ”

“ They all passed from us in the twinkling of an eye—nay, say rather in the flash of an ax edge! My poor father, that friend of your youth, made enemies high at court. They were land hungry and he was blood proud. He is a proud man, or else a very saint, who bows only to God Almighty. ”

“ I found me a wife, an' my fortune grew. And one day came a Berkshire man to my door, ragged an' robbed an' bleedin', beggin' sup an' crust an' shelter in the name of God's mercy—an' it was Caleb Stave, the son of Jerry Stave, the cobbler o' Wantage. Poor stuff, aye!—but a Berkshire man. ”