The particular man to whom I spoke said he had "been in trouble,"
and that Sir Joseph had been "pretty hard on him."

And under that grey and silver cloudland, with a background of those
frost-bitten and wind-tortured trees, the little Londoner told me
a tale which, true or false, was as heartrending as Romeo and Juliet.

He had slowly built up in the village a small business as
a photographer, and he was engaged to a girl at one of the lodges,
whom he loved with passion. "I'm the sort that 'ad better marry,"
he said; and for all his frail figure I knew what he meant.
But Sir Joseph, and especially Sir Joseph's wife, did not want
a photographer in the village; it made the girls vain, or perhaps they
disliked this particular photographer. He worked and worked until
he had just enough to marry on honestly; and almost on the eve of his
wedding the lease expired, and Sir Joseph appeared in all his glory.
He refused to renew the lease; and the man went wildly elsewhere.
But Sir Joseph was ubiquitous; and the whole of that place was
barred against him. In all that country he could not find a shed
to which to bring home his bride. The man appealed and explained;
but he was disliked as a demagogue, as well as a photographer.
Then it was as if a black cloud came across the winter sky;
for I knew what was coming. I forget even in what words he told
of Nature maddened and set free. But I still see, as in a photograph,
the grey muscles of the winter trees standing out like tight ropes,
as if all Nature were on the rack.

"She 'ad to go away," he said.

"Wouldn't her parents," I began, and hesitated on the word "forgive."