Warwick Deeping 
Bess of the Woods 

Whilst the greatest effort has been made to ensure the quality of this text, due to the historical nature of this content, in some rare cases there may be minor issues with legibility. Richard Jeffray thrust back his chair from Sir Peter Hardacre’s dining – table, and stood stiff and ill at ease, like a man but half sure of his own dignity. The Dutch clock had struck three, and the winter sunlight was still flooding through the tall windows upon the polished floor. A log-fire blazed on the irons; decanters and glasses glistened on the table about a great china punch-bowl covered with green dragons and blue mandarins.<br><br>It was early in the afternoon, and yet Parson Jessel’s great wig was flapping forward with an unsaintly tilt over the pastor’s left eye. Sir Peter, a fat and tuberose-nosed aristocrat, in a blue coat and a brocaded waistcoat, sprawled in his arm-chair at the end of the table, his paunch abutting against the board, his full-bottomed wig flowing in slovenly profusion about his blotchy face. On the far side of the table, with his back to the fire, sat Mr. Lot Hardacre, a heavy-shouldered gentleman in a scarlet hunting-coat and buckskin breeches, whose culture was half that of a jockey, half that of a card-sharper. A long clay pipe drooped from the angle of Mr. Lot Hardacre’s mouth, and his coarse, chapped hands were stuffed into the pockets of his breeches.