In fact, Gerald might go far, if he went straight.
Then Osborn thought he needed a drink, and after ringing a bell he sat down by the window with the tray and glass a servant brought.

It was significant that he had given no order; the servants knew what the bell meant.

When he had drained the glass he vacantly looked out.

Boggy pasture and stony cornfields ran back from the tarn.

Here and there a white farmstead, surrounded by stunted trees, stood at the hill foot; farther back a waterfall seamed the rocks and yellow grass with threads of foam; and then a lofty moor, red with heather, shut off the view.
The land was poor at the dale head, but there was better below, where the hills dropped down to the flat country, and, with the exception of Ashness farm, all was Osborn's, from Force Crag, where the beck plunged from the moor, to the rich bottoms round Allerby mill.