But he stood unbeaten: and as he stared out of his window there gripped him--not for the first time--a fierce ironical affection for the hard landscape, the fields of his striving, even the folk who had proved such good haters.

_Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field_--ay, and learn to relish it as no other food.

_In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground_.

Ah, but to go and surrender that ground to others--there lay the sting! With him, as with many another true man disappointed in his fate, his hopes passed from himself to fasten the more eagerly on his sons.

He wanted them to be great and eminent soldiers of Christ, and he divined already that, if for one above the others, this eminence was reserved for John.
But he wanted also a son of his loins to succeed him at Epworth, to hold and improve what painful inches he had gained; and again he could only think of John.