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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 56984 ***
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+SUSSEX GORSE
+
+
+
+
+_BY THE SAME AUTHOR_
+
+
+THE TRAMPING METHODIST
+STARBRACE
+SPELL LAND
+ISLE OF THORNS
+THREE AGAINST THE WORLD
+
+
+SAMUEL RICHARDSON
+
+
+WILLOW'S FORGE AND OTHER POEMS
+
+
+
+
+SUSSEX GORSE
+
+THE STORY OF A FIGHT
+
+BY
+
+SHEILA KAYE-SMITH
+
+[Illustration: Decoration]
+
+NEW YORK
+ALFRED A. KNOPF
+MCMXVI
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+                                        PAGE
+PROLOGUE. THE CHALLENGE                    1
+
+BOOK I    THE BEGINNING OF THE FIGHT      22
+
+BOOK II   THE WOMAN'S PART                78
+
+BOOK III  THE ELDER CHILDREN             120
+
+BOOK IV   TREACHERIES                    192
+
+BOOK V    ALMOST UNDER                   243
+
+BOOK VI   STRUGGLING UP                  331
+
+BOOK VII  THE END IN SIGHT               382
+
+BOOK VIII THE VICTORY                    432
+
+
+
+
+SUSSEX GORSE
+
+
+
+
+PROLOGUE
+
+THE CHALLENGE
+
+
+§ 1.
+
+Boarzell Fair had been held every year on Boarzell Moor for as long as
+the oldest in Peasmarsh could remember. The last Thursday in October was
+the date, just when the woods were crumpling into brown, and fogs
+blurred the wavy sunsets.
+
+The Moor was on the eastern edge of the parish, five miles from Rye.
+Heaving suddenly swart out of the green water-meadows by Socknersh, it
+piled itself towards the sunrise, dipping to Leasan House. It was
+hummocked and tussocked with coarse grass--here and there a spread of
+heather, growing, like all southern heather, almost arboreally. In
+places the naked soil gaped in sores made by coney-warrens or uprooted
+bushes. Stones and roots, sharn, shards, and lumps of marl, mixed
+themselves into the wealden clay, which oozed in red streaks of
+potential fruitfulness through their sterility.
+
+The crest of Boarzell was marked by a group of firs, very gaunt and
+wind-bitten, rising out of a mass of gorse, as the plumes of some savage
+chief might nod mangily above his fillet. When the gorse was in bloom,
+one caught the flare of it from the Kentish hills, or away westward from
+Brightling and Dallington. This day in the October of 1835, the
+flowerets were either nipped or scattered, or hidden by the cloths the
+gipsies had spread to dry on the bushes.
+
+The gipsies always camped on the flanks of the Fair, which they looked
+on with greater detachment than the gaujos who crowded into its heart,
+either selling or buying, doing or being done. Just within the
+semicircle of their earth-coloured tents were the caravans of the
+showmen, gaudily painted, with seedy horses at tether, very different
+from the Romany gris. Then came the booths, stalls piled with sweets in
+an interesting state of preservation, trays of neck and shoulder
+ribbons, tinsel cords, tin lockets with glass stones, all fairings, to
+be bought out of the hard-won wages of husbandry in love. Then there was
+the panorama, creaking and torn in places, but still giving a realistic
+picture of the crowning of King William; there was the merry-go-round,
+trundled noisily by two sweating cart-horses; there was the cocoa-nut
+shy, and the fighting booth, in the doorway of which half-breed Buck
+Washington loved to stand and display his hairy chest between the folds
+of his dressing-gown; and there was the shooting-gallery, where one
+could pot at the cardboard effigies of one's hates, Lord Brougham who
+had robbed the poor working man of his parish relief, or Boney, still a
+blood-curdler to those who had seen the building of the Martello towers.
+
+To-day business was bad. Here and there a ploughboy pulled up his slop
+and fumbled for pennies in his corduroys, but for the most part the
+stalls were deserted, even in certain cases by their holders. This was
+not because the Fair was empty. On the contrary, it was much more
+crowded than usual; but the crowd clotted into groups, all discussing
+the same thing--the Inclosure.
+
+It was some months since Sir John Bardon, Squire of the Manor of
+Flightshot, had taken advantage of the Inclosure Act and manoeuvred a
+bill for the inclosure of Boarzell. Since then there had been visits of
+commissioners, roamings of surveyors, deliveries of schedules, strange
+talk of turbary and estovers, fire-bote and house-bote. The
+neighbourhood was troubled, perplexed. Then perplexity condensed into
+indignation when all that Inclosure stood for became known--no more
+pasturage for the cow or goat which meant all the difference between
+wheaten and oaten bread, no more wood-gleanings for fire or wind-beaten
+roof, no more of the tussocky grass for fodder, or of gorse to toughen
+palings against escaping fowls.
+
+Then, when Fair-time came, people began to mutter "no more Fair." It was
+as hard to imagine Boarzell without the Fair as without its plume of
+firs. The Squire gave out his intention of tolerating the Fair, as long
+as it did not straggle from the crest. But this failed to soothe the
+indignant and sore, for it was humbling to have the Fair as a matter of
+toleration. Also at that time there was talk of fences. All the Moor had
+been mapped out, the claims considered, the road repaired, and now
+nothing more was to be done except to put up the fences which would
+definitely seal Boarzell as Flightshot's own.
+
+There was naturally a party who championed Manor rights--Sir John Bardon
+was a good landlord, and would have been better had his budget cramped
+him less. Now he would sell Boarzell in building plots, and his tenants
+would reap the benefit. He had not inclosed the land for himself. More
+houses would mean more trade for shops and farms, Peasmarsh might flower
+into a country town....
+
+But the majority was anti-Bardon. There were grumblings about
+allotments, especially from copyholders. The commissioners had been
+off-hand in their treatment of claims, ignoring everyone except
+freeholders, of whom there were only two.
+
+"They say as how Realf's not done badly fur himself at Grandturzel,"
+said old Vennal of Burntbarns; "forty acres they gave him, and all bush
+and timber rights."
+
+"And what about Odiam?" asked Ticehurst of Hole. "I haven't seen
+Backfield these three weeks, but there's a tale going räound as how the
+commissioners have bin tedious sharp, and done him out of everything he
+hoped to get--surelye!"
+
+"And him freehold!"
+
+"Sixty acres."
+
+"How did they do it?"
+
+"Oh, it's just a tale that's going räound--says they found some lawyer's
+mess in his title-deed. His father never thought of common rights when
+he bought the land, and it seems as how they must be written down just
+lik anything else.... But there's young Ben Backfield talking to
+Coalbran. He'll tell us, I reckon."
+
+They went over to a man and a lad, standing together by the gingerbread
+stall.
+
+"We was wondering wot yer fäather had got out o' them commissioners,
+Ben," said Ticehurst.
+
+Reuben Backfield scowled. His thick black brows scowled easily, but the
+expression of his face was open and cheerful, would have been kindly
+even, were it not for a certain ruthlessness of the lips. There was more
+character in his face than is usual with a boy of fifteen--otherwise he
+looked younger than his age, for though tall and well-knit, his limbs
+had all the graceful immaturity and supple clumsiness one sees in the
+limbs of calves and foals.
+
+"Fäather äun't got naun--haven't you heard? He made his claim, and then
+they asked to see the title-deeds, and it turned out as how he hadn't
+got no common rights at all--leastways so the lawyers said."
+
+"But he used to send the cows on, didn't he?"
+
+"Yes--now and agäun--didn't know it wurn't right. Seems it 'ud have
+been better if he'd sent 'em oftener; there's no understanding that
+lawyer rubbidge. Now he mayn't täake so much as a blade of grass."
+
+"Realf of Grandturzel has got his bit all safe."
+
+Reuben spat.
+
+"Yes--they couldn't pick any holes in his claim, or they would have, I
+reckon. The Squire 'ud like every rood of Boarzell, though the Lard
+knows wot he'll do wud it now he's got it."
+
+"Your fäather must be in lamentable heart about all this, surelye."
+
+The boy shrugged and frowned.
+
+"He döan't care much. Fäather, he likes to be comfortable, and this
+Inclosure wöan't make much difference to that. 'Täun't as if we wanted
+the pasture badly, and Fäather he döan't care about land."
+
+He dragged the last word a little slowly, and there was the faintest
+hint of a catch in his voice.
+
+"And your mother, and Harry?"
+
+"They döan't care, nuther--it's only me."
+
+"Lard, boy!--and why should you care if they döan't?"
+
+Reuben did not speak, but a dull red crept over the swarthiness of his
+cheeks, and he turned away.
+
+He walked slowly, his hands in his pockets, to where the gable of the
+booth jutted between him and his questioners. From here he could see the
+slope of Boarzell, rolling slowly down to some red roofs and poplars.
+These roofs and poplars were Odiam, the farm which his grandfather had
+bought, which his father had tilled and fattened ... and now it was
+humbled, robbed of its rights--and his father still went whistling to
+the barn, because, though fifty acres had been withheld from him by a
+quibble, he still had a bright fire, with a pretty wife and healthy boys
+beside it.
+
+Reuben's lip curled. He could not help despising his father for this
+ambitionless content.
+
+"We're no worser off than we wur before," Joseph Backfield had said a
+day or two ago to his complaining boy--"we've our own meadows for the
+cows--'täun't as if we were poor people."
+
+"But, fäather, think wot we might have had--forty acres inclosed for us,
+like they have at Grandturzel."
+
+"'Might have--might have'--that döan't trouble me. It's wot I've got I
+think about. And then, say we had it--wot 'ud you mäake out o'
+Boarzell?--nasty mess o' marl and shards, no good to anyone as long as
+thistles äun't fashionable eating."
+
+"_I_ cud mäake something out of Boarzell."
+
+At this his father burst into a huge fit of laughter, and Reuben walked
+away.
+
+But he knew he could do it. That morning he churned the soil with his
+heel, and knew he could conquer it.... He could plant those
+thistle-grounds with wheat.... Coward! his father was a coward if he
+shrank from fighting Boarzell. The land could be tamed just as young
+bulls could be tamed. By craft, by strength, by toughness man could
+fight the nature of a waste as well as of a beast. Give him Boarzell,
+and he would have his spade in its red back, just as he would have his
+ring in a bull's nose....
+
+But it was all hopeless. Most likely in future all that would remain
+free to him of Boarzell would be this Fair ground, crowded once a year.
+The rest would be built over--fat shop-keepers would grow fatter--oh,
+durn it!
+
+He dashed his hand over his eyes, and then swung round, turning back
+towards the groups, lest he should become weak in solitude. Somehow the
+character of the crowd had changed while he had been away. Angry murmurs
+surged through it like waves, curses beat against one another, a rumour
+blew like foam from mouth to mouth.
+
+"They're putting up the fences--workmen from Tonbridge--fences down by
+Socknersh."
+
+"Drat 'em! durn 'em!"
+
+"And why shudn't there be fences? What good did this old rubbidge-pläace
+ever do anyone? Scarce a mouthful fur a goat. Now it'll be built on, and
+there'll be money fur everybody."
+
+"Money fur Bardon."
+
+"Money fur us all. The Squire äun't no Tory grabber."
+
+"Then wot dud he täake our land fur?"
+
+"Wot wur the use of it?--save fur such as wanted a quiet pläace fur
+their wenching."
+
+"Put up yer fists!"
+
+The fight came, the battering of each other by two men, seemingly
+because of a private insult, really because they were representatives of
+two hostile groups, panting to be at each other's throats. They fought
+without science, staggering up and down, swinging arms like windmills,
+grabbing tufts of hair. At last old Buck Washington the bruiser could
+stand it no longer, and with a couple of clouts flung them apart, to
+bump on the ground and sit goggling stupidly at each other through
+trickles of blood.
+
+That gave the crowd its freedom--hitherto the conflict had been squeezed
+into two representatives, leaving some hundred men merely limp
+spectators; but with the collapse of his proxy, each man felt the rage
+in him boil up.
+
+"Come, my lads, we'll pull down their hemmed fences!"
+
+"Down wud the fences! down wud Bardon!"
+
+"Stand by the Squire, men--we'll all gain by it."
+
+"Shut the Common to wenchers!"
+
+But the Anti-Inclosure party was the strongest--it swept along the
+others as it roared down to Socknersh, brandishing sticks and stones and
+bottles that had all appeared suddenly out of nowhere, shouting and
+stumbling and rolling and thumping.... Reuben was carried with it,
+conscious of very little save the smell of unwashed bodies and the
+bursting rage in his heart.
+
+
+§ 2.
+
+The fences were being put up in the low grounds by Socknersh, a
+leasehold farm on the fringe of the Manor estate. The fence-builders
+were not local men, and had no idea of the ill-feeling in the
+neighbourhood. Their first glimpse of it was when they saw a noisy black
+crowd tilting down Boarzell towards them--nothing definite could be
+gathered from its yells, for cries and counter-cries clashed together,
+the result being a confused "Wah-wah-wah," accompanied by much
+clattering of sticks and stones, thudding of feet and thumping of ribs.
+
+When it came within ten yards of the fences, it doubted itself suddenly
+after the manner of crowds. It stopped, surged back, and mumbled. "Down
+with the fences!" shouted someone--"Long live the Squire!" shouted
+someone else. Then there was a pause, almost a silence.
+
+Suddenly a great hullish lad sprang forward, rushed up to one of the
+fence-stakes, and flung it with a tangle of wire into the air.
+
+"Down wud Bardon!"
+
+The spell of doubt was broken. A dozen others sprang towards the
+palings, a dozen more were after them to smite. The workmen swung their
+tools. The fight began.
+
+It was a real battle with defences and sallies. The supporters of the
+Inclosure miraculously knotted together, and formed a guard for the
+labourers, who with hammers ready alternately for nail or head, bent to
+their work. They had no personal concern in the matter, but they
+resented being meddled with.
+
+The Squire's party was much the weakest in numbers, but luck had given
+it the best weapons of that chance armament. Alce of Ellenwhorne had a
+fine knobbed stick, worth a dozen of the enemy's, while Lewnes of
+Coldblow had an excellent broken bottle. Young Elphee had been through
+the bruiser-mill, and routed his assailants with successive upper-cuts.
+The anti-Bardonites, on the other hand, were inclined to waste their
+strength; they fought in a congested, rabblesome way; also they threw
+their bottles, not realising that a bottle is much better as a club than
+a missile. The result was that quite early in the conflict their
+ammunition gave out, and they were reduced to sticks and fists.
+
+This made the two parties fairly equal, and the tide of battle ebbed and
+flowed. Now a bit of fence was put up, then it was torn down again; now
+it looked as if the fence-builders were going to be swept off the Moor,
+then it looked as if their posts were going to straggle up to Totease.
+
+The Fair was quite deserted, the tenants of Socknersh and Totease
+climbed to their windows. Someone fetched the constable from Peasmarsh,
+but after surveying the battlefield from a distance he strategically
+retired. At Flightshot Manor the Squire was troubled. The Inclosure of
+Boarzell had been no piece of land-grabbing on his part, but a move for
+the good of his estate. He had always wanted to improve his tenants'
+condition, but had been thwarted by lack of means. He wondered if he
+ought to give orders to stop the fence-building.
+
+"Sir, that would be folly!" cried his son.
+
+"But it seems that there's a regular riot going on--quite a number of
+people have been hurt, and two ploughlands trodden up. Kadwell went
+over, but says he can do nothing."
+
+"Send to Rye, then. Let 'em swear in some special constables, and drive
+the fellows off. But as for stopping the work--that would be to play
+into their hands."
+
+So the fight raged on, the Battle of Boarzell. Unfortunately it did not
+rage on Boarzell itself, but on its fruitful fringe, where the great
+ploughfields lapped up to the base of the Moor, taking the sunset on
+their wet brown ridges. Poor Ginner's winter wheat was all pulped and
+churned to ruin, and the same doom fell on Ditch's roots. Sometimes it
+seemed as if the Squire's men would attain their object, for the
+fence--very tottery and uncertain, it must be confessed--had wound a bit
+of the way past Totease towards Odiam. Dusk had fallen, but the men
+still worked, for their blood was up.
+
+However, the Squire's party began to feel their lack of numbers; they
+were growing tired, their arms swung less confidently, and then Lewnes'
+bottle was broken right up at the neck, cutting his hand. He shouted
+that he was bleeding to death, and frightened the others. Someone sent a
+stone into Alce's eye. Then he too made a terrible fuss, threw down his
+stick, and ran about bleeding among the workmen.
+
+The ground, soft with autumn rains, was now one great mud broth, and the
+men were daubed and spattered with it even to their hair. The attackers
+pressed on the wavering ring--one of the fence-builders was hit, and
+pitched down, taking a post and a whole trail of wire over with
+him--about thirty yards of fence came down with the pull, and flopped
+into the mud. The ring broke.
+
+"Hop it, lads!" shouted a workman. Their protectors were gone, mixed
+indescribably with their assailants. They must run, or they would be
+lynched.
+
+A hundred yards off a Totease barn-door gaped, and the workmen sprinted
+for it. In the darkness they were able to reach it without losing more
+than one of their number, who fell down and had the wit to pretend to be
+dead. The crowd seethed after them, but the door was shut, and the heavy
+bolts rattled behind it.
+
+The barn was part of the farmhouse, and from one of the upper windows
+Ditch, furious at having his roots messed up, made pantomime to the
+effect that he would shoot any man who came further than the yard.
+
+It was then for the first time that Reuben was frightened. Hitherto
+there had been too much violence and confusion for him to feel
+intensely, even rage. He had thrown stones, and had once been hit by a
+stone--a funny dull sore pain on his shoulder, and then the feeling of
+something sticky under his shirt. But he had never felt afraid, never
+taken any initiative, just run and struggled and shouted with the rest.
+Now he was frightened--it would be dreadful if the farmer fired into
+that thick sweating mass in the midst of which he was jammed.
+
+Then, just because he was afraid, he flung up his arm, and the stone he
+had been grasping crashed into Ditch's window, sending the splintering
+glass into the room. He had no thought of doing it, scarcely knew he had
+done it--it was just because he was horribly frightened.
+
+The next moment there was a bang, and Ditch's gun scattered duck-shot
+into the crowd. Men yelled, fought, struggled, stumbled about with their
+arms over their faces. For a moment nothing but panic moved them, but
+the next rage took its place. A volley of stones answered the gun, which
+being an old one and requiring careful loading, could not be brought
+into action again for some minutes.
+
+"Burn him down!--Burn him down!--the hemmed murderer!"
+
+Then began a regular siege. Stones showered upon the farmhouse roof, the
+shiver of broken glass tinkled through the dull roar of the attackers,
+groans and screams answered the bursting bang of the shot-gun. Men began
+to seize faggots from the wood-pile, and run with them towards the
+house. Then some tore up a haystack, but the wind caught the hay and
+blew it everywhere, flinging swathes and streamers of it into the
+rioters' faces, giving them sudden armfuls of it, making their noses and
+eyes smart with the dust and litter.
+
+It was quite dark now. The hulk of Boarzell loomed black behind the
+struggle, its fir crown standing out against a great wall of starless
+sky. Then suddenly something began to blaze--no one seemed to know what,
+for it was behind the crowd; but it roared and crackled, and sparks and
+great burning strands flew out from it, threatening house and besiegers
+alike with destruction.
+
+They had piled the faggots against the door of the barn. The workmen
+inside were tumbling about in the dark, half ignorant of what was going
+on.
+
+"Bring a light!" called someone. A boy dashed up with a handful of
+flaming straw--it blew out of his hand and flared away over the roof,
+scattering showers of sparks. A man yelled out that his shirt was
+burning. "Bring a light!" someone called again. Then someone else
+shouted--"The constables from Rye!"
+
+The crowd ebbed back like a wave, carrying Reuben, now screaming and
+terrified, towards where something unknown burned with horrible crackles
+and roaring.
+
+"The constables from Rye!"
+
+The crowd was like a boa-constrictor, it seemed to fold itself round
+him, smashing his ribs. He screamed, half suffocated. His forehead was
+blistered with heat. Again the crowd constricted. A dizziness came this
+time with the suffocation, and strange to say, as consciousness was
+squeezed out of him like wind out of a bellows, he had one last visit of
+that furious hate which had made him join the battle--hate of those who
+had robbed his father of Boarzell, and hate of Boarzell itself, because
+he would never be able to tame it as one tames a bull with a ring in its
+nose.
+
+He choked, and fell into the darkness.
+
+
+§ 3.
+
+His first sensation on returning to consciousness was of being jolted.
+It was, like most half-realised experiences, on the boundary line
+between sensation and emotion, an affair almost of the heart. Then
+gradually it became more physical, the heart-pain separated itself from
+the body-pain. His body was being jolted, his heart was just sick with
+the dregs of hate.
+
+Then he saw Orion hanging over him, very low in the windy sky, shaking
+with frost. His eyes fixed themselves on the constellation, then
+gradually he became aware of the sides of a cart, of the smell of straw,
+of the movement of other bodies that sighed and stirred beside him. The
+physical experience was now complete, and soon the emotional had shaped
+itself. Memory came, rather sick. He remembered the fight, his terror,
+the flaming straw, the crowd that constricted and crushed him like a
+snake. His rage and hate rekindled, but this time without focus--he
+hated just everyone and everything. He hated the wheels which jolted
+him, his body because it was bruised, the other bodies round him, the
+stars that danced above him, those unknown footsteps that tramped beside
+him on the road.
+
+Where was he? He raised himself on his elbow, and immediately a head
+looked over the side of the cart.
+
+"Wot's the matter wud you?" asked a gruff voice.
+
+"I want to know where I'm going, surelye."
+
+"You're going to Rye, that's where you're going, just fur a täaste of
+the rope's end, you young varmint."
+
+The tones were not unkindly, and Reuben plucked up courage.
+
+"Is the fight over?"
+
+"Surelye! It all fizzled out, soon as them beasts saw the constables.
+Fifty speshul constables sworn in at Rye Town Hall, all of 'em wud
+truncheons! You couldn't expect any rabble-scrabble to face 'em."
+
+"Reckon that lot had just about crunched me up. I feel all stove in."
+
+"And you'll feel stove in furder when the Crier's done wud you."
+
+It was part of the Rye Town Crier's duties to flog the unruly youth of
+the district. Reuben made a face--not that he minded being flogged, but
+he felt badly bruised already. He fell back on the straw, and buried his
+head in it. They were on the Playden road, near Bannister's Town, and he
+would have time for a sleep before they came to Rye. Sleep helped things
+wonderfully.
+
+But the strange thing was that he could not sleep, and stranger still,
+it was not the ache of his body that kept him awake, but the ache of his
+heart. Reuben was used to curling up and going to sleep like a little
+dog; only once had he lain awake at night, and that was with the
+toothache. Now he had scarcely any pain; indeed, the dull bruised
+feeling made him only more drowsy, but in his heart was something that
+made him tumble and toss, just as the aching tooth had done, made him
+want to snarl and bite. He rolled over and over in the straw, and was
+wide awake when they came to Rye. Neither did he sleep at all in the
+room where he and some other boys were locked for the night. The Battery
+gaol was full of adult rioters, so the youthful element--only some
+half-dozen captured--was shut up in the constable's house, where it
+played marbles and twisted arms till daylight.
+
+The other boys were much younger than Reuben, who thumped their heads to
+let off some of his uncomfortable feelings. Indeed, there was talk of
+putting him with the grown-up prisoners, till the magistrate realised
+that juveniles were more easily disposed of. The scene at the
+court-house was so hurried that he scarcely knew he had been tried till
+the constable took him by the collar and threw him out of the dock. Then
+came some dreary moments of waiting in a little stuffy, whitewashed
+room, while the Town Crier dealt with the victims separately.
+
+Reuben did not in the least mind being flogged--it was all in the day's
+work--and showed scant sympathy for those fellow-criminals who cried for
+their mothers. Most of the cramp and stiffness had worn off, and his
+only anxiety was to have the thing over quickly, so that he could be
+home in time for supper.
+
+At one o'clock he was given some bread and cheese, which he devoured
+ravenously; then he spent an hour in thinking of the sausages they
+always had for supper at Odiam on Fridays. At two the constable fetched
+him to his doom; he was grumbling and muttering to himself, and on
+arriving at the execution chamber it turned out that he had had words
+with the Town Crier, because the latter thought he had only six boys to
+flog, so had put on his coat and was going off to the new sluice at
+Scott's Float, meaning to get back comfortably in time for an oyster and
+beer supper at the London Trader. Having seven boys to flog made all the
+difference--he would be late, both at the sluice and the supper.
+
+He took off his coat again, growling, and for the first time Reuben felt
+shame. It was such a different matter, this, from being beaten by
+somebody who was angry with one and with whom one was angry. He saw now
+that a beating was one of the many things which are all right as long as
+they are hot, but damnable when they are cold. He hunched his shoulders,
+and felt his ears burn, and just the slightest stickiness on his
+forehead.
+
+One thing he had made up his mind to--he would not struggle or cry. Up
+till now he had not cared much what he did in that way; if yelling had
+relieved his feelings he had yelled, and never felt ashamed of it; but
+to-day he realised that if he yelled he would be ashamed. So he drove
+his teeth into his lower lip and fought through the next few minutes in
+silence.
+
+He kept his body motionless, but in his heart strange things were
+moving. That hatred which had run through him like a knife just before
+he lost consciousness in the battle of Boarzell, suddenly revived and
+stabbed him again. It was no longer without focus, and it was no longer
+without purpose. Boarzell ... the name seemed to dance before him in
+letters of fire and blood. He was suffering for Boarzell--his father had
+not been robbed, for his father did not care, but he, Reuben, had been
+robbed--and he had fought for Boarzell on Boarzell, and now he was
+bearing shame and pain for Boarzell. Somehow he had never till this day,
+till this moment, been so irrevocably bound to the land he had played on
+as a child, on which he had driven his father's cattle, which had broken
+with its crest the sky he gazed on from his little bed. Boarzell was
+his, and at the same time he hated Boarzell. For some strange reason he
+hated it as much as those who had taken it from him and as those who
+were punishing him because of it. He wanted to tame it, as a man tames a
+bull, with a ring in its nose.
+
+There, at the post, quivering with a pain he scarcely felt, Reuben swore
+that he would tame and conquer Boarzell. The rage, the fight, the
+degradation, the hatred of the last twelve hours should not be in vain.
+In some way, as yet unplanned, Boarzell should one day be his--not only
+the fifty acres the commissioners had tweaked from his father, but the
+whole of it, even that mocking, nodding crest of firs. He would subdue
+it; it should bear grain as meekly as the most fruitful field; it should
+feed fat cattle; it should make the name of Odiam great, the greatest in
+Sussex. It should be his, and the world should wonder.
+
+He left the post with a great oath in his heart, and a thin trickle of
+blood on his chin.
+
+
+§ 4.
+
+It was still early in the afternoon when Reuben set out homewards, but
+he had a long way to go, and felt tired and bruised. The constable had
+given him an apple, but as soon as he had munched up its sweetness, life
+became once more grey. The resolve which for a few minutes had been like
+a flame warming and lighting his heart, had now somehow become just an
+ordinary fact of life, as drearily a part of his being as his teeth or
+his stomach. One day he would own Boarzell Moor, subdue it, and make
+himself great--but meantime his legs dragged and his back was sore.
+
+All the adventure and excitement he had been through, with no sleep, and
+eccentric feeding, combined to make him wretched and cast down. Once he
+cried a little, crouching low under the hedge, and thoroughly ashamed of
+himself.
+
+However, things grew better after a time. The road broke away from the
+fields, and free winds blew over it. On either side swelled a soft
+common, not like Boarzell, but green and watery. It was grown with
+bracken, and Reuben laughed to see the big buck rabbits loppetting
+about, with a sudden scuttle and bob when he clapped his hands. Then a
+nice grinning dog ran with him a mile of the way, suddenly going off on
+a hunt near Starvecrow. Reuben came to Odiam aching with nothing worse
+than hunger.
+
+Odiam Farm was on the northern slope of Boarzell--sixty acres, mostly
+grass, with a sprinkling of hops and grain. There was a fine plum
+orchard, full of old gnarled trees, their branches trailing with the
+weight of continued crops. The house itself was red and weather-stung as
+an August pippin, with strange curves in its gable-ends, which had once
+been kilns. It was one of those squat, thick, warm-tinted houses of
+Sussex which have stood so long as to acquire a kind of naturalisation
+into the vegetable kingdom--it was difficult to imagine it had ever been
+built, it seemed so obviously a growth, one would think it had roots in
+the soil like an oak or an apple tree.
+
+Reuben opened the door, and the welcome, longed-for smell stole out to
+him--smothering the rivalry of a clump of chrysanthemums, rotting in
+dew.
+
+"Sossiges," he whispered, and ran down the passage to the kitchen.
+
+Here the sound of voices reminded him that he might have difficulties
+with his family, but Reuben's attitude towards his family, unless it
+forced itself directly into his life, was always a little aloof.
+
+"Well, lad," said his father, "so you're back at last."
+
+"You knew where I wur?"
+
+"Lucky we dud--or we'd have bin in tedious heart about you, away all
+night."
+
+Reuben pulled up his chair to the table. His father sat at one end, and
+at the other sat Mrs. Backfield; Harry was opposite Reuben.
+
+"If only you wud be a good boy lik Harry," said his mother.
+
+Reuben looked at Harry with detachment. He was not in the least jealous
+of his position as favourite son, he had always accepted it as normal
+and inevitable. His parents did not openly flaunt their preference, and
+they were always very kind to Reuben--witness the gentleness with which
+he was received to-day after his escapade--but one could not help seeing
+that their attitude towards the elder boy was very different from what
+they felt for the younger.
+
+The reasons were obvious; Harry was essentially of a loving and
+dependent nature, whereas Reuben seemed equally indifferent to caresses
+or commands. He was not a bad son, but he never appeared to want
+affection, and was always immersed in dark affairs of his own. Besides,
+Harry was a beautiful boy. Though only a year younger than Reuben, in
+the midst of the awkward age, his growing limbs quite lacked the
+coltishness of his brother's. He was like Reuben, but with all the
+little variations that make the difference between good and ordinary
+looks. Just as he had Reuben's promising body without that transitory
+uncouthness so natural to his years, so he had Reuben's face, more
+softly chiselled, more expressive and full of fire. His brows were
+lighter, his eyes larger, his hair less shiny and tough, growing in a
+soft sweep from his forehead, with the faintest hint of a curl at his
+ears. Neighbours spoke of him as "beautiful Harry." Reuben pondered him
+occasionally--he would have liked to know his brother better, liked to
+love him, but somehow could never quite manage it. In spite of his
+clinging nature, there was something about Harry that was unhuman,
+almost elfin. The father and mother did not seem to notice this, but
+Reuben felt it, scarcely knowing how or why.
+
+To-night Harry did not ask him any questions, he just sat dreamily
+listening while Reuben poured out his story, with all the enthusiasms
+and all the little reservations which were characteristic of him. Once
+Harry put out his hand and stroked his mother's, once he smiled at his
+father.
+
+"Well, I shan't go scolding you, lad," said Joseph Backfield, "fur I
+reckon you've bin punished enough. Though it wur unaccountable lucky you
+dudn't git anything worse. I hear as how Pix and Hearsfield are to be
+transported, and there'll be prison for some thirty more. Wot dud yer
+want to go mixing up in them things fur?"
+
+"I wur justabout mad."
+
+"How, mad?"
+
+"Mad that they shud shut up Boarzell and that Odiam shudn't have its
+rights."
+
+"Wot's Odiam to you?--It äun't yours, it's mine, and if I döan't care
+about the land, why shud you go disgracing yourself and us all because
+of it?"
+
+"You ought to care, surelye!"
+
+A dull brick-red had crept into the brown cheeks, and Reuben's brows had
+nearly met over his nose.
+
+"Ought to! Listen to that, mother. Dud you ever hear the like? And if I
+cared, my lad, where wud you all be? Where wud be that plate o' sossiges
+you're eating? It's just because I äun't a land-grabber lik so many I
+cud näum that you and Harry sit scrunching here instead of working the
+flesh off your böans, that your mother wears a muslin apron 'stead of a
+sacking one, that you have good food to eat, and white bread, 'stead of
+oaten. Wot's the use of hundreds of acres if you äun't comfortable at
+höame? I've no ambitions, so I'm a happy man. I döan't want nothing I
+haven't got, and so I haven't got nothing I döan't want. Surelye!"
+
+Reuben was silent, his heart was full of disgust. Somehow those
+delicious sausages stuck in his throat, but he was too young to push
+away his plate and refuse to eat more of this token of his father's
+apathy and Odiam's shame. He ate silently on, and as soon as he had
+finished rose from table, leaving the room with a mumble about being
+tired.
+
+When he was half-way upstairs he heard his mother call him, asking him
+if he would like her to bathe his shoulders. But he refused her almost
+roughly, and bounded up to the attic under the crinkled eaves, which was
+his own, his sanctuary--his land.
+
+It was odd that his parents did not care. Now he came to think of it,
+they did not seem to care about anything very much, except Harry. It
+never struck him to think it was odd that he should care when they did
+not.
+
+He sat down by the window, and leaning his elbow on the sill, looked
+out. It was still windy, and the sky was shredded over with cloud, lit
+by the paleness of a hidden moon. In the kitchen, two flights below, a
+fiddle sounded. It was Harry playing to his parents as he always played
+in the evening, while they sat on either side of the fire, nodding,
+smiling, half-asleep. Clods! Cowards! A sudden rage kindled in his heart
+against those three, his father, his mother, and beautiful Harry, who
+cared nothing about that for which he had suffered all things.
+
+The crest of Boarzell was just visible against the luminous sky. There
+was something sinister and challenging about those firs. The gorse round
+their trunks seemed in that strange half-stormy, half-peaceful night to
+throw off a faint glimmer of gold. The fiddle wept and sang into the
+darkness, and outside the window two cherry trees scraped their boughs
+together.
+
+Reuben's head dropped on his arm, and he slept out of weariness. An hour
+later the cramp of his shoulders woke him; the fiddle was silent, the
+moon was gone, and the window framed a level blackness. With a little
+moan he flung himself dressed on the bed.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK I
+
+THE BEGINNING OF THE FIGHT
+
+
+§ 1.
+
+It was five years later, in the February of 1840.
+
+A winter sunset sparkled like cowslip wine on the wet roofs of Odiam. It
+slipped between the curtains of the room where Reuben watched beside his
+dead father, and made a golden pool in the dusk.
+
+Joseph Backfield had been dead twelve hours. His wife had gone, worn out
+with her grief, to rest on the narrow unaccustomed bed which had been
+put up in the next room when he grew too ill to have her at his side.
+Reuben knew that Harry was with her--Harry would be sitting at her head,
+his arm under the pillow, ready for that miserable first waking, when
+remembering and forgetting would be fused into one pain. Reuben knew
+that they did not need him, that they had all they wanted in each
+other--now, as during the nights and days of illness, when he had never
+felt as if he had any real link with those three, his father and mother
+and Harry.
+
+This evening he sat very still beside the dead. Only once he drew down
+the sheet from his father's face and gazed at the calm features, already
+wearing that strange sculpt look which is the gift of death. The
+peaceful lips, the folded hands, seemed part of an embracing
+restfulness. Reuben's heart warmed with a love in which was little
+grief. He thought of his father's life--calm, kindly, comfortable,
+ambitionless. He had been happy; having wanted little he had attained
+it and had died enjoying it.
+
+Reuben recalled the last five years--they had been fat years. One by one
+small comforts, small luxuries, had been added to the house, as the farm
+throve modestly, fulfilling itself within the narrow boundaries its
+master had appointed. And all the time that mocking furious crest of
+Boarzell had broken the sky in the south--telling of beauty unseized,
+might unconquered, pride untamed.
+
+So now was it strange that clashing with his sorrow, and his regretful
+love for one who, if he had never truly loved him, had always treated
+him with generosity and kindness, there should be a soaring sense of
+freedom and relief?--a consciousness of standing on the edge of a
+boundless plain after years of confinement within walls? For Reuben was
+master now. Odiam was his--and the future of Odiam. He could follow his
+own will, he could take up that challenge which Boarzell Moor had flung
+him five years ago, when he fought and was flogged because he loved the
+red gaping clay between the gorse-stumps.
+
+His plans of conquest were more definite now. He had been forming them
+for five years, and he could not deny that during his father's illness
+he had shaped them with a certain finality. The road was clear before
+him, and to a slight extent fate had been propitious, keeping open a way
+which might well have been blocked before he began to tread it. Reuben
+had never been able to settle what he should do if the Squire's first
+project were fulfilled and the Moor sold in building plots. House
+property entered with difficulty into his imagination, and he coveted
+only Boarzell virgin of tool and brick. Luckily for him, Bardon's scheme
+had completely failed. The position of the common was bad for houses,
+windy and exposed in days when the deepest hollows were the most
+eligible building sites; the neighbourhood was both unfashionable and
+unfruitful, therefore not likely to attract either people of means or
+people without them. Also there were grave difficulties about a water
+supply. So Boarzell remained desolate, except for the yearly jostle of
+the Fair, and rumour said that Bardon would be only too glad to sell it
+or any piece of it to whoever would buy.
+
+If Sir Peter had been alive he would probably have given the common back
+to the people, but Sir Miles was more far-sighted, also of prouder
+stuff. Such a policy would give the impression of weakness, and there
+was always a chance of selling the land piecemeal. Reuben's ambition was
+to buy a few acres at the end of that year, letting the Squire know of
+his plan to buy more--this would encourage him to keep Boarzell
+inclosed, and would act as a check on any weak generosity.
+
+There was no reason why this ambition should not be fulfilled, for now
+that he himself was at the head of affairs it would be possible to save
+money. Reuben's lips straightened--of late they had grown fuller, but
+also sterner in that occasional straightening, which changed the
+expression of his mouth from half-ripened sensuality to a full maturity
+of resolve. Now he was resolved--there should be changes at Odiam. He
+must give up that old easy, "comfortable" life on which his father had
+set such store. A ghost seemed to whisper in the room, as if the voice
+of the dead man once more declared his gospel--"I've no ambitions, so
+I'm a happy man. I döan't want nothing I haven't got, and so I haven't
+got nothing I döan't want."
+
+Yes--there was no denying his father had been happy. But what a
+happiness! Even there by his side Reuben despised it. He, Reuben, would
+never be happy till he had torn up that gorse and lopped those firs from
+the top of Boarzell. In a kind of vision he saw the Moor with
+wheatfields rolling up to the crest, he smelt the baking of glumes in
+brown sunlight, the dusty savour of the harvest-laden earth. He heard
+the thud of horses' hoofs and the lumber of waggon-wheels, the shouts of
+numberless farm-hands. That sinister waste, profitless now to every man,
+should be a source of wonder and wealth and fame. "Odiam--the biggest
+farm in Sussex. Backfield made it. He bought Boarzell Moor acre by acre
+and fought it inch by inch, and now there's nothing like it in the
+south." ...
+
+He sprang up and went to the window, pulling back the curtain. The sun
+had gone, and the sky was a grey pool rimmed with gold and smoke.
+Boarzell, his dreamland, stood like a dark cloud against it, shaggy and
+waste. There in the dimness it looked unconquerable. Suppose he should
+be able to wring enough money from the grudging earth to buy that
+wilderness, would he ever be able to subdue it, make it bear crops? He
+remembered words from the Bible which he had heard read in
+church--"Canst thou draw out Leviathan with a hook? or bore his jaw
+through with a thorn? Will he make a covenant with thee? Wilt thou take
+him for a servant for ever?"
+
+He brought his fist down heavily on the sill. He was just as confident,
+just as resolute as before, but now for the first time he realised all
+that the battle would mean. He could fight this cruel, tough thing only
+by being cruel and tough himself. He must be ruthless as the wind that
+blustered over it, hard as the stones that covered it, wiry as the
+gorse-roots that twisted in its marl. He must be all this if he was even
+to start the fight. To begin with, he would have to make his mother and
+Harry accept the new state of things. They must realise that the old
+soft life was over, that they would have to work, pull from the
+shoulder, sacrifice a hundred things to help fulfil his great ambition.
+He must not spare them--he must not spare anyone; he would not spare
+them, any more than he would spare himself.
+
+
+§ 2.
+
+Joseph Backfield was buried four days later. His body was carried to the
+church in a hay-waggon, drawn by the meek horses which had drawn his
+plough. Beside it walked Blackman, the only farm-hand at Odiam, in a
+clean smock, with a black ribbon tied to his hat. Five men from other
+farms acted with him as bearers--they were volunteers, for old Joseph
+had been popular in the neighbourhood, dealing sharply with no man.
+
+Immediately behind the cart walked Reuben with his mother on his arm.
+Her face was hidden in a clumsy black veil, which the Rye mantua-maker
+had assured her was the London fashion, and she was obviously ill at
+ease in the huge black shawl and voluminous skirts which the same
+fashion, according to the Rye mantua-maker, had decreed. Her hand pulled
+at Reuben's sleeve and stroked it as if for comfort. It was a smallish
+hand, and wonderfully soft for a farmer's wife--but then Mary Backfield
+had not lived like an ordinary farmer's wife. Under the thick veil, her
+face still had a certain soft colour and youthfulness, though she was
+nearly forty, and most women of her position were wrinkled and had lost
+their teeth by thirty-five. Also the curves of her figure were still
+delicate. She had been cherished by her husband, had done only light
+household work for him and borne him only two children. She carried the
+tokens of her happiness in smooth surfaces and soft lines.
+
+After Mrs. Backfield and her eldest son, walked Harry and his
+sweetheart, Naomi Gasson. They had been sweethearts just three months,
+and were such a couple as romance gloats over--young, comely, healthy,
+and full of love. Years had perfected the good looks of "beautiful
+Harry." He was a tall creature, lithe and straight as a birch tree. His
+face, agreeably tanned, glowed with youth, half dreamy, half riotous;
+his eyes were wild as a colt's, and yet tender. Naomi was a fit mate
+for him, with a skin like milk, and hair the colour of tansy. She wore a
+black gown like Mrs. Backfield, but she had made it herself, and it was
+friendly to her, hinting all the graciousness of her immaturity. These
+two tried to walk dejectedly, and no doubt there was some fresh young
+sadness in their hearts, but every now and then their bodies would
+straighten with their happiness, and their eyes turn half afraid from
+each other's because they could not help smiling in spite of the drooped
+lips.
+
+Then came old Gasson, Naomi's father, and well-known as a shipbuilder at
+Rye--for this was a good match of Harry's, and Reuben hoped, but had no
+reason to expect, he would turn it to Odiam's advantage. After him
+walked most of the farmers of the neighbourhood, come to see the last of
+a loved, respected friend. Even Pilbeam was there, from beyond
+Dallington, and Oake from Boreham Street. The Squire himself had sent a
+message of condolence, though he had been unable to come to the funeral.
+Reuben did not particularly want his sympathy. He despised the Bardons
+for their watery Liberalism and ineffectual efforts to improve their
+estates.
+
+It was about half a mile to the church--over the hanger of Tidebarn
+Hill. The morning was full of soft loamy smells, quickening under the
+February sun, which is so pale and errant, but sometimes seems to have
+the power to make the earth turn in its sleep and dream of spring.
+Peasmarsh church-tower, squab like a toadstool, looked at itself in the
+little spread of water at the foot of the churchyard. Beside this pool,
+darkened with winter sedges, stood Parson Barnaby, the Curate-in-Charge
+of Peasmarsh, Beckley, and Iden. His boots under his surplice were muddy
+and spurred, for he had just galloped over from a wedding at Iden, and
+his sweat dropped on the book as he read "I know that my Redeemer
+liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth."
+
+Before committing the body to the ground, he said a few words in praise
+of the dead man. He spoke of his generosity to his neighbours, his
+kindness to his dependents, his excellences as a husband and a father.
+"This, brethren, was indeed a man after God's own heart. He lived simply
+and blamelessly, contented with his lot, and seeking no happiness that
+did not also mean happiness to those around him. The call of the
+world"--by which Mr. Barnaby meant Babylonish Rye--"fell unheard on ears
+attuned to sweet domestic sounds. Ambition could not stir him from the
+repose of his family circle. Like a patriarch of old, he sat in peace
+under his vine and his fig-tree...."
+
+Reuben stood motionless at the graveside, erect, like a soldier at
+attention. People in the crowd, who wearied of the dead man's virtues,
+whispered about the eldest son.
+
+"Surelye!--he's a purty feller, is young Ben. To-day he looks nearly as
+valiant as Harry."
+
+"He's a stouter man than his brother."
+
+"Stouter, and darker. What black brows he has, Mus' Piper!"
+
+"How straight he stands!"
+
+"I wäonder wot he's thinking of."
+
+
+§ 3.
+
+Reuben was strangely silent on the walk home. His mother made one or two
+small remarks which passed unheeded. She noticed that his arm, on which
+her hand lay, was very tense.
+
+When they came to the group of cottages at the Forstal, a girl ran down
+the garden path and leaned against the fence. She was a pretty brown
+girl, and as they went by she smiled at Reuben. But he did not seem to
+see her, he walked steadily on, and she slunk back to the house, biting
+her lips. "Dudn't he see me, or wur he jest pretending not to?" she
+muttered.
+
+At Odiam dinner was waiting. It was a generous meal, which combined the
+good things of this world with the right amount of funereal state.
+Several of the neighbours had been invited, and the housewife wished to
+do them honour, knowing that her table boasted luxuries not to be found
+at other farms--a bottle of French wine, for instance, which though
+nobody touched it, gave distinction to the prevalent ale, and one or two
+light puddings, appealing to the eye as well as to the palate. As soon
+as the meal was over and the guests had gone, Reuben took himself off,
+and did not reappear till supper-time.
+
+During dinner he had been even more thoughtful than the occasion
+warranted, leaving his mother and Harry to talk to the company, though
+he had taken with a certain dignity his place as host and head of the
+house. Now at supper he was still inclined to silence. A servant girl
+laid the dishes on the table, then retired. Mrs. Backfield and Harry
+spoke in low tones to each other.
+
+... "Mother, how much did this chocolate cost wot we're drinking?"
+Reuben's voice made them both jump.
+
+"How much? why, two shillings a pound," said Mrs. Backfield, rather
+surprised.
+
+"That's too much." Reuben's brows and mouth were straight lines.
+
+"Wot d'you mean, Reuben?"
+
+"Why, two shillings is too much fur farm-folks lik us to give fur a
+pound of chocolate. It's naun but a treat, and we can do wudout it."
+
+"But we've bin drinking chocolate fur a dunnamany years now--your poor
+fäather always liked it--and I döan't see why we should stop it."
+
+"Look'ee, mother, I've something to tell you. I've a plan in my head,
+and it'll justabout mean being shut of a lot of things besides
+chocolate. I know fäather dudn't care much about the farm, about mäaking
+it grow and buying more land, and all that. But I do. I mean to buy the
+whole of Boarzell."
+
+There was a gasping silence.
+
+"The whole of Boarzell," repeated Reuben.
+
+He might have said the whole world, to judge by his mother's and Harry's
+faces.
+
+"Yes--I mean every bit, even the bit Grandturzel's got now. Squire he
+wöan't be sorry to sell it, and I mean to buy it piece by piece. I'll
+buy my first piece at the end of this year. We must start saving money
+at wunst. But I can't do naun wudout you help me, you two."
+
+"Wot d'you want to go buying Boarzell fur?" asked Mrs. Backfield in a
+bewildered voice; "the farm's präaper as it is--we döan't want it no
+bigger."
+
+"And Boarzell's wicked tedious stuff," put in Harry; "naun'll grow there
+but gorse."
+
+"I'll have a good grain growing there in five year--döan't you go
+doubting it. The ground wants working, that's all. And as fur not
+wanting the farm no bigger, that wur fäather's idea--Odiam's mine now."
+
+"Why can't we jest go on being happy and comfortable, lik we wur
+before?"
+
+"Because I've thought of something much grander, surelye. I'm going to
+mäake us all gurt people, and this a gurt farm. But you've got to help
+me, you and Harry."
+
+"Wot d'you want us to do?"
+
+"Well, first of all, we must save all the money we can, and not go
+drinking chocolate and French wine, and eating sweet puddens and all
+such dentical stuff. And then, Harry and me, we're valiant chaps, and
+there never wur enough work for us to do. I'm going to send Blackman
+away--Harry and I can do quite easily wudout him and save his wages."
+
+"Send away Blackman!--oh, Ben, he's bin with us fifteen year."
+
+"I döan't care if he's bin a hunderd. There äun't enough work for three
+men on this farm, and it's a shame to go wasting ten shilling a week.
+Oh, mother, can't you see how glorious it'll be? I know fäather wanted
+different, but I've bin thinking and dreaming of this fur years."
+
+"You always wur queer about Boarzell. But your fäather 'ud turn in his
+grave to think of you sending off Blackman."
+
+"He'll easily git another pläace--I'll find him one myself. And,
+mother--there's something more. Now you haven't got fäather to work fur,
+you'll find the time unaccountable long. Wot if you let Becky go, and
+did the cooking and that yourself?"
+
+"Oh, Reuben...."
+
+"You shouldn't ought to ask mother that," said Harry. "She 'äun't used
+to work. It's well enough fur you and me, we're strong chaps, and
+there's no reason we shouldn't pull to a bit. But mother, she'd never do
+wudout the girl--you see, there's the dairy and the fowls as well as the
+house."
+
+"We could help her out of doors."
+
+"Lard!--you want some work!"
+
+Reuben sprang to his feet. "Yes--I do! You're justabout right there. I'm
+starved fur work. I've never really worked in my life, and now I want to
+work till I drop. Look at my arm"--and he showed them his brown hairy
+arm, where the muscles swelled in lumps under the skin--"that's a
+workman's arm, and it's never worked yet--präaperly. You let me send off
+Blackman and Becky, and see how we manage wudout 'em. I'll do most of
+the work myself, I promise you. I couldn't have too much."
+
+"You're a queer lad, Reuben--and more masterful than your poor fäather
+wur."
+
+"Yes--I'm master here." He sat down, and looked round the table quite
+calmly. A vague uneasiness disturbed Mrs. Backfield and Harry. For some
+unfathomable reason they both felt a little afraid of Reuben.
+
+He finished his supper and went out of the kitchen. Harry and his mother
+sat for a moment or two in silence.
+
+"He always wur queer about Boarzell," said Mrs. Backfield at last; "you
+remember that time years ago when he got mixed up wud the riot? I said
+to his fäather then as I was sure Ben 'ud want to do something crazy wud
+the farm. But I never thought he'd so soon be mäaster," and a tear
+trickled over her smooth cheek.
+
+"I döan't see no harm in his buying a bit of Boarzell if it's going
+cheap--but it äun't worth mäaking all ourselves uncomfortable for it."
+
+"No. Howsumdever, we can't stand agäunst him--the pläace is his'n, and
+he can do wot he likes."
+
+"Hush--listen!" said Harry.
+
+The sound of voices came from the passage outside the kitchen. Reuben
+was talking to the girl. A word or two reached them.
+
+"Durn! if he äun't getting shut of her!"
+
+"I never said as I'd do her work."
+
+Harry sprang to his feet, but his mother laid her hand on his arm.
+
+"Döan't you go vrothering him, lad. It'll only set him agäunst you, and
+I döan't care, not really; there'll be unaccountable liddle work to do
+in the house now your poor fäather's gone, and Blackman wöan't be eating
+wud us. Besides, as he said, I'll find the days a bit slow wud naun to
+occupy me."
+
+"But it's sass of him to go sending off the girl wudout your leave."
+
+"He's mäaster here."
+
+"Ho! we shall see that."
+
+"Now you're not to go quarrelling wud him, Harry. I'd sooner have peace
+than anything whatsumdever. I äun't used to being set agäunst people.
+Besides, it wöan't be fur long."
+
+"No--you're justabout right there. I ought to be able to wed Naomi next
+April year, and then, mother--think of the dear liddle house we shall
+live in, you and she and I, all wud our own fields and garn, and no
+trouble, and Ben carrying through his own silly consarns here by
+himself."
+
+"Yes, dearie, I know, and it's unaccountable good of you and Naomi to
+let me come wud you. I döan't think we should ought to mind helping your
+brother a bit here, when we've all that to look forrard to. But he's a
+strange lad, and your fäather 'ud turn in his grave to see him."
+
+
+§ 4.
+
+For the next few months Odiam was in a transitional state. It was
+gradually being divested of its old comfortable ways, and clad in new
+garments of endeavour. Gradually the life grew harder, and gradually the
+tense thought, the knife-edged ambition at the back of all the changes,
+came forward and asserted themselves openly.
+
+Harry and his mother had not realised till then how hard Reuben could
+be. Hitherto they had never truly known him, for he had hidden in
+himself his dominant passion. But now it was nakedly displayed, and they
+began to glimpse his iron and steel through the elusive nebulousness
+that had veiled them--as one might see the body of a steam-engine emerge
+through the clouds of draping smoke its activity has flung round it.
+
+They could not help wondering at his strenuousness, his unlimited
+capacity for work, though they failed to understand or sympathise with
+the object that inspired them. Blackman, grumbling and perplexed, had
+gone off early in March to the milder energies of Raisins Farm; Becky,
+for want of a place, had married the drover at Kitchenhour--and it was
+no empty boast of Reuben's that he would take the greater part of their
+work on his own shoulders. From half-past four in the morning till nine
+at night he laboured almost without rest. He drove the cows to pasture,
+milked them, and stalled them--he followed the plough over the
+spring-sown crops, he groomed and watered the horses, he fed the fowls,
+watched the clutches, fattened capons for market--he cleaned the pigsty,
+and even built a new one in a couple of strenuous days--he bent his back
+over his spade among the roots, over his barrow, wheeling loads of
+manure--he was like a man who has been starved and at last finds a
+square meal before him. He had all the true workman's rewards--the
+heart-easing ache of tired muscles, the good bath of sweat in the sun's
+heat, the delicious sprawl, every sinew limp and throbbing, in his bed
+at nights--and then sleep, dreamless, healing, making new.
+
+But though Reuben bore the brunt of the new enterprise, he had no
+intention of sparing others their part. All that he by any exertions
+could do himself he did, but the things which inevitably he could not
+compass, because he had only two hands, one back, one head, and seven
+days a week to work in, must be done by others. He showed himself
+unexpectedly stiff, and Mrs. Backfield and Harry found themselves
+obeying him as if he were not the son of the one and only a year older
+than the other. As a matter of fact, custom gave Reuben authority, in
+spite of his years. He was the master, the eldest son inheriting his
+father's lordship with his father's farm. Mrs. Backfield and Harry would
+have been censured by public opinion if they had set themselves against
+him.
+
+Besides, what was the use?--it was only for a few months, and then Harry
+would be in a little house of his own, living very like his father,
+though more dreamily, more delicately. Then Mrs. Backfield would once
+more wear muslin aprons instead of sacking ones, would sit with her
+hands folded, kid shoes on the fender.... Sometimes, in the rare moments
+they had together, Harry would paint this wonderland for her.
+
+He had been left a small sum by his father--resulting from the sale of a
+water-meadow, and securely banked at Rye. Naomi, moreover, was well
+dowered; and Tom Gasson, anxious to see the young couple established,
+had promised to help them start a grass farm in the neighbourhood. The
+project had so far gone no further than discussion. Reuben was opposed
+to it--he would have liked Harry to stay on at Odiam after his marriage;
+Naomi, too, would be useful in many ways, her dowry supplying a
+much-felt want of capital. However, he realised that in this direction
+his authority had its limits. He was powerless to prevent Harry leaving
+Odiam, and there was nothing to do but to wring as much as possible out
+of him while he stayed. Of his mother's planned escape he knew nothing.
+
+Naomi often came over to Odiam, driving in her father's gig. Reuben
+disliked her visits, for they meant Harry's abandonment of spade and
+rake for the weightier matters of love. Reuben, moiling more desperately
+than ever, would sometimes catch a glimpse of her coloured gown through
+the bushes of some coppice, or skirting a hedge beside Harry's corduroy.
+He himself spoke to her seldom. He could not help being conscious of her
+milky sweetness, the soft droop of her figure under its muslins, her
+voice full of the music of stock-doves. But he disliked her, partly
+because she was taking Harry from Odiam, partly because he was jealous
+of Harry. It ought to be he who was to make a wealthy marriage, not his
+brother. He chafed to think what Naomi's money might do for the farm if
+only he had control of it.
+
+Marriage was beginning to enter into his scheme. Some day he must marry
+and beget children. As the farm grew he would want more hands to work
+it, and he would like to think of others carrying on its greatness
+after he was dead. He must marry a woman with money and with health, and
+he was not so dustily utilitarian as not also to demand something of
+youth and good looks.
+
+Since his father's death he had denied himself woman's company, after
+two years lived in the throb and sweetness of it. A warm and vigorous
+temperament, controlled by a strong will, had promised a successful
+libertinism, and more than once he had drunk the extasies of passion
+without those dregs which spoil it for the more weakly dissolute. But
+now, with that same fierce strength and relentless purpose which had
+driven him to do the work of two men, to live hard, and sleep rough, he
+renounced all the delights which were only just beginning. Henceforth,
+with his great ambition before him, there could be nothing but
+marriage--prudent, solid, and constructive. His girl at the Forstal knew
+him no more, nor any of her kind. He had set himself to build a house,
+and for the sake of that house there was nothing, whether of his own or
+of others, that he could not tame, break down, and destroy.
+
+
+§ 5.
+
+By the end of the year Reuben had saved enough money to buy five acres
+of Boarzell, in the low grounds down by Totease. He had saved chiefly on
+the wages of Blackman and Becky, though, against that, he had been
+forced to engage outside help for the hay in June, and also for the
+wheat in August. However, he had been lucky enough to secure tramp
+labour for this, which meant payment largely in barn-room and bread.
+
+Then there had been a host of minor retrenchments, each in itself so
+small as to be almost useless, but mounting together into something
+profitable. Chocolate had vanished from the Odiam supper-table, their
+bread was made of seconds, the genuines being sold to Iden Mill; they
+ate no meat on week-days except bacon, and eggs were forbidden in
+puddings. Reuben managed to get a small sale for his eggs and milk at
+the Manor and the curate's house, though he had not enough cows and
+poultry to make his dealing of much advantage.
+
+Mrs. Backfield was the one to bear the brunt of these economies. She had
+been a trifle pampered during the latter days of her marriage, and set
+far more store than her sons on dainty food; also the work which she
+performed so well was a tax on her unaccustomedness. But she never
+grumbled, and this was not only because escape was near at hand. Strange
+to say, in these new days of his lordship, Reuben began to fill a place
+in her heart which he had never filled before. While her husband was
+alive, he had never really come inside her life, he had been an aloof,
+inarticulate being whom she did not understand. But now that he had
+asserted himself, she found herself turning towards him. She would have
+worked without prospect of release--indeed, as the days went by, Harry
+and his home and her promised idleness dwindled in her thoughts.
+
+When Reuben told her he could now buy his first piece of Boarzell, she
+went through the day's work full of joy. Though, as far as the land
+itself was concerned, she would far rather have had new chintz covers
+for the parlour chairs.
+
+They never sat in the parlour now.
+
+Harry's pleasure was obviously insincere, just a mask put on out of
+kindness to his brother. Naomi was coming over on a few days' visit, and
+everything else was smoke. No one, Reuben reflected, as he walked over
+to Flightshot to see Sir Miles's agent, no one cared a rap about
+Boarzell. His mother thought more of her food and of her furniture,
+thought more of him and Harry, while Harry thought of nothing but Naomi.
+He would have to wage his fight alone.
+
+The transaction was prompt and satisfactory. Reuben did not haggle over
+the price, and was careful to let the agent know of his eagerness to buy
+more--otherwise, he was afraid that the Squire might either give the
+land back to the people, pushed by his Liberal politics, or else part
+with it for a song to some speculator. So he paid really a bit more than
+the land was worth, and made the agent a confidant of his dreams.
+
+"It'll want a tedious lot of fighting, will that plot," he asserted, to
+counteract any idea his eagerness might give that Boarzell was a mine of
+hidden fertility--"Dunno as I shall mäake anything out of it. But it's
+land I want--want to mäake myself a sort of landed praprietor"--a
+lie--"and raise the old farm up a bit. I'd like to have the whole of
+Boarzell. Reckon as Grandturzel 'ud sell me their bit soon as I've got
+the rest. They'll never mäake anything out of it."
+
+He walked home over Boarzell, scarcely conscious of the ground he trod.
+He felt like a new-crowned king. As he looked round on the swart
+hummocks of the Moor, and its crest of firs, dim and bistred against the
+grey afternoon clouds, he found it hard to realise that it was not all
+his, that he still had almost the whole of it to fight for, acre by
+acre. He hurried towards his own little plot, bought, but as yet
+unconquered, still shagged with gorse and brittle with shards.
+
+It was down in the hollow by Totease, as unpromising an estate as one
+could wish, all on a slope, gorse-grown at the top, then a layer of
+bracken, and at the Totease fence a kind of oozy pulp, where a lavant
+dribbled in and out of the grass; to Reuben, however, it was a land of
+milk and honey. He turned up the soil of it with his foot, and blessed
+the wealden clay.
+
+"No flints here," he said; "reckon there's some stiff ground on the
+hill--but it's only the surface. Heather äun't growing--that's a tedious
+good sign. I'll have oats here--the best in Peasmarsh."
+
+He stood staring at the grass with its dribbles of lavant and spines of
+rushes. The wind brought the sound of someone singing. At first he
+scarcely noticed, then gradually the song worked in with his daydream,
+and ended by rousing him out of it. He strolled across his domain, and
+marked half a dozen sturdy willows which must come out somehow roots and
+all. He climbed into the bracken zone, and from thence saw Harry sitting
+by a gorse thicket some hundred yards off with Naomi Gasson.
+
+The wind puffed gently towards him, bringing him the song and the soft
+peach-smell of the gorse. Harry was a musician already of note among the
+farms; he had a beautiful voice, and there was very little he could not
+do with his fiddle, though of late this had been neglected for the
+claims of work and love. To-day he was singing an old song Reuben knew
+well--"The Song of Seth's House":
+
+
+     "'The blackbird flew out from the eaves of the Manor,
+       The Manor of Seth in the Sussex countrie,
+     And he carried a prayer from the lad of the Manor,
+       A prayer and a tear to his faithless ladie.
+
+     "'To the lady who lives in the Grange by the water,
+       The water of Iron in the Sussex countrie,
+     The lad of Seth's House prays for comfort and pity--
+       Have pity, my true love, have pity on me!
+
+     "'O why when we loved like the swallows in April,
+       Should beauty forget now their nests have grown cold?
+     O why when we kissed 'mid the ewes on the hanger,
+       Should you turn from me now that they winter in fold?
+
+     "'O why, because sickness hath wasted my body,
+       Should you do me to death with your dark treacherie?
+     O why, because brothers and friends all have left me,
+       Should you leave me too, O my faithless ladie?
+
+     "'One day when your pride shall have brought you to sorrow,
+       And years of despair and remorse been your fate,
+     Perhaps your cold heart will remember Seth's Manor,
+       And turn to your true love--and find it too late.'"
+
+
+Harry's voice was very loud and clear, with that element of wildness
+which is a compensation for no training. When he had finished "The Song
+of Seth's House" he started another, but broke off in the middle of it,
+and Reuben saw the two heads suddenly droop together, and fuse, the
+golden hair and the brown.
+
+Naomi leaned against Harry, and his hand stole up and down her arm,
+stroking its whiteness. Reuben stood watching them, and for a moment he
+hungered. This was what he had cast away.
+
+He turned from them sharply, and threw himself down on the dead bracken.
+Then suddenly the hunger passed. The reek of the moist earth rose up in
+his nostrils; it was the scent of his love, who was sweeter to him than
+ever Naomi was to Harry. His hand stole over the short, mould-smelling
+grass, caressing it. He had a love more beautiful than Harry's, whose
+comeliness would stay unwithered through the years, whose fruitfulness
+would make him great, whose allure was salted with a hundred dangers....
+His fingers dug themselves into the earth, and he embraced Boarzell with
+wide-flung trembling arms. "My land!" he cried--"mine!--mine!"
+
+
+§ 6.
+
+The neighbourhood sniggered when it heard of Odiam's new land. When it
+heard of Reuben's plans for it and the oats that were to be it grew
+openly derisive. The idea of anyone thinking he could grow oats on
+Boarzell was an excellent joke. Young Backfield, however, ignored public
+opinion, and bought rape-dust for manure.
+
+He was as jealous of this strip of earth as of a wife--he would allow
+nobody to work there but himself. Alone and unhelped he grubbed up the
+bracken, turned the soil, and scattered rape-dust and midden till they
+had to shut their windows at Burntbarns. He believed that if the ground
+was properly manured it would be ready for sowing in the autumn. The
+only difficulty now was the trees; they were casting malevolent
+shadows, and dredging up the goodness out of the earth.
+
+Where Ditch of Totease or Vennal of Burntbarns would have taken a couple
+of woodmen and a saw, Reuben took nothing but an axe and his bare arms.
+His muscles ached for this new carouse of exertion.
+
+"Let me give you a hand," said Harry that day at dinner.
+
+"No--why should I?"
+
+"You'll never do it yourself," said Naomi, who was spending a few days
+at Odiam.
+
+"Oh, wöan't I!" and Reuben showed his strong white teeth.
+
+"How many trees are there?"
+
+"Half a dozen--willers. The real trouble will be gitting their roots
+out."
+
+"And will you do that alone?"
+
+"I'll see about it."
+
+Naomi looked across at Reuben without speaking. Her lips, a pale
+coral-pink, were parted, showing two tiny teeth. She was not the type he
+favoured--she was too soft and bloodless--but he could not help feeling
+flattered by the frank admiration he saw in her eyes. He knew that this
+last year of wind and sun and healthy work had narrowed the gulf between
+him and Beautiful Harry. He was as hard as iron and as brown as a nut,
+and there was a warm red glowing through the swarthiness of his cheeks
+like the bloom on a russet pear.
+
+Harry looked up from his plate, and the gaze became three-cornered.
+Reuben, defiant of his brother, grew bold, and ogled, whereupon Naomi
+grew timid, and dropped her eyes; Harry found himself speaking with a
+rasp:
+
+"I'm coming to help you, Reuben. You'll never tackle them rootses--it
+äun't everything you can do surelye!"
+
+"I can do that much. You stay here and play the fiddle to Naomi."
+
+Harry somehow felt he had been insulted, and opened his mouth to retort.
+But his brother suddenly began talking about an accident to a labourer
+at Grandturzel, and the occasion dropped.
+
+After dinner Reuben set out with his axe, and Harry and Naomi sat
+together on the floor beside the kitchen fire. He gave her kisses like
+the wind, swift and cool. She was the only woman he had kissed, and she
+had never been kissed by any other man. Their love had its wildnesses,
+but not the wildnesses of fire--rather of the dancing boughs of some
+spring-caught wood, rioting together in May. Now and then he would sing
+as he held her to him, his fresh young voice ringing up to the roof....
+
+Later in the afternoon they went out together. It seemed a pity to stay
+indoors in the soft swale, and Harry had to look at some poultry at
+Doozes. Naomi walked with her arm through his, her grey cloak over her
+shoulders.
+
+"I wonder if Reuben's still at it?" said Harry, as the footpath began to
+skirt the new land.
+
+"Yes--I see him yonder. He doesn't see us, I reckon."
+
+They stood on the hillside and looked down at Reuben. He had felled five
+trees, and was now getting his axe into the sixth. They watched him in
+silence, and Naomi found herself remembering the way he had looked at
+her at dinner.
+
+"He's a valiant man," said Harry.
+
+Naomi saw him sweep the axe above his shoulder, and the ease and
+strength of his swing gave her a strange tingling sensation in her
+breast. The axe crashed into the wood, then Reuben pulled it up, and the
+muscles of his back made two long, ovoid lumps under his blue shirt.
+Again the axe swung and fell, again Naomi's body tingled as with a
+physical exhilaration.
+
+The January twilight deepened, and soon Reuben's blue shirt was all that
+was clear in the hollow. The bites of the axe cracked out on the still
+air--and suddenly with a soft swish of boughs the tree fell.
+
+
+§ 7.
+
+That night Reuben came to supper as hungry as a wolf. He was in a fine
+good humour, for his body, pleasantly tired, glowing, aching, tickled
+with the smell of food, was giving him a dozen agreeable sensations.
+
+"Got some splendid fire-wood fur you, mother," he said after a few
+minutes' silence enforced by eating.
+
+"And wot about the rootses?" asked Harry, "wull you be digging those out
+to-morrer? It'll be an unaccountable tough job."
+
+"Oh, I've found a way of gitting shut of them rootses--thought of it
+while I wur working at the trees. I'm going to blast 'em out."
+
+"Blast 'em!"
+
+"Yes. Blast 'em wud gunpowder. I've heard of its being done. I'd never
+dig all the stuff out myself--yards of it there be--willer rootses
+always wur hemmed spready."
+
+"It's never bin done in these parts."
+
+"Well, it'll be done now, surelye. It'll show the folk here I mean
+business--and that I'm a chap wud ideas."
+
+There was indeed a mild excitement in the farms round Boarzell when
+Reuben's new plan became known. In those times gunpowder was seldom used
+for such purposes, and the undertaking was looked upon as a treat and a
+display....
+
+"Backfield's going to bust up his willer-rootses--fine sight it'll
+be--like as not blow his own head off--I'll be there to see."
+
+So when Reuben came to his territory the next afternoon he found a
+small crowd assembled--Ditch, Ginner, Realf of Grandturzel, Coalbran of
+Doozes, Pilcher of Birdseye, with a sprinkling of their wives, families,
+and farm-hands. He himself had brought Naomi, and Harry was to join them
+when he came back from an errand to Moor's Cottage. Reuben felt a trifle
+important and in need of spectators. This was to be the crowning act of
+conquest. When those roots were shattered away there would be nothing
+but time and manure between him and the best oat-crop in Peasmarsh.
+
+A quarter of an hour passed, and there was no sign of Harry. Reuben grew
+impatient, for he wanted to have the ground tidied up by sunset. It was
+a wan, mould-smelling afternoon, and already the sun was drifting
+through whorls of coppery mist towards the shoulder of Boarzell. Reuben
+looked up to the gorse-clump on the ridge, from behind which he expected
+Harry to appear.
+
+"I can't wait any longer," he said to Naomi, "something's kept him."
+
+"He'll be disappointed," said Naomi softly.
+
+"I can't help that--the sun's near down, and I must have everything
+präaper by dark."
+
+He went to where the fuse lay like a snake in the grass, and struck his
+flint.
+
+"Stand back everybody; I'm going to start her."
+
+The group huddled back a few yards. The little flame writhed along
+towards the stump. There was silence. Reuben stood a little way in front
+of the others, leaning forward with eager, parted lips.
+
+Suddenly Naomi cried out:
+
+"There's Harry!"
+
+A shadow appeared against the copper sky, and ran towards them down the
+hill.
+
+For a moment nobody seemed to realise what was boding. Then they heard a
+shout that sounded like "Wait for me!" Naomi felt something rise in her
+throat and sear the roof of her mouth like a hot cinder. She tried to
+scream, but her parched tongue would not move. She staggered forward,
+but Reuben flung her back.
+
+"Stop!" he shouted.
+
+Harry did not seem to hear.
+
+"Stop!" yelled Reuben again. Then he cried, "Stand back!" to the crowd,
+and ran towards his brother.
+
+But it was too late. There was a sudden roar, a sheet of flame, a crash,
+a dreadful scream, and then a far more dreadful silence.
+
+One or two flames sang out of a hole in the ground, but scarcely
+anything could be seen for the pall of smoke that hung over Boarzell,
+black, and evil-smelling. The fumes made men choke, then they shuddered
+and drew together, for through the smell of smoke and gunpowder came the
+horrible smell of burnt flesh.
+
+Reuben was lying on his face a few yards in front of the others. For
+some seconds nobody moved. Then Backfield slowly raised himself on his
+arms.
+
+"I'm not hurt," he said in a shaking voice.
+
+"Harry!" cried Naomi, as if someone were strangling her.
+
+Reuben tottered to his feet. His face was black, and he was still half
+stunned by the explosion.
+
+"Harry!" cried Naomi--and then fainted.
+
+The smoke clouds were lifting, and now everyone could see a smouldering
+object that lay close to the hole, among bits of wood and stone.
+
+Reuben ran towards it, Ditch and Realf followed him. The others huddled
+stupidly together like sheep.
+
+"His clothes are still burning--here, help me, you!" cried Reuben,
+beating at the flames with his hands.
+
+"He's dead," said Realf.
+
+"Oh Lord!" wailed Ditch--"Oh Lord!"
+
+"He's bin hit on the head wud a piece of wood. I reckon he died
+painlessly. All this came afterwards."
+
+"Wipe the blood off his face."
+
+"Tell his poor girl he died wudout suffering."
+
+"He äun't dead," said Reuben.
+
+He had torn off the rags from his brother's heart, and felt it beating.
+
+"He äun't dead."
+
+"Oh Lord!" wailed Ditch.--"Oh Lord!"
+
+"Here, you chaps, fetch a gëat and put him on it--and döan't let Naomi
+see him."
+
+Naomi had been taken back to Odiam, when Harry, still motionless and
+apparently dead, was lifted on a gate, and borne away. Dark curds of
+smoke drifted among the willows, and the acrid smell of powder clung to
+the hillside like an evil ghost. The place where Harry had lain was
+marked by charred and trampled grass, and a great pool of blood was
+sinking into the ground ... it seemed to Reuben, as he turned
+shudderingly away, as if Boarzell were drinking it up--eagerly,
+greedily, as a thirsty land drinks up its first watering.
+
+
+§ 8.
+
+Dr. Espinette from Rye stood glumly by Harry's bed. His finger lay on
+the fluttering pulse, and his eye studied the little of the sick man's
+face that could be seen between its bandages.
+
+"It's a bad business," he said at last; "that wound in the head's the
+worst of it. The burns aren't very serious in themselves. You must keep
+him quiet, and I'll call again to-morrow morning."
+
+"When ull he wäake up?" asked Mrs. Backfield in the feeble voice her
+tears had left her.
+
+"I don't know--it may be in an hour or two, it mayn't be for a week."
+
+"A week!"
+
+"I've known them unconscious longer than that. But, cheer up,
+ma'am--we're not going to let him slip past us."
+
+The doctor went away, and after a time Reuben was able to persuade his
+mother to go and lie down in the next room. He had quite recovered from
+the shock of the explosion; indeed, he was now the only calm person in
+the house. He sat down by Harry's bed, gazing at the unconscious face.
+
+How horrible everything had been! How horrible everything was still,
+with that loggish, inanimate thing lying there, all that was left of
+Beautiful Harry. Reuben wondered if he would die. If so, he had killed
+him--he had ignored his own inexperience and played splashy tricks with
+his new land. But no--he had not killed him--it was Boarzell, claiming a
+victim in the signal-rite of its subjection. He remembered how that
+thirsty ground had drunk up Harry's blood. Perhaps it would drink up
+much more blood before he had done with it--perhaps it would one day
+drink up his blood.... A vague, a sudden, a ridiculous fear clutched his
+thoughts; for the first time he felt afraid of the thing he had set out
+to conquer--for the first time Boarzell was not just unfruitful soil,
+harsh heather clumps and gorse-roots--it was something personal,
+opposing, vindictive, blood-drinking.
+
+He sprang to his feet and began pacing up and down the room. The window
+square was black. He was glad he could not see Boarzell with its knob of
+firs. Gradually the motion of his legs calmed his thoughts, he fell to
+pondering more ordinary things--had his mother remembered to stand the
+evening's milk in the cream pans? She had probably forgotten all about
+the curate's butter to be delivered the next morning. What had Harry
+done about those mangolds at Moor's Cottage? Durn it! He would have to
+do all the work of the farm to-morrow--how he was to manage things he
+didn't know, what with the dairy and the new chicks and the Alderney
+having garget. He stopped pacing, and chin in hand was considering the
+expediency of engaging outside help, when a voice from the bed cried
+feebly:
+
+"Oh!"
+
+Reuben went to Harry's side, and bent over him.
+
+"Oh," moaned his brother, "oh!--oh!"
+
+"I'm here, old feller," said Reuben with a clumsy effort at tenderness.
+
+"Bring a light, do--I can't abide this dark."
+
+Reuben fetched the candle to the bedside.
+
+"Where's Naomi?"
+
+"She's asleep. Do you want her?"
+
+"No--let her sleep. But bring me a light fur marcy's sake."
+
+"I've brought it--it's here by the bed."
+
+"I can't see it."
+
+"You must--it's right in your eyes."
+
+"I can't--oh!"
+
+He started up in bed and gripped his brother's hand. He thrust his head
+forward, his eyeballs straining.
+
+"Take it away! take it away!" he screamed.
+
+"Wot?" cried Reuben, sick with the new-born terror.
+
+"That black stuff in front of my eyes. Take it away! Take it away!"
+
+He tore his hand free, and began clawing and beating at his face.
+
+Reuben's teeth were chattering.
+
+"Kip calm, lad--kip calm. There's naun there, naun, I tell you."
+
+"Oh, oh!"--screamed Harry--"Oh, oh, oh!"
+
+The outcry brought Mrs. Backfield from the next room, Naomi shivering in
+her wake. Reuben was trying to hold Harry down in bed.
+
+Through the long night they wrestled with him, blind and raving. At
+first it seemed as if Naomi's presence soothed him, and he would let her
+stroke his arms and hands. But after a time he ceased to recognise her.
+He gabbled about her a good deal, but did not know she was there. His
+delirium was full of strange tags--a chicken brood he was raising, a
+sick cow, a jaunt into Rye with Realf of Grandturzel, a dozen harmless
+homely things which were all transfused with an alien horror, all
+somehow made frightful, so that Reuben felt he could never look on
+chickens, cows or Rye again without a shudder.
+
+Sometimes there were crises of extraordinary violence when he was with
+difficulty held down in bed, and these at last wore him out. Towards
+dawn he fell into a troubled sleep.
+
+Naomi slept too, huddled in a chair, every now and then a sob quivering
+through her. The winter dawn slowly crept in on her, showing her pitiful
+figure--showing Mrs. Backfield sick and puffy with tears, Reuben
+dry-eyed beside the bed, and Harry respited in sleep. Outside the crest
+of Boarzell was once more visible in the growing light--dark, lumpish,
+malevolent, against the kindling of the sky.
+
+
+§ 9.
+
+The next few days were terrible, in the house and on the farm. Indoors
+the women nursed Harry, and outdoors Reuben did double work, sleeping at
+night in an arm-chair by his brother's side.
+
+Harry had recovered consciousness, but it could not be said that he had
+"come to himself." "Beautiful Harry," with all his hopes and ardours,
+his dreams and sensibilities, had run away like a gipsy, and in his
+place was a new Harry, blind and mad, who moaned and laughed, with stony
+silences, and now and then strange fits of struggling as if the runaway
+gipsy strove to come back.
+
+Dr. Espinette refused to say whether this state was permanent or merely
+temporary. Neither could he be sure whether it was due to his injuries
+or to the shock of finding himself blind. Reuben felt practically
+convinced that his brother was sane during the few moments he had spoken
+to him alone, but the doctor seemed doubtful.
+
+Reuben was glad to escape into his farm work. The atmosphere of sickness
+was like a cloud, which grew blacker and blacker the nearer one came to
+its heart. Its heart was that little room in the gable, where he spent
+those wretched nights, disturbed by Harry's moaning. Out of doors, in
+the yard or the cowshed or the stable, he breathed a cleaner atmosphere.
+The heaviness, the vague remorse, grew lighter. And strange to say, out
+on Boarzell, which was the cause of his trouble, they grew lightest of
+all.
+
+Somehow out there was a wider life, a life which took no reck of
+sickness or horror or self-reproach. The wind which stung his face and
+roughed his hair, the sun which tanned his nape as he bent to his work,
+the smell of the earth after rain, the mists that brewed in the hollows
+at dusk, and at dawn slunk like spirits up to the clouds ... they were
+all part of something too great to take count of human pain--so much
+greater than he that in it he could forget his trouble, and find ease
+and hope and purpose--even though he was fighting it.
+
+He mildly scandalised his neighbours by blasting--privately this
+time--the tree stumps yet in the ground. According to their ethics he
+should have accepted Harry's accident as the voice of Providence and
+abstained from his outlandish methods--also some felt that it was a
+matter of delicacy and decent feeling not to repeat that which had had
+such dire consequences for his brother. "I wonder he can bear to do it,"
+said Ginner, when 'Bang! Bang!' came over the hummocks to Socknersh.
+
+But Reuben did it because he was not going to be beaten in any respect
+by his land. He was not going to accept defeat in the slightest
+instance. So he blew up the stumps, tidied the ground, and spread
+manure--and more manure--and yet more manure.
+
+Manure was his great idea at that moment. He had carefully tilled and
+turned the soil, and he fed it with manure as one crams chickens. It was
+of poor quality marl, mostly lime on the high ground, with a larger
+proportion of clay beside the ditch. Reuben's plan was to fatten it well
+before he sowed his seed. Complaints of his night-soil came all the way
+from Grandturzel; Vennal, humorously inclined, sent him a bag of rotten
+fish; on the rare occasions his work allowed him to meet other farmers
+at the Cocks, his talk was all of lime, guano, and rape-cake, with
+digressions on the possibilities of seaweed. He was manure mad.
+
+The neighbours despised and mistrusted his enthusiasm. There he was,
+thinking of nothing but his land, when Harry, his only brother, lay
+worse than dying. But Reuben often thought of Harry.
+
+One thing he noticed, and that was that the housework was always done
+for him by his mother as if there were no sickness to fill her time.
+Always when he came home of an evening, his supper was waiting for him,
+hot and savoury. He breakfasted whenever he had a mind, and there were
+slices of cold pie or dabs of bread and meat for him to take out and eat
+as he worked--he had no time to come home to dinner now. Really his
+mother was tumbling to things wonderfully well--she looked a little
+tired sometimes, it is true, and the lines of her face were growing
+thinner, but she was saving him seven shillings a month and the girl's
+food; and all that money and food was feeding the hungry earth.
+
+Naomi helped her with the nursing, and also a little about the house.
+She had refused to go home to Rye, though Harry did not seem to
+recognise her.
+
+"For sometimes," she said, "I think he does."
+
+
+§ 10.
+
+Towards the middle of February a change took place in Harry. At first it
+was little more than a faint creep of life, putting a little glow in his
+cheeks, a little warmth in his blood. Then the wounds which had been
+healing so slowly began to heal quickly, his appetite returned, and he
+slept long and sweetly at nights.
+
+Mrs. Backfield's hope rekindled, but the doctor soon damped it down.
+This sudden recrudescence of physical health was a bad sign, for there
+was no corresponding revival of intellect, and now the prostration of
+the body could no longer account for the aberration of the mind. It was
+unlikely that Harry would ever recover his wits--the injuries to his
+skull, either with or without the shock of his blindness, had definitely
+affected his brain. The strong, clear will, the gay spirits, the quick
+understanding, the tender sensibilities which had made him so bright and
+lovable a being, were gone--how much of shreds and scraps they had left
+behind them to build up the semblance of a man, did not yet appear.
+
+His looks would be only slightly marred. It was the optic nerve which
+had been destroyed, and so far there was nothing ugly in the eyes
+themselves, except their vacant rolling. The eyelashes and eyebrows had
+been burnt off, but they were growing again, and a scar on his cheek and
+another on his forehead were not likely to show much in a few weeks'
+time. But all the life, the light, the soul had gone out of his face--it
+was like a house which had been gutted, with walls and roof still
+standing, yet with its essential quality gone from it, a ruin.
+
+Reuben thought long and anxiously about his brother. He did not speak
+much of him to his mother or Naomi, for he knew that they would not
+understand the problem that confronted him. He felt worn by the extra
+load of work, and his brain fretted, spoiling his good sleep. He was
+back in his own room now, but he slept worse than in Harry's; he would
+lie awake fighting mentally, just as all day he had fought
+physically--life was a continuous fight.
+
+It was hard that just at the outset of his enterprise, fresh obstacles
+should be thrown in his way. He saw that it was practically impossible
+for him to go on working as he did; already he was paying for it in
+stiff muscles, loss of appetite, fitful sleep, and drugged wakings. Also
+he was growing irritable and frayed as to temper. If he went on much
+longer doing the work of three men--he had always done the work of
+two--he would end by breaking up completely, and then what would become
+of Odiam? He would have to engage outside help, and that would mean
+quite ten shillings a week--ten shillings a week, two pounds a month,
+twenty-six pounds a year, the figures were like blisters in his head
+during the long restless nights. They throbbed and throbbed through his
+dreams. He would have to spend twenty-six pounds a year, just when he
+was saving so desperately to buy more land and fatten what he already
+had. And in addition he would have to pay for Harry's keep. Not only
+must he engage a man to do his work, but he would have to support in
+absolute idleness Harry himself. He was quite unfit for farm work, he
+would be nothing but an expense and an incubus.
+
+In those dark furious hours, Reuben would wish his brother had died. It
+was not as if life could be sweet to him. It was terrible to see him
+mouching and mumbling about the house, to hold even the brief converse
+with him which everyday life enforced. He had not as yet grown used to
+his blindness, indeed it would be difficult for him to do so without
+wits to stimulate and direct his other senses, and it was dreadful to
+see him tumbling over furniture, breaking things and crying afterwards,
+spilling food on his clothes and his beard--for now that he could not
+shave himself, and others had no time to do it for him, he wore a large
+fair beard, which added to his uncouthness.
+
+Oh that his brother had died!
+
+One day Reuben was so tired that he fell asleep over his supper. His
+mother cleared the table round him, glancing at him with fond,
+submissive eyes. Each day she had come to love him more, with an
+obedient love, almost instinctive and elemental, which she had never
+felt for the gentle husband or considerate son. This evening she laid
+her shawl over his shoulders, and went to her washing-up.
+
+Suddenly a weird noise came from the parlour, a strange groaning and
+wailing. Reuben woke up, and rubbed his eyes. What was that? It was
+horrible, it was uncanny--and for him it also had that terrifying
+unnaturalness which a sudden waking gives even to the most ordinary
+sounds.
+
+Then gradually out of the horror beauty began to grow. The sound passed
+into an air, faltering at first, then flowing--"Dearest Ellen," on
+Harry's violin.
+
+"I'm glad he's found something to amuse him, poor son," said Mrs.
+Backfield, coming in to see if Reuben had waked.
+
+"He's not playing badly, is he, mother?"
+
+"Not at all. They say as sometimes blind folk are unaccountable good at
+music."
+
+Reuben did not answer; she knew by his attitude--chin in hand--that he
+was thinking.
+
+That night he thought it out.
+
+Munds of Starvecrow had had a brother who fiddled at fairs and weddings
+and earned, so Munds said, thirty pounds a year. He had also heard of
+others who made as good a thing of it. If Harry earned thirty pounds a
+year he would pay the wages of an extra farm-hand and also something
+towards his own keep. They must find out exactly how many of the old
+tunes he remembered, and get somebody musical to teach him new ones.
+
+The idea prospered in Reuben's thoughts that night. The next morning he
+was full of it, and confided it to his mother and Naomi.
+
+Naomi, a little paler and more wistful than of old, still spent an
+occasional day or two at Odiam. At first she had made these visits for
+Harry's sake, flattering herself that he was the better for her
+presence; then when even her faith began to fail, she still came, partly
+to help Mrs. Backfield, partly driven by such feelings as might drive an
+uneasy ghost to haunt the house of his tragedy. Reuben saw little of
+her, for his work claimed him, but he liked to feel she was there,
+helping his mother with work which it was difficult for her to carry
+through alone to Odiam's best advantage.
+
+She heard of Reuben's plan with some shrinking.
+
+"He--he wouldn't like it," she stammered after a pause.
+
+"You'll never go sending our Harry to fiddle at fairs," said Mrs.
+Backfield.
+
+"Why not? There's naun shameful in it. Munds's brother did it for twenty
+years. And think of the difference it'll mäake to us--thirty pound or so
+a year, instead of the dead loss of Harry's keep and the wages of an
+extra man beside. I tell you, mother, I wur fair sick about the farm
+till I thought of this."
+
+"It's always the farm wud you, Reuben. You might sometimes think of your
+own kin."
+
+"I tell you Harry wöan't mind--he'll like it. It'll be something to
+occupy him. Besides, hem it all, mother! you can't expect me to kip him
+idling here, wud the farm scarce started yet, and nearly the whole of
+Boarzell still to buy."
+
+But it was useless to expect either Mrs. Backfield or Naomi to
+appreciate the momentousness of his task. Were women always, he
+wondered, without ambition? However, though they did not sympathise,
+they would not oppose him--Naomi because she was not skilful at
+opposition, his mother because he was gradually taking the place of
+Harry in her heart.
+
+He had more trouble when a day or so later he asked Naomi to inspect
+Harry's musical equipment.
+
+"You see, I döan't know one tune from another, so I can't do it myself.
+You might git him to play one or two things over to you, Naomi, and find
+out what he remembers."
+
+"I'd rather not," said Naomi, shuddering.
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Oh--I just can't."
+
+"But why?"
+
+She could not tell him. If he did not understand how every note from
+Harry's violin would jab and tear the tortured memories she was trying
+to put to sleep--if he did not understand that of himself, she would
+never be able to explain it to him.
+
+As a matter of fact he did understand, but he was resolute.
+
+"Help me, Naomi," he pleaded, "fur I can't manage wudout you."
+
+His eyes searched her face. People who met him only casually were
+generally left with the impression that he had black eyes, but as a
+matter of fact they were dark blue. A hidden power forced Naomi's eyes
+to meet them ... they were narrow and deep-set, with extraordinarily
+long lashes. She gazed into them for a moment without speaking. Then
+suddenly her own filled with an expression of hatred, and she ran out of
+the room.
+
+But he had won his point. That evening Naomi made Harry play over his
+"tunes," while Reuben sat in the chimney corner watching them both.
+Harry's memory was erratic--he would play through some well-known airs
+quite correctly up to a certain point, and then interpolate hysterical
+variations of his own. At other times memory failed him altogether, but
+his natural quickness of ear seemed to have increased since his
+blindness, and it only needed Naomi to sing the passage over for him to
+fill up the gaps.
+
+She took him through "The Woodpecker Tapping," "Dearest Ellen," "I'd
+mourn the hopes that leave me," "The Song of Seth's House," and "The
+Blue Bells of Scotland." Each one of them was torment to her gentle
+heart, as it woke memory after memory of courtship--on the gorse-slopes
+of Boarzell, among the chasing shadows of Iden Wood, on the Rother
+marshes by Thornsdale, where the river slinks up from the Fivewatering
+... or in this very kitchen here, where the three of them, divided from
+one another by dizzy gaps of suffering, desire and darkness, were
+gathered together in a horrible false association.
+
+But Harry's face was blank, no memories seemed to stir for him, he just
+fiddled on, now and then receiving Naomi's corrections with an outbreak
+of childish temper. On these occasions Reuben would stamp his foot and
+speak to him in a loud, angry voice which inevitably made him behave
+himself.
+
+Naomi always took advantage of these returns to docility, but later that
+evening in the dairy, she suddenly swung round on Mrs. Backfield and
+exclaimed petulently:
+
+"I hate that Ben of yours!"
+
+
+§ 11.
+
+Harry made good progress, and Reuben decided that he was to start his
+career at the October Fair. There had been a fiddler at the Fair for
+years, partly for the lasses and lads to dance to, partly for the less
+Bacchic entertainments of their elders. It was at the Fair that men took
+his measure, and engaged him accordingly for weddings and such
+festivals. Luck would have it that for the last two years there had
+been no official fiddler--old Abel Pinch having been seduced by a
+semi-urban show, which wandered round London, camping on waste grounds
+and commons. The musical element had been supplied by strays, and Reuben
+had no doubt but that he should now be able to instal his brother
+honourably as chief musician.
+
+He advertised him in the neighbourhood for some weeks beforehand, and
+gossip ran high. Condemnation of Backfield's ruthlessness in exploiting
+his brother was combined with a furtive admiration of his smartness as a
+business man. It was extraordinary how little he cared about "lowering
+himself," a vital matter with the other farmers of his position. Just as
+he had thought nothing of working his own farm instead of indulging in
+the dignity of hired labour, so he thought nothing of making money at
+Boarzell Fair with the gipsies and pikers.
+
+Naomi no longer protested. For one thing Harry seemed to like his
+fiddling, and was quite overjoyed at the prospect of playing at the
+Fair. Strangely enough, he remembered the Fair and its jollities, though
+he had forgotten all weightier matters of life and love.
+
+"Where shall I stand?--by the gipsies' tent?--or right forrard by the
+stalls? I'd like to stand by the stalls, and then maybe when I'm not
+fiddling they'll give me sweeties."
+
+"You must behave yourself," said Reuben, in the tones he would have used
+to a child--"you mustn't go vrothering people to give you sweeties."
+
+"I'll give you some sweeties, Harry," said Naomi.
+
+"Oh, will you?--Then I'll love you!"
+
+Naomi turned away with a shudder, her eyes full of inexpressible pain.
+
+Reuben looked after her as she went out of the room, then he took a
+couple of strides and caught her up in the passage.
+
+"It's I who'm täaking you to the Fair, remember," he said, his hand on
+her arm.
+
+"Oh, no ... I couldn't go to the Fair."
+
+"Nonsense--you're coming wud me."
+
+"Oh, Ben, don't make me go."
+
+It was the cry of her weakness to his purpose.
+
+"I shall mäake you ... dear."
+
+She flung herself from him, and ran upstairs. That night at supper she
+took no notice of him, talking garrulously all the time to Mrs.
+Backfield.
+
+But she went to the Fair.
+
+In the soft grey gown that the first of the cold demanded she walked
+with her arm through Reuben's up the Moor. Her bonnet was the colour of
+heather, tied with wide ribbons that accentuated the milkiness of her
+chin. Reuben wore his Sunday clothes--drab shorts and a sprigged
+waistcoat, and a wide-brimmed hat under which his face looked strangely
+handsome and dark. Harry shuffled along, clutching his brother's
+coat-sleeve to guide himself. Mrs. Backfield preferred to stay at home,
+and Reuben had not tried to make her come.
+
+All Peasmarsh went to the Fair. It was a recognised holiday. All farm
+work--except the most barely necessary--was put aside, and the ploughman
+and dairymaid rollicked with their betters. The road across Boarzell was
+dark with them, coming from all quarters--Playden, Iden, Beckley,
+Northiam, Bodiam--Old Turk's Farm, Baron's Grange, Corkwood,
+Kitchenhour--even from Blackbrook and Ethnam on the Kentish border.
+
+The tents and stalls were blocked as usual round the central crest of
+pines. It was all much as it had been five years ago on the day of the
+Riot. There was the outer fringe of strange dwellings--tents full of
+smoke and sprawling squalling children, tilt carts with soup-pots
+hanging from their axles over little fires, and gorgeously painted
+caravans which stood out aristocratically amidst the prevalent sacking.
+There was a jangle of voices--the soft Romany of the gipsies, the
+shriller cant of the pikers and half-breeds, the broad drawling Sussex
+of the natives. Head of all the Fair, and superintending the working of
+the crazy merry-go-round, was Gideon Teazel, a rock-like man, son, he
+said, of a lord and a woman of the Rosamescros or Hearnes. He stood six
+foot eight in his boots and could carry a heifer across his shoulders.
+His wife Aurora, a pure-bred gipsy, told fortunes, and was mixed up in
+more activities than would appear from her sleepy manner or her
+invariable position, pipe in mouth, on the steps of her husband's
+caravan. Gideon loved to display his devotion for her by grotesque
+endearments and elephantine caresses--due no doubt to the gaujo strain
+in him, for the true gipsies always treated their women in public as
+chattels or beasts of burden, though privately they were entirely under
+their thumbs.
+
+Reuben brought Naomi and Harry into the middle of the Fair. Many people
+stared at them. It was Harry's first public appearance since his
+illness, and one or two comments louder than the general hum came to
+Naomi's ears and made them pink.
+
+Harry was soon established on the upturned cask beside the fighting
+booth which had always been the fiddler's place. He began to play at
+once--"Nice Young Maidens"--to all appearances quite indifferent to the
+jostle round him. Naomi could not help marvelling at Reuben, too--he was
+so cool, possessed and assured, so utterly without anything in the way
+of embarrassment or self-consciousness.
+
+Wonder was succeeded by wrath--how dare he be calm in the face of such
+terrible things? She tried to pull her hand out of his arm, but he held
+his elbow close to his side, and the little hand lay there like an
+imprisoned mouse.
+
+"Let's go away," she whispered, half nervously and half angrily, "I
+hate standing here."
+
+"I want to see how he's going to manage," said Reuben. "What'll he do
+when he comes to the end of this tune?"
+
+"Oh, do let's go away."
+
+He did not answer, but stood there imperturbable, till Harry, having
+successfully finished "Nice Young Maidens," started "The Woodpecker
+Tapping" without any ado.
+
+"He's safe enough now--we may as well go and have a look round."
+
+Naomi followed him out of the little crowd which had grouped round
+Harry, and they wandered into the Panorama tent to see the show. After
+having sat for half an hour on a crowded bench, in an atmosphere thick
+with foul tobacco and the smell of clothes long stored away--watching
+"The Coronation of Queen Victoria" and "Scenery on the West Coast of
+Scotland" rumble slowly past with many creaks--they moved on to the
+sparring booth, where Buck Washington, now a little knotted and disabled
+by a bout of rheumatism, arranged scraps between the ploughboys of the
+neighbouring farms.
+
+Unluckily, the object of sparring, as practised locally, was to draw as
+much blood from the adversary as possible. The combatants went straight
+for each others' noses, in spite of the conjurations of Buck, and Naomi
+soon exercised her privilege as a town girl, and said she felt faint.
+Reuben took her out, and they walked round the stalls, at one of which
+he bought her a cherry ribbon for her fairing. At another they bought
+gingerbread. Gradually her spirits began to revive--she applauded his
+power at the shooting gallery, and when they came to the cocoanut shie,
+she was laughing out loud.
+
+Reuben seemed to have an endless supply of money. He, whom she had seen
+deny himself white bread and tobacco, and scold his mother if she used
+eggs to make a pudding, did not seem now to care how much he spent for
+her amusement. He vowed, laughing, that she should not leave the shie
+till she had brought down a nut, and the showman pocketed pennies till
+he grinned from ear to ear, while Naomi threw the wooden balls in all
+directions, hitting the showman and the spectators and once even Reuben
+himself. At last he took her arm, and putting himself behind her managed
+after one or two attempts to guide a successful throw. They went off
+laughing with her prize, and came once more to the open ground where
+Harry was still playing his fiddle.
+
+Evidently he had pleased the multitude, for there was now a thick crowd
+in the central space, and already dancing had begun. Farm-hands in clean
+smocks, with bright-coloured handkerchiefs round their necks, gambolled
+uncouthly with farm-girls in spotted and striped muslins. Young farmers'
+wives, stiff with the sedateness of their bridehead, were drawn into
+reluctant capers. Despairing virgins renewed their hope, and tried wives
+their liveliness in unaccustomed arms. Even the elders danced, stumping
+together on the outskirts of the whirl as long as their breath allowed
+them.
+
+Harry played "The Song of Seth's House," which in spite of--or because
+of--its sadness was a good dancing tune. There was no definite step,
+just anything the dancers fancied. Some kicked up their heels
+vigorously, others slid them sedately, some held their partners by the
+hand, others with both arms round their waist.
+
+Then suddenly Naomi found herself in the thick of the crowd, at once
+crushed and protected by Reuben's six foot three of strength. At first
+she was shocked, chilled--she had never danced at a fair before, and it
+seemed dreadful to be dancing here with Reuben while Harry fiddled. But
+gradually the jovial movement, the vigour and gay spirits of her
+partner, wore down her reluctance. Once more she was impressed by that
+entire absence of self-consciousness and false pride which characterised
+him. After all, why should they not dance here together? Why should they
+stand glum while everyone else was merrymaking? Harry did not notice
+them, and if he did he would not care.
+
+
+     "The blackbird flew out from the eaves of the Manor,
+       The Manor of Seth in the Sussex countrie,
+     And he carried a prayer from the lad of the Manor,
+       A prayer and a tear to his faithless ladie."
+
+
+She found herself bending to the rhythm of the music, swaying in
+Reuben's arms. He held her lightly, and it was wonderful how clever he
+was in avoiding concussion with the other dancers, most of whom bumped
+about regardless of anybody else.
+
+
+     "To the lady who lives in the Grange by the water,
+       The water of Iron in the Sussex countrie,
+     The lad of Seth's House prays for comfort and pity--
+       Have pity, my true love, have pity on me!"
+
+
+A sudden weariness passed over Naomi, and Reuben led her out of the
+dance and brought her a drink of mild icy ale. He did not offer to take
+her home, and she did not ask to go. If he had offered she would have
+gone, but she had no will of her own--all desire, all initiative was
+drowned in the rhythm of the dance and the sadness of the old tune.
+
+
+     "O why when we loved like the swallows in April,
+       Should beauty forget now their nests have grown cold?
+     O why when we kissed 'mid the ewes on the hanger,
+       Should you turn from me now that they winter in fold?"
+
+
+He led her back into the crowd, and once more she felt his arms round
+her, so light, so strong, while her feet spun with his, tricked by
+magic. She became acutely conscious of his presence--the roughness of
+his coat-sleeve, the faint scent of the sprigged waistcoat, which had
+been folded away in lavender. And all the while she had another picture
+of him in her heart, not in his Sunday best, but in corduroys and the
+blue shirt which had stood out of the January dusk, the last piece of
+colour in the day. She remembered the swing of his arm, the crash of the
+axe on the trunk, the bending of his back as he pulled it out, the
+muscles swelled under the skin ... and then the tingling creep in her
+own heart, that sudden suffocating thrill which had come to her there
+beside Harry in the gloam....
+
+The dusk was falling now, splashed by crude flares over the stalls, and
+once more that creep--delicious, tingling, suffocating--was in her
+heart, the intoxication of the weak by the strong. It seemed as if he
+were holding her closer. She grew warm, and yet she would not stop.
+There was sweat on her forehead, she felt her woollen gown sticking to
+her shoulders--but she would not rest. The same old tune jigged on--it
+was good to dance to, and Harry liked playing it.
+
+
+     "O why, because sickness hath wasted my body,
+       Should you do me to death with your dark treacherie?
+     O why, because brothers and friends all have left me,
+       Should you leave me too, O my faithless ladie?"
+
+
+The dance was becoming more of a rout. Hats fell back, even Naomi's
+heather-coloured bonnet became disorderly. Kerchiefs were crumpled and
+necks bare. Arms grew tighter, there were few merely clasping hands now.
+Then a lad kissed his partner on the neck while they danced, and soon
+another couple were spinning round with lips clinging together. The
+girls' hair grew rough and blew in their boys' eyes--there were sounds
+of panting--of kissing--Naomi grew giddy, round her was a whirl of
+colour, hands, faces, the dusk and flaring lights. She clung closer to
+Reuben, and his arms tightened about her.
+
+
+     "One day when your pride shall have brought you to sorrow,
+       And years of despair and remorse been your fate,
+     Perhaps your cold heart will remember Seth's Manor,
+       And turn to your true love--and find it too late."
+
+
+§ 12.
+
+Reuben was pleased with the results of that Fair Day. Harry had been a
+complete success. Even on the day itself he was engaged to fiddle at a
+local wedding, and thenceforth no festival was complete without him. He
+became the fashion in Peasmarsh. His birth and family gave proceedings
+an air of gentility, and his tragic story imparted romance. Also his
+real musical gifts were appreciated by some, as well as his tirelessness
+and good nature. Occasionally he would have fits of crazy ill-temper,
+but only required firm handling. Reuben saw that his brother, instead of
+being entirely on the debit side of Odiam's accounts, would add
+materially to its revenues. He became exceedingly kind to Harry, and
+gave him apples and sweets.
+
+That autumn he had sown his oats. He sowed English Berlie, after
+wavering for some time between that and Barbachlaw. Quantities of rape
+cake had been delivered in the furrows with the seed, and now the fields
+lay, to the eye, wet and naked--to the soul, to Reuben's farmer-soul,
+full of the hidden promise which should sprout with May.
+
+He had a man to help him on the farm, Beatup, an uncouth coltish lad,
+with an unlimited capacity for work. Reuben never let him touch the new
+ground, but kept him busy in barn and yard with the cattle. Mrs.
+Backfield worked in the house as usual, and she now also had charge of
+the poultry; for Reuben having given them up to her when he was
+single-handed, had not taken them back--he had to look after Beatup, who
+wanted more watching than Harry, and he also had bought two more pigs as
+money-makers. He was saving, stinting, scraping to buy more land.
+
+Mrs. Backfield sometimes had Naomi to help her. Naomi often came to stay
+at Odiam. She did not know why she came; it was not for love of Mrs.
+Backfield, and the sight of Harry wrung her heart. She had fits of
+weeping alternating with a happy restlessness.
+
+Ever since the day of the Fair a strange feeling had possessed her,
+sometimes just for fitful moments, sometimes for long days of panic--the
+feeling of being pursued. She felt herself being hunted, slowly, but
+inevitably, by one a dozen times more strong, more knowing, more
+stealthy than herself. She heard his footsteps in the night, creeping
+after her down long labyrinths of thought, sometimes his shadow sped
+before her with her own. And she knew that one day he would seize
+her--though she struggled, wept and fled, she knew that one day she
+would be his at last, and of her own surrender. The awful part of that
+seizing would be that it would be a matter of her will as well as
+his....
+
+She was afraid of Reuben, she fled before him like a poor little lamb,
+trembling and bleating--and yet she would sometimes long for the
+inevitable day when he would grasp her and fling her across his
+shoulders.
+
+She could not discipline her attitude towards him--sometimes she was
+composed, distant even in her thoughts; at others a kind of delirious
+excitement possessed her, she flushed and held down her head in his
+presence, could not speak to him, and groped blindly for escape. She
+would, on these occasions, end by returning to Rye, but away from Reuben
+a restless misery tormented her, driving her back to Odiam.
+
+She sometimes asked herself if she loved him, and in cold blood there
+was only one answer to that question--No. What she felt for him was not
+love, but obsession--if she had never loved she might have mistaken it,
+but with her memories of Harry she could not. And the awful part of it
+was that her heart was still Harry's, though everything else was
+Reuben's. Her desires, her thoughts, her will were all Reuben's--by a
+slow remorseless process he was making them his own--but her heart, the
+loving, suffering part of her, was still Harry's, and might always be
+his.
+
+She was not continuously conscious of this--sometimes she forgot Harry,
+sometimes he repulsed her, often she was afraid of him. But in moments
+of quiet her heart always gave her the same message, like distant music,
+drowned in a storm.
+
+One day she was in the dairy at Odiam, skimming the cream-pans. The
+sunshine, filtered to a watery yellow by the March afternoon, streamed
+in on her, putting a yellow tinge into her white skin and white apron.
+Her hair was the colour of fresh butter, great pats and cakes of which
+stood on the slabs beside her. There was a smell of butter and standing
+milk in the cold, rather damp air. Naomi skimmed the cream off the pans
+and put it into a brown bowl.
+
+Suddenly she realised that Reuben had come into the dairy, and was
+standing beside her, a little way behind.
+
+"Hullo, Ben," she said nervously--it was one of her nervous days.
+
+"How's the cream to-day?"
+
+"Capital."
+
+He dipped his finger into the pan, and sucked it.
+
+"Oughtn't it to stand a bit longer?"
+
+"I don't think so."
+
+"Taste it----"
+
+He dipped his finger again, and suddenly thrust it between her lips.
+
+She drew her head away almost angrily, and moved to the next pan.
+
+Then he stooped and kissed her quite roughly on the neck, close to the
+nape.
+
+She cried out and turned round on him, but he walked out of the dairy.
+
+For a moment Naomi stood stockish, conscious only of two sensations in
+her body--the taste of cream on her lips, and a little cold place at the
+back of her neck. She began to tremble, then suddenly the colour left
+her cheeks, for in the doorway of the wash-house, three yards off, stood
+Harry.
+
+He did not move, and for some unaccountable reason she felt sure that he
+knew Reuben had kissed her. A kind of sickness crept up to her heart;
+she held out her hands before her, and tottered a little. She felt
+faint.
+
+"Harry!" she called.
+
+He came shuffling up to her, and for a moment stood straining his blind
+eyes into her face.
+
+"Harry--will you--will you take this basin of cream to your mother?"
+
+He was still looking into her eyes, and she was visited by a terrible
+feeling that came to her sometimes and went as quickly--that he was not
+so mad as people thought.
+
+"Will you take it?"
+
+He nodded.
+
+She gave him the cream bowl. Their hands accidentally touched; she
+pulled hers away, and the bowl fell and was broken.
+
+
+§ 13.
+
+The next day Naomi left for Rye, where she stayed three weeks. She was
+mistaken, however, in thinking she had found a place of refuge, the hunt
+still went on. Reuben knew that his kiss had given him a definite
+position with regard to her, and Naomi knew that he knew. Twice he came
+over and visited her at Rye. He never attempted to kiss her again, and
+carefully avoided all talk of love. Indeed, her father was generally in
+the room. He was much taken with young Backfield, who was ready to talk
+shipping and harbour-work with him for hours.
+
+"He's a solider man than ever poor Harry was," said old Gasson to Naomi,
+"more dependable, I should think. Reckon he'll do well for himself at
+Odiam. She'll be a lucky girl whom he marries."
+
+Naomi had no mother.
+
+Reuben was pleased with the impression he had made. He was now working
+definitely. At first he had merely drifted, drawn by the charm of the
+female creature, so delicate, soft and weak. Then commonsense had taken
+the rudder--he had seen Naomi's desirableness from a practical point of
+view; she was young, good-looking, sound if scarcely robust, well
+dowered, and of good family--fit in every way to be the mother of his
+children. Since Harry was debarred from marrying her, his brother could
+even more profitably take his place. Her money would then go direct to
+his ambition; he realised the enormous advantage of a little reserve
+capital and longed for a relaxation of financial strain. The Gassons
+were an old and respected family, and an alliance with them would give
+lustre to Odiam. Also he wanted children. He was fond of Naomi for her
+own sake. Poor little chicken! Her weakness appealed to him, and he
+rather enjoyed seeing her fluttering before his feet.
+
+Towards the middle of April she came back to the farm to help Mrs.
+Backfield with her house-cleaning. She clung to the older woman all day,
+but she knew that Reuben would at last find her alone.
+
+He did. She was laying the supper while Mrs. Backfield finished mending
+a curtain upstairs, when he marched suddenly into the room. He had come
+in from the yard, and his clothes smelt of the cow-stalls and of the
+manure that he loved. His face was moist; he stood in front of her and
+mopped his brow.
+
+"I'm hungry, Naomi. Wot have you got fur me?"
+
+"There's eggs...."
+
+"Wot else?"
+
+"Bread ... cheese...."
+
+She could scarcely frame the homely words. For some unaccountable reason
+she felt afraid, felt like some poor creature in a trap.
+
+"Wot else?"
+
+"That's all."
+
+"All! But I'm still hungry. Wot more do you think I want?"
+
+She licked her lips.
+
+He leaned over the table towards her.
+
+"Wot more have you got fur me?"
+
+"Nothing, I--I'm going upstairs. Let me pass, please."
+
+"Maybe I want a kiss."
+
+"Oh, no, no!" she cried, trying to edge between him and the wall.
+
+"Why not?"
+
+He put his hands on her shoulders, she felt the warmth and heaviness of
+them, and was more frightened than ever because she liked it.
+
+"Maybe I want more than a kiss."
+
+She was leaning against the wall, if he had released her she could not
+have run away. She was like a rabbit, paralysed with fear.
+
+He bent towards her and his lips closed on hers. She nearly fainted, but
+she did not struggle or try to scream. It seemed years that they stood
+linked by that unwilling kiss. At last he raised his head.
+
+"Will you marry me, Naomi?"
+
+"No---- Oh, no!"
+
+"Why?"
+
+"No--no--I can't--I won't!"
+
+Strength came to her suddenly; it was like awaking from a nightmare. She
+thrust him from her, slipped past, and ran out of the room.
+
+
+The next morning she returned to Rye. But she could not stay there. Her
+heart was all restlessness and dissatisfaction. Soon Mrs. Backfield
+announced that she was coming back.
+
+"I reckoned she would," said Reuben.
+
+She arrived in the swale. A tender grey mist was in the air, smeething
+Boarzell, mingling with the smoke of Odiam chimneys, that curled out
+wood-scented into the dark. As Naomi climbed from the carrier's cart
+which had brought her, she smelled the daffodils each side of the garden
+path. The evening was full of pale perfumes, of ghostly yellows, massing
+faintly amidst the grey.
+
+Reuben stood in the doorway and watched her come up the path, herself
+dim and ghostly, like the twilight and the flowers. When she was close
+he held out his arms to her, and she fell on his breast.
+
+
+§ 14.
+
+From thenceforward there was no looking back. Preparations for the
+wedding began at once. Old Gasson was delighted, and dowered his girl
+generously. As for Naomi, she gave herself up to the joys of
+bride-elect. Her position as Reuben's betrothed was much more important
+than as Harry's. It was more definite, more exalted, the ultimate
+marriage loomed more largely and more closely in it. She and Reuben were
+not so much sweethearts as husband and wife to be. Their present
+semi-attached state scarcely counted, it was just an unavoidable
+interval of preparation for a more definite relationship.
+
+She was glad in a way that everything was so different, glad that
+Reuben's love-making was so utterly unlike Harry's. Otherwise she could
+never have plunged herself so deep into forgetfulness. She was quite
+without regrets--she could never have imagined she could be so free of
+them. She lived for the present, and for the future which was not her
+own. She was at rest. No longer the pursuing feet came after her, making
+her life a nightmare of long flights--she was safe in her captor's
+grasp, borne homeward on his shoulder.
+
+She was not exaltedly happy or wildly expectant. Her anticipations were
+mostly material, buyings and stitchings. She looked forward to her
+position as mistress of Odiam, and stocked her linen cupboard. As for
+Reuben, her attitude towards him had changed at once with surrender. If
+he no longer terrified, also he no longer thrilled. She had grown fond
+of him, peacefully and domestically so, in a way she could never have
+been fond of Harry. She loved to feel his strong arm round her, his
+shoulder under her head, she loved to nestle close up to him and feel
+his warmth. His kisses were very different from Harry's, more lingering,
+more passionate, but, paradoxically, they thrilled her less. There had
+always been a touch of the wild and elfin in Harry's love-making which
+suggested an adventure in fairyland, whereas Reuben's suggested nothing
+but earth, and the earth is not exciting to those who have been in
+faery.
+
+At last the wedding-day came--an afternoon in May, gloriously white and
+blue. Naomi stood before her mirror with delicious qualms, while one or
+two girl friends took the place of her mother and helped her to dress.
+She wore white silk, very full in the skirt, with a bunch of lilies of
+the valley in the folds of the bodice, which was cut low, showing the
+soft neck that in contrast to the dead white of the silk had taken a
+delicious creamy cowslip tint. Her lovable white hat was trimmed with
+artificial lilies of the valley, and she had white kid gloves and tiny
+white kid shoes.
+
+She was very happy, and if she thought of Harry and what might have
+been, it only brought a delightful sad-smiling melancholy over her
+happiness like a bridal veil.
+
+"How do I look?" she asked her friends.
+
+"You look charming!"--"how well your hat becomes you!"--"how small your
+feet seem in your new shoes!"--"how sweet you smell!"--chorused the
+girls, loving her more than ever because they envied her, after the
+manner of girls.
+
+Naomi walked to church on her father's arm. She held her head down, and
+her bridesmaids saw her neck grow pink below the golden fluff on the
+nape. She hid her face from Reuben and would not look at him as they
+stood side by side before Rye altar. No one could hear her responses,
+they were spoken so faintly, she was the typical Victorian bride, all
+shy, trembling, and blushing.
+
+Only once she dared look up, and that was when they were walking
+solemnly from the communion table to the vestry--then she suddenly
+looked up and saw Reuben's great strong shoulder towering above her own,
+his face rather flushed under its sunburn, and his hair unusually sleek
+and shining with some oil.
+
+They did not speak to each other till he had her in his gig, driving up
+Playden Hill. Then he muttered--"Liddle Naomi--my wife," and kissed her
+on the neck and lips. She did not want him to kiss her, because she
+wished to avoid crumpling her gown, and also she was afraid Reuben's
+horse might choose that moment to kick or run away. But of course such
+reasons did not appeal to him, and it was a dishevelled and rather cross
+little bride whom he lifted out at Odiam.
+
+The wedding supper was to be held at the bridegroom's house, as old
+Gasson's rooms were not large enough, and he objected to "having the
+place messed up." During the marriage service Mrs. Backfield had been
+worrying about her pie-crusts--indeed she almost wished she had stayed
+at home. Naomi helped her dish up the supper, while Reuben received the
+guests who were beginning to arrive, some from Rye, some from the
+neighbouring farms. There had been a certain amount of disgusted comment
+when it became known that Backfield was marrying his brother's
+sweetheart; but criticism of Reuben always ended in reluctant
+admiration for his smartness as a business man.
+
+"He'll go far, that young feller," said Realf of Grandturzel.
+
+"Where's Harry?" Vennal asked.
+
+"Sh-sh--döan't you go asking ork'ard questions."
+
+"They wöan't have him to fiddle, I reckon," said Realf.
+
+"I shud say even young Ben wudn't do that."
+
+"Why not?" put in Ditch--"he döan't know naun about it. He's forgotten
+she ever wur his girl."
+
+"You can't be sure o' that, Mus' Ditch--only the Lard knows wot mad
+folkses remember and wot they forget. But there's the supper ready; git
+moving or we'll have to sit by the door."
+
+Odiam's strict rule had been relaxed in honour of the wedding, and a
+lavish, not to say luxurious, meal covered two long tables laid end to
+end across the kitchen. There was beef and mutton, there was stew, there
+were apple and gooseberry pies, and a few cone-shaped puddings, pink and
+white and brown, giving an aristocratic finish to the supper.
+
+Naomi and Reuben sat at the head of the table, Mr. Gasson and Mrs.
+Backfield on either side of them. Harry was not present, for his methods
+of feeding made him rather a disgusting object at meals. Naomi had put
+herself tidy, but somehow she still felt disordered and flustered. She
+hated all this materialism encroaching on her romance. The sight of the
+farmers pushing for places at the table filled her with disgust--the
+slightest things upset her, the untidy appearance of the dishes after
+they had been helped, some beer stains on the cloth, even her husband's
+hearty appetite and not quite noiseless eating. The room soon became
+insufferably hot, and she felt herself getting damp and sticky--a most
+unlovely condition for a bride.
+
+When the actual feeding was over there were speeches and toasts. Vennal
+of Burntbarns proposed the health of the bride, and Realf of Grandturzel
+that of the groom. Then Mrs. Backfield's health was drunk, then Mr.
+Gasson's. There were more toasts, and some songs--"Oh, no, I never
+mention her," "The Sussex Whistling Song," and old farmhouse ballads,
+such as:
+
+
+     "Our maid she would a hunting go,
+       She'd never a horse to ride;
+     She mounted on her master's boar,
+       And spurred him on the side.
+     Chink! chink! chink! the bridle went,
+       As she rode o'er the downs.
+     So here's unto our maiden's health,
+     Drink round, my boys! drink round!"
+
+
+Naomi felt bored and sick; twice she yawned, and she stretched her tired
+shoulders under her dress. At last Reuben noticed her discomfort.
+
+"You're tired--you'd better go to bed," he whispered, and she at once
+gladly rose and slipped away, though she would not have gone without his
+suggestion.
+
+"Can I help you, dear?" asked Mrs. Backfield as she passed her chair.
+But Naomi wanted to be alone.
+
+She stole out of the kitchen into the peace of the dark house, ran up
+the stairs, and found the right door in the unlighted passage. The
+bedroom was very big and cold, and on the threshold she wrinkled up her
+nose at a strange scent, something like hay and dry flowers.
+
+She groped her way to the chimney-piece and found a candle and a
+tinder-box. The next minute a tiny throbbing flame fought unsuccessfully
+with the darkness which still massed in the corners and among the
+cumbrous bits of furniture. Naomi's new kid shoes were hurting her, and
+she bent down to untie them; but even as she bent, her eyes were growing
+used to the dim light, and she noticed something queer about the room.
+She lifted her head and saw that the outlines of the dressing-table and
+bed were rough ... the scent of dry grass suddenly revolted her.
+
+She looked round, and this time she saw clearly. About the mirror, along
+the bed-head, and garlanding the posts, were crude twists and lumps of
+field flowers--dandelions buttercups, moon daisies, oxlips, fennel, and
+cow-parsley, all bunched up with hay grass, all dry, withered, rotting,
+and malodorous. There was a great sheaf of them on her pillow, an armful
+torn up from a hay-field, still smelling of the sun that had blasted
+it....
+
+In a flash Naomi knew who had put them there. No sane mind could have
+conceived such a decoration or seeing eyes directed it. Harry, exiled
+from church and feast, had spent his time in a crazy effort to honour
+the happy pair. He knew she was to marry Reuben, but had not seemed to
+take much interest. Doubtless the general atmosphere of festivity and
+adornment had urged him to this.
+
+How dreadful! Already she saw an insect crawling over the bed--probably
+there were lots of others about the room; and these flowers, all
+parched, dead, and evil-smelling, gave a sinister touch to her wedding
+day. A lump rose in her throat, the back of her eyes was seared by
+something hot and sudden.... Oh, Harry ... Harry....
+
+Then misery turned to rage. It was Reuben who had brought her to this,
+who had stolen her from Harry, forced her into marrying him, and exposed
+her to this anguish. She hated Reuben. She hated him. With all the
+fierceness of her conquered soul and yielded body she hated him. She
+would have nothing more to do with him, she would be revenged on him,
+punish him ... a little hoarse scream of rage burst from her lips, and
+she turned suddenly and ran out of that dreadful room.
+
+She ran down the passage, panting and sobbing with rage. Then at the
+stair head something even blacker than the darkness met her. It seized
+her, it swung her up, she was powerless as a little bird in its grasp.
+Her struggles were crushed in the kind strong arms that held her, and
+rage was stifled from her lips with kisses.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK II
+
+THE WOMAN'S PART
+
+
+§ 1.
+
+An elegy of oats.
+
+Reuben's oats were a dismal failure. All the warm thrilling hopes which
+he had put into the ground with the seed and the rape cake, all the
+watching and expectation which had imparted as many delights as Naomi to
+the first weeks of his married life--all had ended in a few rows of
+scraggy, scabrous murrainous little shoots, most of which wilted as if
+with shame directly they appeared above the ground, while the others,
+after showing him and a derisive neighbourhood all that oats could do in
+the way of tulip-roots, sedge-leaves, and dropsical husk, shed their
+seeds in the first summer gale, and started July as stubble.
+
+There was no denying it. Boarzell had beaten Reuben in this their first
+battle. That coarse, shaggy, unfruitful land had refused to submit to
+husbandry. Backfield had not yet taken Leviathan as his servant. His
+defeat stimulated local wit.
+
+"How's the peas gitting on, Mäaster?" Ditch of Totease would facetiously
+enquire. "I rode by that new land of yours yesterday, and, says I,
+there's as fine a crop of creeping plants as ever I did see."
+
+"'Täun't peas, thick 'un," Vennal would break in uproariously, "it's
+turnips--each of 'em got a root like my fist."
+
+"And here wur I all this time guessing as it wur cabbages acause of the
+leaves," old Ginner would finish, not to be outdone in badinage.
+
+Reuben always accepted such chaff good-humouredly, for he knew it was
+prompted by envy, and he would have scorned to let these men know how
+much he had been hurt. Also, though defeated, he was quite undaunted. He
+was not going to be beaten. That untractable slope of marl should be
+sown as permanent pasture in the spring, and he would grow oats on the
+new piece he would buy at the end of the year with his wife's fortune.
+
+Naomi's money had been the greatest possible help. He had roofed the
+Dutch barn, and retarred the oasts, he had bought a fine new plough
+horse and a waggon, and he was going to buy another piece of
+Boarzell--ten or twelve acres this time, of the more fruitful clay-soil
+by the Glotten brook. Naomi was pleased to see all the new things. The
+barn looked so spick-and-span with its scarlet tiles, and the oasts
+shone like polished ebony, she loved to stroke the horse's brown,
+snuffling nose, and "Oh, what a lovely blue!" she said when she saw the
+waggon.
+
+She could not take much interest in Reuben's ambitions, indeed she only
+partly understood them. What did he want Boarzell for?--it was so rough
+and dreary, she was sure nothing would grow there. She loved the farm,
+with the dear faces of the cows, and the horses, and the poultry, and
+even the pigs, but talk of crops and acres only bored her. Sometimes
+Reuben's enthusiasm would spill over, and sitting by the fire with her
+in the evening, he would enlarge on all he was going to do with
+Boarzell--this year, next year, ten years hence. Then she would nestle
+close to him, and murmur--"Yes, dear" ... "yes, dear" ... "that will be
+glorious"--while all the time she was thinking of his long lashes, his
+strong brown neck, the clear weight of his arm on her shoulder, and the
+kiss that would be hers when he took his pipe out of his mouth.
+
+From this it may be gathered that the sorrow and hate of Naomi's
+wedding night had been but the reaction of a moment. Indeed she woke the
+next morning to find herself a very happy wife. She fell back into her
+old attitude towards Reuben--affection, trust, and compliance, with
+which was mixed this time a little innocent passion. She loved being
+with him, was scrupulously anxious to please him, and would have worked
+her hands to pieces for his sake.
+
+But Reuben did not want her to work. She was rather surprised at this at
+first, for she had expected that she would go on helping Mrs. Backfield
+as she had done before her marriage. Reuben, however, was quite
+firm--his wife was not to redden her skin by stooping over fires, or
+coarsen her hands by dabbling them in soapsuds. An occasional visit to
+the dairy or some half-playful help on bread-baking days was all he
+would allow.
+
+"But won't it be too hard for mother?" Naomi had objected.
+
+"Mother?--she's used to it, and she's tougher than you, liddle
+creature."
+
+"But I could help just a bit."
+
+"No, no--I wöan't have you go wearing yourself out. Döan't let's hear no
+more about it."
+
+Naomi had submitted, as she always submitted, and after a while
+obedience was made easy. In August she realised that she was going to
+have a child and any conscientious desires which might have twinged her
+at the sight of Mrs. Backfield's seaming face and bending shoulders,
+were lost in the preoccupations of her own condition.
+
+At first she had not been pleased. She was only nineteen, not
+particularly robust, and resented the loss of her health and freedom;
+but after a while sweet thoughts and expectations began to warm in her.
+She loved little babies, and it would be delicious to have one of her
+own. She hoped it would be a girl, and thought of beautiful names for
+it--Victoria, Emilia, Marianna, and others that she had seen in the
+Keepsake. But her delight was nothing to Reuben's. She had been
+surprised, overwhelmed by his joy when she told him her news. He,
+usually so reserved, had become transported, emotional, almost
+lyrical--so masterful, had humbled himself before her and had knelt at
+her feet with his face hidden in her gown.
+
+She could never guess what that child meant to Reuben. It meant a fellow
+labourer on his farm, a fellow fighter on Boarzell, and after he was
+dead a Man to carry on his work and his battle. At last he would have
+someone to share his ambition--that child should be trained up in the
+atmosphere of enterprise; as other fathers taught their children to love
+and serve God, so Reuben would teach this son to love and serve Odiam.
+He would no longer strive alone, he would have a comrade, a soldier with
+him. And after this boy there would be other boys, all growing up in the
+love of Odiam, to live for it.
+
+He treated his wife like a queen, he would not allow her the smallest
+exertion. He waited on her hand and foot and expected his mother to do
+the same. Every evening, or, later in the year, in the afternoon, he
+would come home early from his work, and take her out for a walk on his
+arm. He would not allow her to go alone, for fear that she might
+overtire herself or that anything might frighten her. He insisted on her
+having the daintiest food, and never eating less than a certain quantity
+every day; he decided that the Odiam chairs were too hard, and bought
+her cushions at Rye. In fact he pampered her as much as he denied
+everybody else and himself.
+
+Naomi soon came to enjoy her coddling, even though occasionally his
+solicitude was inclined to be tiresome. As time wore on he would not let
+her walk up and down stairs, but carried her up to bed himself, and
+down again in the morning. She grew fat, white, and languorous. She
+would lie for hours with her hands folded on her lap, now and then
+picking up a bit of sewing for a few minutes, then dropping it again.
+She was proud of her position in comparison with other farmers' wives in
+the same circumstances. Their men kept them working up to the last week.
+
+During this time she saw very little of Harry and scarcely ever thought
+of him. She no longer had any doubts as to his being quite mad.
+
+
+§ 2.
+
+In the autumn Reuben bought ten more acres of Boarzell--a better piece
+of land than the first, more sheltered, with more clay in the soil. Hops
+would do well on the lower part of it down by the brook.
+
+He also bought three Jersey cows; they would improve the small dairy
+business he had established, and their milk would be good for Naomi. His
+watchfulness of his wife had now almost become tyranny. He scolded her
+if she stooped to pick up her scissors, and would not let her walk even
+in the garden without him.
+
+Naomi submitted languidly. Her days passed in a comfortable heaviness,
+and though she occasionally felt bored, on the whole she enjoyed being
+fussed over and waited on. During those months her relations with
+Reuben's mother became subtly changed. Before her marriage there had
+been a certain friendship and equality between them, but now the elder
+woman took more the place of a servant. It was not because she waited on
+Naomi, fetched and carried--Reuben did that, and was her master still.
+It was rather something in her whole attitude. She had ceased to confide
+in Naomi, ceased perhaps to care for her very much, and this gave a
+certain menial touch to her services. It would be hard to say what had
+separated the two women--perhaps it was because one toiled all day while
+the other lay idle, perhaps it was a twinge of maternal jealousy on Mrs.
+Backfield's part, for Reuben was beginning to notice her less and less.
+After a time Naomi realised this estrangement, and though at first she
+did not care, later on it came to distress her. Somehow she did not like
+the idea of being without a woman associate--in spite of her love for
+Reuben, now more passive and more languid, like every other emotion, she
+craved instinctively for someone of her own sex in whom she could
+confide and on whom she could rely.
+
+The year dipped into winter, then rose again into spring. Lambs began to
+bleat in the pens, and with the last of them in March came Naomi's baby.
+
+Reuben was nearly mad with anxiety. His mother's calm, the doctor's
+leisureliness, the midwife's bustling common sense, struck him as
+callous and unnatural. Even Naomi greeted him with a wan, peaceful
+smile, when frantic with waiting, he stole up to her room. Did they all
+realise, he wondered, what was at stake? Suppose anything should
+happen.... In vain the doctor assured him that everything was normal and
+going on just as it should.
+
+He went out and did a little work, but after an hour or so flung down
+the chicken-coop he was making, and rushed into the house. His usual
+question received its usual answer. He thought the doctor a hemmed fraud
+and the doctor thought him a damned fool.
+
+The sun set, and Reuben had given up even the attempt to work. He
+wandered on Boarzell till the outline of its crest was lost in the black
+pit of night. Then a new anxiety began to fret him. Possibly all was
+going well since everybody said so, but--suppose the child was a girl!
+Up till now he had scarcely thought of such a thing, he had made sure
+that his child would be a boy, someone to help him in his struggle and
+to reap the fruits of it after he was gone. But, suppose, after all, it
+should be a girl! Quite probably it would be--why should he think it
+would not? The sweat stood on Reuben's forehead.
+
+Then suddenly he saw something white moving in the darkness. It was
+coming towards him. It was his mother's apron.
+
+He ran to meet her, for his legs tottered so that he could not walk. He
+could not frame his question, but she answered it:
+
+"All's well ... it's a boy."
+
+
+§ 3.
+
+Naomi spent a peaceful and happy convalescence. Everything combined for
+her blessedness. The soft April days scattered their scent and sunshine
+on her bed, where she lay with her baby, full of drowsy hopes. Even
+Boarzell's firs had a mellowness about them, as if her motherhood had
+sweetened not only herself and those about her, but the grim face of
+nature militant.
+
+Her memories of those days were full of the smell of daffodils blown in
+at her window from the garden and of primroses set by Reuben in a bowl
+beside the bed--of Reuben stooping over her, smoothing back her hair,
+and stroking her face with hands that quivered strangely, or holding the
+baby as if it were made of fire and glass.
+
+As soon as she was well enough the christening took place in Peasmarsh
+church. The heir of all the Backfields was important enough to receive
+three Christian names--Reuben after his father, Thomas after old Gasson,
+and Albert after the Prince Consort. "I shall call him Albert," said
+Naomi.
+
+That spring and summer Reuben worked with a light heart. His fatherhood
+made him proud and expansive. He would boast about the baby to Beatup,
+tell him how many ounces it had gained in the week, enlarge on its
+strength and energy, with intimate details concerning its digestion--all
+of which were received open-mouthed by Beatup who knew pretty well as
+much about babies as he did about oecumenical councils.
+
+"He'll soon be able to do a bit of work wud us, Beatup," said Reuben
+apocalyptically.--"I'll have him on when he's ten or thereabouts, and at
+fifteen he'll be doing full man's work. I shouldn't wonder as how I'd
+never want another hand but you--we could manage the pläace, I reckon,
+till the lad's old enough, and then there'll be others...."
+
+"Yus, Mäaster," said Beatup.
+
+The second piece of land had thriven better than the first. The hops
+were sturdy and promising beside the brook, and on the higher grounds
+the new pastures fattened. Reuben had decided to dig up a couple of his
+old grass meadows and prepare them for grain-sowing in the autumn. The
+soil was good, and it was only his father's want of enterprise which had
+kept so much of Odiam as mere grazing land. As for the cows, there was
+ample provision for them on the new pastures, which Boarzell would
+continue to yield, even if it refused oats--"But I'll have oats there
+some day, I reckon," said Reuben, "oats, and barley, and maybe wheat."
+
+He pictured Odiam chiefly as a great grain farm--though there might be
+more money in fruit or milk, these would be mere temporary profit-making
+concerns, means to an end; for glory and real permanent fortune lay in
+wheat. He was terribly anxious lest the Corn Laws should be repealed, a
+catastrophe which had threatened farming for several years. For the
+first time he began to take an interest in politics and follow the trend
+of public opinion. He could not read, so was forced to depend on Naomi
+to read him the newspaper he occasionally had three days old from Rye.
+
+The Backfields had always been Tory, just as they had always been
+Church, because Liberalism and Dissent were "low," and unworthy of
+yeomen farmers. But they had never felt very keenly about politics,
+which, except at election times, had not come much into their lives.
+Even at the elections the interest had been slight, because up till ten
+years ago Rye had been a pocket borough, and its Radical member went up
+to Parliament without any of the pamphlet-writing, bill-sticking,
+mud-throwing, or free-fighting, which stirred the blood in other towns.
+
+Now, however, having vital interests at stake, Reuben became an absorbed
+and truculent Conservative. He never called in at the Cocks without
+haranguing the company on the benefits of the wheat-tax, and cursing
+Cobden and Bright. On the occasion of the '42 election, he abandoned
+important obstetric duties in the cow-stable to Beatup, and rode into
+Rye to record his vote for the unsuccessful Tory candidate. The
+neighbourhood was of Whig tendencies, spoon-fed from the Manor, but the
+Backfields had never submitted to Bardon politics; and now even the fact
+that the Squire held Reuben's land of promise, failed to influence him.
+
+The Bardons were strongly anti-Corn Law, but their opposition had that
+same touch of inefficiency which characterised all their dealings and
+earned Reuben's contempt. In spite of their Liberalism they had been
+driven for financial considerations to inclose Boarzell--then even the
+inclosure had failed, and they were now, also against their will,
+surrendering the land piecemeal to a man who was in every way their
+opposite and antagonist. They agitated feebly for Repeal, but were
+unable to make themselves heard. They visited the poor, and doled out
+relief in ineffectual scraps. Reuben despised them. They were an old
+line--effete--played out. He and his race would show them what was a
+Man.
+
+
+§ 4.
+
+That summer Naomi realised that she was going to have another child. She
+was sorry, for her maternal instincts were satisfied for the present,
+and she had begun to value her new-returned health. It would be hard to
+have to go back to bondage again.
+
+However, there was no help for it. Reuben was overjoyed, and once more
+she slipped under his tyranny. This time she found it irksome, his
+watchfulness was a nuisance, his anxiety was absurd. However, she did
+not complain. She was too timid, and too fond of him.
+
+"I hope it'll be a girl this time," she said one afternoon, when
+according to custom she was walking along Totease Lane, his arm under
+hers.
+
+"A girl---- Oh, no! I want another boy."
+
+"But we've got a boy, Reuben. It would be nice to have a girl now."
+
+"Why, liddle creature?"
+
+"Oh, I justabout love baby girls. They're so sweet--and all their
+dresses and that.... Besides we don't want two boys."
+
+To her surprise Reuben stopped in the road, and burst out laughing.
+
+"Two boys!--not want two boys!--Why, we want ten boys! if I cud have
+twenty, I shudn't grumble."
+
+"What nonsense you're talking, Backfield," said Naomi primly.
+
+"I äun't talking nonsense, I'm talking sound sense. How am I to run the
+farm wudout boys? I want boys to help me work all that land. I'm going
+to have the whole of Boarzell, as I've told you a dunnamany times, and
+I'll want men wud me on it. So döan't you go talking o' girls. Wot use
+are girls?--none! They just spannel about, and then go off and get
+married."
+
+"But a girl 'ud be useful in the house--she could help mother when she's
+older."
+
+"No, thankee. However hard she works she äun't worth half a boy. You
+give me ten boys, missus, and then I döan't mind you having a girl or so
+to please yourself."
+
+Naomi was disgusted. Reuben had once or twice offended her by his
+coarseness, but she could never get used to it.
+
+"Oh, how can you speak to me so!" she gulped.
+
+"Now, you silly liddle thing, wot are you crying for? Mayn't I have a
+joke?"
+
+"But you're so vulgar!"
+
+Reuben looked a little blank. None of the details of his great desire
+had hitherto struck him as vulgar.
+
+"Vulgar, am I?" he said ruefully. "No matter, child, we wöan't go
+quarrelling. Come, dry your dear eyes, and maybe to-morrow I'll drive
+you over to Rye to see the market."
+
+Naomi obediently dried her eyes, but it was rather hard to keep them
+from getting wet again. For in her heart she knew that it was not the
+vulgarity of Reuben's joke which had upset her, but a certain horrible
+convincingness about it. It was not so merely a joke as he would have
+her think.
+
+During the days that followed her attitude towards him changed subtly,
+almost subconsciously. A strange fear of him came over her. Would he
+insist on her bearing child after child to help him realise his great
+ambition? It was ridiculous, she knew, and probably due to her state of
+health, but sometimes she found herself thinking of him not so much as a
+man as a thing; she saw in him no longer the loving if tyrannical
+husband, but a law, a force, to which she and everyone else must bow.
+She even noticed a kind of likeness between him and Boarzell--swart,
+strong, cruel, full of an irrepressible life.
+
+
+§ 5.
+
+The following spring Naomi gave birth to twin boys. With these twins
+really started the epic of her maternity. She was not to be one of those
+women for whom motherhood is a little song of baby shoes and blue
+sashes, and games and kisses and rockings to sleep. Hers was altogether
+a sterner business, her part in a battle--it was motherhood for a
+definite purpose, man and woman taking a leaf out of nature's book,
+playing her game to their own advantage, using her methods only to crush
+her at last. In a word it was epic--and the one drawback was that Naomi
+had never been meant for an epic part in life. She of all women had been
+meant for baby shoes and blue sashes, and here she was with her shoulder
+against Reuben's, helping him in the battle which even he found hard....
+
+However, as yet there were few misgivings. That faintness of spirit
+which had come over her during the last few months of her pregnancy,
+faded like a ghost in the first joyous days of her deliverance. Reuben's
+pride, delight, and humble gratitude were enough to make any woman
+happy, even without those two dear fat little babies which the doctor
+said were the finest twins he had ever seen. Naomi was one of those
+women who, even without very strong maternal instincts, cannot resist a
+baby. The soft limbs, the big downy heads, the groping wet mouths of her
+boys were a sheer physical delight to her. She even forgot to regret
+that one of them was not a girl.
+
+She made a quick recovery, and Robert and Peter were christened at
+Easter-time. Naomi looked every inch the proud mother. Her slight figure
+had acquired more matronly lines, and she even affected a more elderly
+style of dress. For some time afterwards, proud and beloved, she really
+felt that motherhood was her vocation, and when in the course of the
+summer she realised that her experiences were to be repeated, she was
+not so sorry as she had been before. She hoped desperately it would be a
+girl--but this time said nothing to Reuben.
+
+Once more her attitude towards him had changed. She no longer felt the
+timid passion of the first months after her marriage, but she also no
+longer felt that sinister dread and foreboding which had succeeded it.
+She looked upon him less as her husband, inspiring alternately love and
+terror, than as the father of her children. She saw him, so to speak,
+through them. She loved him because they were his as well as hers. She
+spoke less of "I" and "he," and more of "us," "we," and "ours."
+
+All the same she was bitterly disappointed when the following year
+another boy was born. She sobbed into her pillow, and even Reuben's
+delight and little Richard's soft kicks against her breast, could not
+comfort her. In fact she felt secretly angry with Reuben for his joy. He
+did not think of her and what she wanted. He thought only of his dirty
+old farm, and that dreary, horrible Boarzell.
+
+As time wore on, and her hopes were once more roused, she became quite
+obsessed by the idea of having a girl. She thought of nothing but the
+little frocks, the ribbons with which she would tie the pretty hair. She
+pictured the times she and her daughter would have together, the
+confidences they would exchange--for old Mrs. Backfield grew more and
+more silent and unreceptive, and her neighbours were not of her mould.
+They would tell each other everything ... she had dreams of an
+impossible little pink-and-white girl like a doll, with golden curls and
+blue eyes and a white muslin frock. In her dreams she would stretch out
+her arms to this ached-for child, and would wake sobbing, with the tears
+running down her face.
+
+Then, at last, after experiences which had had boredom added to their
+pain by repetition, she murmured--"What is it, mother?"--and a real,
+breathing, living, crying, little girl was put into her arms.
+
+
+§ 6.
+
+The positions of husband and wife were now reversed. It was Reuben who
+sulked and gloomed, looking at the baby askance, while Naomi moved in a
+daydream of peace and rapture and desire satisfied. She was too happy to
+care much about her husband's disappointment. She would never have
+believed it if anyone had told her in the first weeks of her marriage
+that she could have a joy and not mind if he did not share it, a child
+and not fret if he did not love it. But now her child sufficed her, or
+rather she had learned the lesson of wives, to suffice herself, and
+could love and rejoice without a comrade.
+
+She had forgotten the Arabellas and Mariannas of the Keepsake, and the
+baby was called Fanny after Naomi's own mother, whom she dimly
+remembered. Fanny became the centre of Naomi's life; she was not as
+healthy as the other children, and her little pains and illnesses were
+all so many cords drawing her closer to her mother's heart. Though she
+required twice as much attention as the boys, Naomi never fretted or
+grew weary, as she had sometimes done in the service of the other little
+ones--on the contrary, she bloomed into a new beauty, and recovered the
+youthfulness she had begun to lose.
+
+Strange to say, Harry, who had paid little attention to the earlier
+babies, seemed drawn to this one. He would hang round Naomi when she had
+her in her lap, and sometimes gingerly put out a hand and stroke the
+child's limbs. Naomi could not bear that he should touch her; but he
+amused Fanny, so she tolerated him. He had fallen into the habit of many
+half-witted people and occasionally made strange faces, which though
+repulsive to everyone else, filled Fanny with hilarious delight. Indeed
+they were the first thing she "noticed."
+
+"Oh, the pretty baby! save the pretty baby!"--Harry would mutter and
+shriek, and he would wander about the house crying--"Save the pretty
+baby!" till Naomi declared that he gave her the shivers.
+
+"Keep him out of the way, can't you, Backfield?" she said to her
+husband.
+
+In Reuben's eyes Naomi was just as irritating and ridiculous as Harry.
+She made foolish clothes for Fanny, quite unfit for a child in her
+position--muslins and ribbon bows, little knitted shoes, which she was
+forever pulling off to kiss the baby's feet. She would seat her on some
+high big chair in which she lolled with grotesque importance, and would
+kneel before her and call her "Miss Fanny."
+
+"There, Miss Fanny--see what a grand baby you are. Soon all the boys
+will be courting you--see if they don't. You shall always wear silk and
+muslins and sit on cushions, and you will always love your mother, won't
+you, dear little miss?"
+
+Reuben was revolted--also a little hurt. It seemed to him that Naomi was
+neglecting the boys he was so proud of. Albert was nearly four years
+old, a fine sturdy child, worth a dozen puling Fannys, and Robert and
+Pete were vigorous crawlers and adventurers, who ought to rejoice any
+mother's heart. Richard was still in an uninteresting stage--but, hem it
+all! he was a boy.
+
+Nearly as bad as her indifference to the children she had already borne,
+was her indifference to the child she was about to bear. She was
+expecting her confinement in the spring, but she did not seem to take
+the slightest interest in it or the slightest care of herself. Again and
+again she would start up from the sofa where she had lain down by his
+orders, because she heard Fanny crying upstairs. She risked injuring
+herself by continually carrying her about or by stooping over her as she
+rolled on the floor.
+
+Reuben often spoke to her severely, but with no result. There was a time
+when he could never chide her without her crying, but now she hardly
+seemed to care.
+
+As the autumn wore on Fanny became more and more ailing and Naomi more
+and more preoccupied. There were doctor's visits to be paid for, and on
+one or two occasions Naomi had sent for him unnecessarily. It maddened
+Reuben to think that he was not master of his own household, but though
+he could always enforce obedience in person, he was compelled
+continually to be out of doors, even sometimes away from the farm, and
+he could not control what went on in his absence.
+
+Odiam was passing through anxious times. The expected and dreaded had
+happened--the Corn Laws had been repealed, and cursing farmers grubbed
+up their wheatfields, hoping no more from grain. Reuben was bitterly
+disappointed, the whole future of Odiam was bound up with grain, the
+most honourable and--in the long run--most profitable of a farm's
+concerns. In his dreams he had seen wind-rippled waves of wheat rolling
+up to Boarzell's very crest, he had seen the threshed corn filling his
+barn, or rumbling to Iden Mill. Now the cheap abundant foreign grain
+would fight his home-sown harvests. He would have to depend for revenue
+on milk and hops, and grow wheat only as an expensive decoration. Peel
+was a traitor; he had betrayed the staunch grain-growing Tories who had
+inconvenienced themselves with muddy rides to vote for his supporters.
+For a year or so Reuben hated the Conservatives, and would not vote at
+all at the next election.
+
+He had trouble, too, with his new grass. One of his Jersey cows suddenly
+died, and it turned out that it had eaten some poisonous plant which
+had insinuated itself into the pasture. It was as if Boarzell fought
+treacherously--with stabbings in the dark as well as blastings in the
+open. The night the Jersey died, Reuben sat with his head buried in his
+arms on the kitchen table, while Naomi carried her Miss Fanny about the
+room, and told her about the beautiful silk gowns she would wear when
+she grew up.
+
+
+§ 7.
+
+That autumn he had sown catch-crops of Italian rye grass, which gave the
+stock a good early winter feed. He had grown sharper in his dealings
+with the land, he knew how to take it at a disadvantage, snatch out a
+few roots. Every inch of the farm was now at work, for every blade of
+grass now counted. He had even dug up the garden, casting aside
+rose-bushes, sweet-peas, and dahlias for dull rows of drum-head
+cabbages, potatoes, kale, and beans. And manure ... there was manure
+everywhere, lying under the very parlour windows, sending up its
+effluvium on the foggy winter air till it crept into even the close-shut
+bedroom, making Naomi conscious of Reuben in her dreams.
+
+She was inclined to be sulky in those days. She disliked the smell of
+manure, she disliked being made to dream of Reuben, towards whom she now
+felt a vague hostility. What business had he to go and saddle her with
+another child? Surely she had enough--four boys and a girl. What
+business had he to make her languid and delicate just when she needed
+all her health for the ailing Fanny? He was so unsympathetic about
+Fanny, too, one really might think he did not care what the poor little
+creature suffered.
+
+Naomi began to complain about him to the neighbours. She joined in those
+wifely discussions, wherein every woman plaintively abused her own man,
+and rose at once in fury if another woman ventured to do so.
+
+"Backfield he scarcely takes any notice of me now--always thinking
+about his farm. Talks of nothing but hops and oats. Would you believe
+it, Mrs. Ditch, but he hardly ever looks at this dear little Fanny. He
+cares for his boys right enough, because when they're grown up they'll
+be able to work for him, but he justabout neglects his girlie--that's
+what he does, he neglects her. The other night, there she was crying and
+sobbing her little heart out, and he wouldn't let me send for the
+doctor. Says he can't afford to have the doctor here for nothing.
+Nothing, indeed!..."
+
+So Naomi would maunder to her acquaintance; with Reuben she confined
+herself to hints and innuendoes. Sometimes she complained to Mrs.
+Backfield, but her husband's mother was unsympathetic.
+
+"You döan't know when you're in luck," she said as she thumped the
+dough--"nothing to do but bath and dress the children, and yet you
+grumble. If you had to work like me--"
+
+"I don't know why you do it. Make Backfield get a girl to help you."
+
+"And pay eight shillings a month when he wants the money so badly! No,
+if a woman can't work fur her son, I döan't see much good in her. Some
+women"--rather venomously--"even work fur their husbands."
+
+"You know well enough he won't let me work for him."
+
+"I never said as you ought to work fur him--all I said wur as you
+shouldn't ought to grumble."
+
+A loud wail from Fanny in her cradle drove the retort from Naomi's lips.
+She sprang from the arm-chair where she had been resting, and ran
+heavily across the room to the baby's side.
+
+"What's the matter, my darling? Come to mother, little Miss Fanny. Oh, I
+know something's wrong with her, or she wouldn't cry so. She's got such
+a sweet temper really."
+
+She picked the child out of the cradle, and began to walk up and down
+the room, rocking it in her arms. Fanny's wails grew louder, more
+long-drawn, and more plaintive.
+
+Reuben came in, and his brows contracted when he saw what his wife was
+doing. There was a slight moisture on her forehead, and she strained the
+child violently to her breast.
+
+"Come, Naomi, put her down. It's bad for you to carry her about like
+this."
+
+"Oh, Reuben, I'm sure she's ill. Can't we send Beatup over for the
+doctor?"
+
+"No, we can't. There's naun the matter wud her really. She's always
+crying."
+
+Naomi faced him almost spitefully.
+
+"If one of the boys had hurt his little finger you'd have doctor in at
+once. It's only because it's Fanny. You don't love her, you----"
+
+"Now none o' that, missus," said Reuben roughly--"you put the child back
+in her cradle, and go and lie down yourself. I döan't want to have to
+fetch doctor in to _you_."
+
+Naomi had not acquired the art of flouting him openly. She tearfully put
+Fanny into her cradle, and lay and sulked on the sofa for the rest of
+the evening.
+
+That night she dreamed that her new baby was born, and that Reuben had
+taken away Fanny and given her to Beatup. Beatup was carrying her down
+to the pond to drown her as he drowned the kittens, and Naomi stood in
+the garden with immovable weights on every limb listening to the
+despairing shrieks of her little girl. They were dreadful shrieks, not
+like a baby's at all.
+
+They still sounded when Naomi woke. She sat up in bed, uncertain as to
+whether she were dreaming or not. Then from Fanny's little bed beside
+the big one came something terrible--a low long wail like an animal's
+dying into a moan. It seemed as if her heart stopped beating. She felt
+the sweat rush out all over her body. The next minute she was out of
+bed, groping for Fanny in the darkness.
+
+She found her and lifted her in her arms; once more that dreadful
+wailing moan came from the little body, mingling this time with a snore
+from Reuben. Naomi, still grasping Fanny, managed to light a candle. The
+child's face was deadly white and drawn in a strange way, while her lips
+were blue.
+
+"Reuben!" shrieked Naomi.
+
+He did not wake. Worn out with hard work and his anxiety about his farm,
+he still slept heavily, rolled in the blanket. A sick insane rage seized
+Naomi. She sprang on the bed, tore the clothes off him, shook him, beat
+him, pulled his hair, while all the time she grasped the now silent
+Fanny convulsively between her left arm and her breast.
+
+"My child's dying. Get up, you brute. Fetch the doctor. My child's
+dying!"
+
+For a moment Reuben was bewildered with his sudden waking, but he soon
+came to himself at the sight of his wife's distorted face and the
+inanimate lop-headed baby. He sprang up, pulled on his trousers, and in
+two minutes had bundled the half-conscious but utterly willing Beatup
+out of his attic, and sent him off on the fastest horse to Rye. Then he
+came back into the bedroom. Naomi was sitting on the floor, her hair
+falling over her shoulders, the baby unconscious on her lap.
+
+"Give her to me, child--let me look."
+
+"No, no--get away," and Naomi once more caught up Fanny to her breast.
+
+"I'll go and fetch mother."
+
+Mrs. Backfield arrived in a washed-out bed-gown. A fire was lit and
+water put on to boil. Fanny's, however, did not seem just an ordinary
+case of "fits"; she lay limp in her mother's arms, strangely blue round
+the mouth, her eyes half open.
+
+"Oh, what is it?--what is it?" wailed Naomi--"can't we do anything? Oh,
+why doesn't the doctor come?"
+
+Suddenly the baby stiffened on her lap. The limbs became rigid, the face
+black. Then something rasped in its throat.
+
+"Bring the water!--Bring the water!" screamed Naomi, hardly knowing what
+she said.
+
+Mrs. Backfield poured the water into a basin, and Naomi lifted Miss
+Fanny to put her into the steaming bath.
+
+"It's no use," said Reuben. He knew the child was dead.
+
+But Naomi insisted on putting Fanny into the basin. She held her up in
+it for a moment. Then suddenly let her drop, and fell forward, wailing.
+
+Reuben and Mrs. Backfield tried in vain to soothe her, and put her back
+to bed. She was like a mad woman. She who had always been so timid and
+gentle, peevish at the worst, now shouted, kicked and raved.
+
+"You've killed her! it's your doing ... you're a murderer!" she screamed
+at Reuben.
+
+He lifted her bodily and laid her on the bed. But she was still half
+insane--
+
+"I hate you! I hate you!" she cried, and threw herself about.
+
+When the doctor arrived an hour later, his services were needed after
+all. For Naomi gave birth to a little boy at dawn.
+
+
+§ 8.
+
+Naomi had met her tragedy. In course of time she recovered from her
+confinement, but all the joy of life and motherhood had gone from her.
+It was inexplicable to Reuben that she could mourn so hopelessly over
+the death of a little weak girl, who would have been nothing but a care
+and an expense if she had lived. It was inexplicable that she could
+take no interest in young Benjamin, a sound, well-made little fellow in
+spite of his premature birth. For the first time she was unable to
+suckle her baby, and Reuben was forced to engage a nurse, not liking the
+responsibility of bringing him up by hand.
+
+But he was very good to Naomi. He tried to forget her indifference to
+his beloved boys, and to soothe and strengthen her into something like
+her old self. She did not repulse him. All the violence and the
+desperation in her had burnt themselves out during that night of frenzy.
+She lay in bed hour after hour without moving, her long hair--which was
+now beginning to come out in handfuls when she brushed it--spread over
+the pillow. Her muscles were slack, she lay without any suppleness,
+heavy against the mattress. After some weeks she was able to get up, and
+go about her duties with the children. She never spoke of her misery,
+she ate, she sewed, she even gossiped with the neighbours, as before.
+But something was gone from her--her eye sometimes had a vacant, roving
+look, her shoulders stooped, and her skin grew sallow.
+
+She was still fond of her children, but in a listless, mechanical way.
+Sometimes when she had them all gathered round her, for their bedtime or
+a bath, she would find the tears welling up in her eyes till all the
+little faces were blurred. Poor mites! what future lay ahead of them?
+They were their father's slaves as well as she--the utmost would be
+ground out of them as it had been ground out of her.
+
+Once more she had taken up her unwilling part in Boarzell's epic. She
+was expecting another child for the following spring. This would be her
+seventh.
+
+She was no longer merely dissatisfied. In her heart she passionately
+rebelled. She hated herself, and her condition, for now she hated
+Reuben. The vague hostility she had felt towards him during Fanny's
+short life had given place to a definite hatred. She looked upon Reuben
+as the murderer of her child, and she hated him. During the first days
+of her grief he had been so kind to her that she had grown dependent on
+him and hatred was delayed, but now dependence and dazed gratitude had
+passed away, and in their place was a sick, heavy loathing for the man
+whose neglect and indifference she believed had killed her child. She
+could not endure the thought of giving him another. Sometimes she
+thought she would like to kill herself, but she was too weak a soul for
+anything desperate.
+
+In those days she could not bear the sound of Harry's fiddle, and he was
+told he must not play it in the house.
+
+
+§ 9.
+
+The Repeal of the Corn Laws did not have such a bad effect on Odiam as
+Reuben had feared. The harvests in '46 and '47 were unusually good, and
+a general revival of prosperity throughout the country atoned for the
+low price of grain. It was not to be expected, however, that he would
+forgive at once the party which had betrayed agricultural interests. He
+transferred his political allegiance to Disraeli, whose feudalistic
+attitude won his entire respect. It was a great trial to him that he
+could not read the newspapers, for nowadays he did not care to have
+Naomi read to him. She used to sometimes, but her utter lack of interest
+and understanding was no longer atoned for by a voice love-modulated or
+a soft hand stroking his. He resolved that none of his children should
+share his disabilities, and already the infant Albert toddled daily to a
+little house in the village where two vague-looking sisters taught the
+rising generation mysteries hidden from their parents. Reuben could
+spell out one or two words, and could write "Reuben Backfield" in big
+printing letters at the bottom of any document he had to sign, but he
+had no time to educate himself further.
+
+He was now twenty-seven, looking in some ways strangely older, in
+others far younger, than his age. The boy in him had not had much chance
+of surviving adolescence. Life had come down too hard on him. A grim
+struggle does not nourish youth, and mentally Reuben was ten or twelve
+years ahead of twenty-seven. His splendid health and strength, however,
+had maintained a physical boyishness, expressing itself in zeal and high
+spirits, a keen appetite, a boundless capacity for work, an undaunted
+enterprise. He was always hungry, he fell asleep directly his head
+touched the pillow, and slept like a child beside the tossing and
+wakeful Naomi.
+
+His work had made him splendid. His skin was the colour of the soil he
+tilled, a warm ruddy brown, his hair was black, growing low on the
+forehead, and curling slightly behind the ears. The moulding of his neck
+and jaw, his eyes, dark, bright, and not without laughter in them, his
+teeth, big, white, and pointed, like an animal's--all spoke of clean and
+vigorous manhood. He was now unmistakably a finer specimen than Harry.
+Harry had lost to a great measure his good looks. Not only had the
+vacancy of his face robbed it of much of its attraction--for more
+beautiful than shape or colouring or feature had been the free spirit
+that looked out of his eyes--but his constant habit of making hideous
+grimaces had worked it into lines, while the scar of his burning
+sometimes showed across his cheek. Add to this a stoop and a shambling
+gait, and it is no longer "Beautiful Harry," nor even the ghost of him,
+so much as some changeling, some ill-done counterfeit image, set up by
+vindictive nature in his stead.
+
+Harry was no more his mother's favourite son. She was not the type of
+woman to whom a maimed child is dearer than half a dozen healthy ones.
+On the contrary he filled her with a vague terror and repulsion. She
+spoke to him gently, tended him carefully, even sometimes forced
+herself to caress him--but for the most part she avoided him, feeling as
+she did so a vague shame and regret.
+
+On the other hand, her devotion to Reuben grew more and more absorbing
+and submissive. Her type was obviously the tyrant-loving, the more
+primitive kind, which worships the strong of the tribe and recoils
+instinctively from the weak. Where many a woman, perhaps rougher and
+harder than she, would have flung all the love and sweetness of her
+nature upon the blasted Harry, she turned instead to the strong,
+stalwart Reuben, who tyrannised over her and treated her with less and
+less consideration ... and this after twenty years of happy married
+life, during which she had idled and been waited on, and learned a
+hundred dainty ways.
+
+She had no patience with Naomi's simmering rebellion; she scoffed at her
+complaints, and always took Reuben's part against her.
+
+"As long as there's men and women in the world, the men 'ull be top and
+the women bottom."
+
+"Why?" asked Naomi.
+
+"Because it wur meant so. If we'd bin meant fur masters d'you think we'd
+have bin made so liddle and dentical like?"
+
+"But we're a sight smarter than men."
+
+"Yes--that makes up to us a bit, but it döan't do us any real good ...
+only helps us git round a man sometimes when we can't git over him."
+
+"Then it does us some good after all. A sad state we'd be in if the men
+always had their own way."
+
+"You take it from me that it's much better when a man has his own way
+than when he hasn't. Then he's pleased wud you and makes life warm and
+easy for you. It's women as are always going against men wot are
+unhappy. Please men and they'll be good to you and you'll be happy,
+döan't please them and they'll be bad to you and you'll be miserable.
+But women who're for ever grumbling, and making a fuss about doing wot
+they've got to do whether they like it or not, and are cross-grained
+wives, and unwilling mothers ..." and so on, and so on.
+
+Yet Mrs. Backfield did not, any more than Naomi, understand Reuben's
+great ambition.
+
+
+§ 10.
+
+That autumn Naomi entered on a time of black depression--an utter gloom
+and weariness of body and mind. It was no mere dull staggering under
+blows, merciful in its blindness and lack of acute feeling--it was a
+clear-eyed misery, in which every object was as distinct as it was dark,
+like one of those sudden clearings of a stormy landscape, when trees,
+hedges, meadows, loom under the frowning sky, outstanding and black in
+detail, more vivid than in sunshine.
+
+She saw now what she was--her husband's victim, the tool of his
+enterprise. He had never really loved her. He had been attracted by
+her--her beauty, her gentleness, her breeding, had appealed to him. But
+that was not why he had married her. He had married her for her money,
+which he was now spending on his farm, and he had married her because he
+wanted children and she was the most suitable mother he could find. He
+had never really loved her.
+
+And she had never really loved him. That was another of the things she
+saw clearly. She had married him because his strength and good looks,
+his ardent wooing, had turned her head, because she had been weak and he
+had been masterful. But she had never loved him.
+
+She had been a fool, and now she was paying the price of folly, which is
+always so much heavier than the price of sin. Here she was at
+twenty-five, prematurely old, exhausted, sick of life, and utterly
+alone. There was no one to turn to in her wretchedness. Her neighbours
+were incapable of giving her real help or sympathy, Mrs. Backfield
+invariably took Reuben's part and resented the slightest criticism of
+him, old Gasson was hard and selfish, and not particularly interested in
+his daughter.
+
+She wished, with all the wormwood that lies in useless regrets, that she
+had never married. Then, paradoxically, she would not have been so
+utterly alone. She would have had at least the help of sweet memories
+undefiled. She could have taken refuge in them from her sorrow, built
+them perhaps at last into hope. Now she had to thrust them from her, for
+they were one and all soiled by her unfaithfulness.
+
+For the first time she began definitely to reproach herself for her
+treatment of Harry. Though she could never have married him, she could
+at least have been faithful to him.
+
+
+     "O why, because sickness hath wasted my body,
+       Should you do me to death with your dark treacherie?
+     O why, because brothers and friends all have left me,
+       Should you leave me too, O my faithless ladie!"
+
+
+Moreover, she still sometimes had a vague feeling that at the start
+Harry had not been quite so mad as people thought, that he might perhaps
+have recovered if she had made him understand that she was true to him,
+still hoping. No doubt that was all nonsense, but she could not quite
+smother the idea that she had betrayed Harry. Perhaps it was partly
+because even before his accident she had cast longing eyes at Reuben.
+Once again she called up memories of him cutting down willows on his new
+land, and she acknowledged miserably to herself that in that hour she
+had already been unfaithful to Harry in her heart, and that all that
+came afterwards was but the following up of that initial act of
+treachery. A strong arm, a broad back, a blue shirt in the January
+twilight ... and Naomi had set out on a road every step of which was
+now over rough stones and broken shards.
+
+In February her child was born--another girl. But this time Reuben was
+not sorry, for he realised that his mother would not last for ever, and
+that he must have a girl to take her place. It might have been expected
+that a baby girl would comfort Naomi for the lost Fanny, but such was
+not the case. It seemed as if with Fanny she had lost all power of
+loving and of rising again. Once more she was unable to feed the child,
+and her convalescence was dragging and miserable. When at last she was
+able to go about, a permanent ill-health seemed to have settled on her,
+the kind that rides tired women, making their faces sallow, their hair
+scanty, filling their backs with strange pains. She grew fretful, too,
+and her temper was none of the best.
+
+
+§ 11.
+
+That year Reuben bought ten more acres of Boarzell, and limed them for
+oats. He felt that now he had strength to return to his first battle,
+and wring a grain crop out of that grudging soil. The new piece of
+ground abutted the Odiam lands on the Flightshot side, and he could see
+it from his window. Before going to bed at night, he would lean out and
+feast his eyes on it as it lay there softly covered in the dark, or
+glimmering in the faint star-dazzle of spring. Sometimes it seemed
+almost as if a breath came from it, a fragrance of sleep, and he would
+sit there inhaling it till Naomi peevishly begged him to shut the window
+and come to bed. Then in the mornings, when he woke according to healthy
+habit at five, he would sit up, and even from the bed he could see his
+land, waiting for him in the cold whiteness of dawn, silently calling
+him out to the freshness of its many dews.
+
+He still kept the farm modestly, for he was anxious to be able to do
+without help except from Beatup. His young family were also an expense.
+For a few years more he must expect to have them rather heavily on his
+hands ... then Albert and the twins would be able to do a little work,
+and gradually both the capacity and number of his labourers would
+increase, till at last perhaps he would be able to discharge Beatup, and
+Backfield alone fight Backfield's battle.
+
+Meantime he was worried about Naomi. It says much for the
+ineffectiveness of her emotions that he had not till just then realised
+her hostility towards him. Now that he saw it, he put it down to her
+ill-health, and re-established the tyrannous watch over her which he had
+kept up in the old days. He was sorry for her, and knew now that he had
+made a mistake in marrying her. He should have chosen a sturdier, more
+ambitious mate. However, there was no help for it, he could not give up
+the battle because his fellow-fighter had no stomach for it. He was
+grieved for the loss of her beauty, and would make things as easy for
+her as possible, but he could not let her off altogether. She must do
+her share in the struggle which was so much greater than either of them.
+She had rested from child-bearing a year, but he still longed
+desperately for children, and she became a mother again at the end of
+'49.
+
+The baby was a girl, and Reuben was bitterly disappointed. One girl was
+quite enough, and he badly wanted more boys. Besides, Naomi was very
+ill, and the doctor told him in private that she ought not to have any
+more children, at least for some time.
+
+"She never was a strong woman, and these repeated confinements have
+quite worn her out. You have seven children, Mr. Backfield, and I think
+that ought to be enough for any man."
+
+"But two of them are girls--it's boys I want, surelye!"
+
+"Aren't five boys enough for you?"
+
+"No--they äun't."
+
+"Well, of course, if she has a thorough rest from all work and worry,
+and recovers her health in the meantime, I don't say that in three or
+four years.... But she's not a strong subject, Mr. Backfield, and you'd
+do well to remember it."
+
+
+§ 12.
+
+Reuben was very kind to Naomi during her illness. He helped his mother
+to nurse her, and spent by her side all the time he could spare from the
+farm. He was too strong to vent on her personally the rage and
+disappointment with which circumstances had filled him. He pitied her
+fragility, he even pitied her for the antagonism which he saw she still
+felt towards him.
+
+At nights he slept upstairs in one of the attics, which always smelt of
+apples, because it was next to the loft where the apples were stored. He
+was happy there, in spite of some dark hours when the deadlock of his
+married life kept him awake. He wondered if there was a woman in the
+world who could share his ambitions for Odiam. He expected not, for
+women were an ambitionless race. If Naomi had had a single spark of zeal
+for the great enterprise in which he and she were engaged, she would not
+now be lying exhausted by her share in it. He had honoured her by asking
+her to join him in this splendid undertaking, and all she had done had
+been to prove that she had no fight in her.
+
+He could now gaze out on Boarzell uninterrupted. The sight of the great
+Moor made his blood tingle; his whole being thrilled to see it lying
+there, swart, unconquered, challenging. How long would it be, he
+wondered, before he had subdued it? Surely in all Sussex, in all
+England, there had never been such an undertaking as this ... and when
+he was triumphant, had achieved his great ambition, won his heart's
+desire, how proud, how glorious he would be among his children....
+
+The wind would carry him the scent of gorse, like peaches and apricots.
+There was something in that scent which both mocked and delighted him.
+It was an irony that the huge couchant beast of Boarzell should smell so
+sweet--surely the wind should have brought him a pungent ammoniacal
+smell like the smell of stables ... or perhaps the smell of blood.
+
+But, after all, this subtle gorse-fragrance had its suitableness, for
+though gorse may cast out the scent of soft fruit from its flowers, its
+stalks are wire and its roots iron, its leaves are so many barbs for
+those who would lay hands on its sweetness. It was like Boarzell itself,
+which was Reuben's delight and his dread, his beloved and his enemy.
+
+The day would come when Boarzell would no longer drench the night with
+perfume, when the gorse would be torn out of its hide to make room for
+the scentless grain. Then Reuben would no longer lean out of his window
+and dream of it, for dreams, like the peach-scent of the gorse, would go
+when the corn came. But those days were not yet.
+
+Naomi's illness dragged. Sometimes Reuben suspected her of malingering,
+she so obviously did not want to get well. He guessed her reasons, and
+took an opportunity to tell her of the doctor's verdict. The struggle
+was in abeyance--at least her share of it. Nature--which was really what
+he was fighting in Boarzell--had gained a temporary advantage, and his
+outposts had been forced to retire.
+
+Naomi began now decidedly to improve. She put on flesh, and showed a
+faint interest in life. Towards the end of April she was able to come
+downstairs. She was obviously much better, and old Mrs. Backfield hinted
+that she was even better than she looked. Reuben watched over her
+anxiously, delighted to notice day by day fresh signs of strength. She
+began to do little things for the children, she even seemed proud of
+them. They were splendid children, but it was the first time that she
+had realised it. She helped the scholastic elders with their sums and
+made frocks for the little girls. She even allowed baby Mathilda to wear
+Fanny's shoes.
+
+The summer wore on. The sallow tints in Naomi's skin were exchanged for
+the buttery ones which used to be before her marriage. Her hair ceased
+to fall, her cheeks plumped out, her voice lost its weak shrillness. She
+made herself a muslin gown, and Reuben bought ribbons for it at Rye.
+
+The husband and wife now lived quite independently. They no longer made
+even the pretence of walking on the same path. Naomi played with the
+children, did a little sewing and housework--exactly what she chose--and
+occasionally went over to Totease or Burntbarns for a chat with the
+neighbours. She once even spent a couple of nights at her father's, the
+first time since her marriage that she had slept away from Odiam.
+
+As for Reuben, he worked as hard as ever, but never spoke of it to his
+wife. He seemed to enjoy her society at meals, and now and then would
+take her out for a stroll along the lanes, or sit with her in the
+evening by the kitchen fire. Once more he liked to have her read him the
+papers; and though she understood no more than she had ever done, her
+voice had ceased to be dull and fretful. Then at night he would go up to
+his attic and drink in the smell of gorse at the window, till he grew
+drowsy and shut himself in with the smell of apples.
+
+After a time they began to notice a convergence in these independent
+ways. It seemed as if only by running apart had they learned at last to
+run together. A certain friendliness and comradery began to establish
+itself between them. Reuben began to talk to Naomi about politics and
+agricultural doings, and gradually her character underwent a strange
+blossoming. She became far more adult in her opinions; she took interest
+in matters outside her household and immediate surroundings. He never
+spoke to her of his plans for Boarzell, for that would have brought them
+back into the old antagonism and unrest; but when she read the papers to
+him he would discuss them with her, occasionally interrupt her with
+comments, and otherwise show that he had to do with an intelligent
+being. She in her turn would enquire into the progress of the hops or
+the oats, ask him if his new insect-killer was successful, or whether
+Ditch had done well with his harvest, or how much Realf's had fetched at
+the corn-market.
+
+Three months passed in this new way. Reuben would never have believed
+that Naomi could be a companion to him, especially after the last few
+hostile years. As for her, she looked young and pretty again; delicious
+slim lines had come into her figure--no longer the slack curves and
+emaciation of recent months, or the matronly fullness of earlier times.
+Her health seemed completely restored.
+
+Then came a day early in December, when they were walking home together
+through the mud of Totease Lane, their faces whipped into redness by the
+south-west wind. Naomi wore a russet cloak and hood, and her hair, on
+which a few rain-drops glistened, was teasing her eyes. She held
+Reuben's arm, for the ruts were treacherous, and he noticed the spring
+and freedom of her walk. A sudden turn of the lane brought them round
+due west, and between them and the sunset stood Boarzell, its club of
+firs knobbily outlined against the grape-red sky. It smote itself upon
+Reuben's eyes almost as a thing forgotten--there, half blotting out the
+sunset with its blackness. Unconsciously his arm with Naomi's hand on it
+contracted against his side, while the colour deepened on his
+cheek-bones.
+
+"Naomi."
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"Boarzell."
+
+She lifted her eyes to the shape between her and the sky, and as
+unconsciously he had flushed so unconsciously she shuddered.
+
+"Well, what about it?" she asked in a voice that stuck a little.
+
+"It's wunnerful ..." he murmured, "all that great big dark Moor, wot's
+going to be mine."
+
+She did not speak.
+
+"Mine!" he repeated almost fiercely.
+
+Then suddenly she began to plead:
+
+"Can't you let it alone, Reuben?--we--we've been so happy these last
+months not worrying about it. Must we ever start again?"
+
+Her voice came anxiously, timidly like a child's. He dropped her hand
+from his arm.
+
+"Yes--we must," he said shortly.
+
+They reached Odiam, both feeling that the glory of those last three
+months had departed. The sight of Boarzell, lying black and hullish
+across their path, had made them realise that their happiness was but an
+interval, an interlude between more significant, more sinister things.
+Naomi had lost her peace and confidence, she seemed to avoid her
+husband, was tongue-tied in his presence, gave him a hurried good night
+from the door. Reuben was silent and meditative--when his eyes rested on
+Naomi they were half regretful.
+
+That night he lay awake long hours in the smell of apples. He pondered
+many things. Those past months had been sweet in their revived
+tenderness, their simple freedom. But Boarzell had reasserted
+itself--Naomi was now quite well again--she must no longer shirk her
+duties. She must have more children.
+
+It was cruel, he knew. She had already given him seven, she could not
+realise that her task was not yet done. She had just felt what it was
+to be well and strong again after long months of illness. It would be
+cruel to impose on her once more the pains and weariness of motherhood.
+It would be cruel.--But, hem it all! was not the thing he was fighting
+cruel? Was not Boarzell cruel, meeting his endeavours with every form of
+violence and treachery? If he was to conquer it he too must be cruel,
+must harden his heart, and press forward, without caring how much he or
+anyone bled on the way. He could not stop to consider even his nearest
+and dearest when his foe had neither mercy nor ruth for him.
+
+
+§ 13.
+
+It was the August of another year. Reuben's new land on Boarzell was
+tawny with oats. He had at last broken into that defiant earth and taken
+handfuls of its treasure. To-day he inspected his crop, and planned for
+its reaping. With parted lips and a faint sensuous gleam in his eyes he
+watched it bow and ripple before the little breeze that stole over the
+hedges from Tiffenden. He drank in the scent of the baking awns, the
+heat of the sun-cracked earth. It was all dear to him--all ecstasy. And
+he himself was dear to himself because the beauty of it fell upon him
+... his body, strong and tired, smelling a little of sweat, his back
+scorched by the heat in which he had bent, his hand strong as iron upon
+his sickle. Oh Lord! it was good to be a man, to feel the sap of life
+and conquest running in you, to be battling with mighty forces, to be
+able to fight seasons, elements, earth, and nature....
+
+He turned and walked slowly homewards, a smile on his lips. As he passed
+the orchard, where a crop of plums was ripening, the shrill whir of a
+bird-rattle made him look up. There in the long grass stood his young
+Albert, dutifully scaring sparrows from the trees. He had been there all
+the afternoon, and Reuben beckoned to him to come in to tea. Further
+on, in the yard, he encountered Robert feeding the chickens out of an
+enormous bowl carried by Pete, whose arms with difficulty embraced its
+girth. He summoned these two in. His family trotted after him at a
+respectful distance. They did not speak, except to say "Oo" occasionally
+to each other.
+
+In the kitchen a substantial meal was prepared. It was the children's
+supper, and was to last Reuben till he came in at nine o'clock and had a
+bowl of broth before going to bed. Old Mrs. Backfield was settling the
+children round the table. Caro and Tilly showed only their heads above
+the cloth, a piece of neck proclaimed Benjamin's extra inches, while
+Richard had quite two buttons to his credit. Harry sat at the bottom
+beside Caroline; when he heard Albert's rattle, he seized it and began
+making a hideous din. Caro and Tilly began to cry, and Reuben snatched
+the rattle away.
+
+He sat down, and immediately his mother put a plate of hot bacon before
+him. She was vexed because it was the only meat he allowed himself on
+week-days. The children ate bread and milk, and thrived on it, to judge
+by their round healthy faces. Reuben was proud of them. They were fine
+children, and he hoped that the one that was coming would be as sturdy.
+
+"How is she?" he asked Mrs. Backfield.
+
+"She slept a bit this afternoon. I took her a cup of tea at five, but I
+think the heat tries her."
+
+"I'll go up and see her soon as I've finished--Harry, täake your hand
+out of the baby's pläate."
+
+As soon as the supper was over, Reuben still munching bread and bacon
+went up to his wife's room. The sunlight was gone, but the sky was
+blood-red behind Boarzell's hulk, and a flushed afterglow hung on the
+ceiling and moved slowly like a fire over the bed. The corners of the
+room, the shadows cast by the furniture, were black and smoky. On
+Naomi's face, on her body outlined under the sheet, the lights
+crimsoned and smouldered. There was a strange fiery reflection in her
+eyes as she turned them to the door.
+
+"Well, my dear, how are you?"
+
+"I'm very well, thank you, Backfield."
+
+She always said that.
+
+He came over to the bed and looked down on her. Her eyes were haunting
+... and the vestiges of youth about her face. But he no longer pitied or
+spared. Boarzell had taught him his first lesson--that only the hard
+shall triumph in the hard fight, and that he who would spare his brother
+shall do no better than he who would spare himself.
+
+He sat down beside her and took her hand.
+
+"I hear you had some sleep this afternoon."
+
+"Yes--I slept for an hour. I think I'm better."
+
+Her voice was submissive--or indifferent.
+
+"I've bin on the new land all to-day. It's doing justabout splendid.
+Those oats are as dentical as wheat--not a sedge-leaf adin them."
+
+She made a faint sound to show that she had heard him.
+
+"Albert's bin in the orchard scaring sparrers, and Robert and Pete wur
+helping wud the chickens. My family's gitting quite valiant now, Mrs.
+Backfield."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I'll soon be able to have Richard on, and then there's still Jemmy to
+foller--and George."
+
+"Mmm."
+
+"Now döan't you put me off wud Georgina."
+
+Her mouth stretched mechanically into a smile, and at the same time a
+tear slid out of the corner of her eye, and rolled slowly over her thin
+cheeks. In the red, smouldering light of the sky behind Boarzell it
+looked like a tear of blood.
+
+
+§ 14.
+
+Early in September George arrived. Reuben's face kindled when the doctor
+told him he had escaped Georgina.
+
+The doctor, however, did not look pleased.
+
+"Perhaps now you have enough boys?" he said rather truculently.
+
+"Well, there's six...."
+
+"I hope that's enough to satisfy you. Because there won't be any
+more---- She's dying."
+
+"Dying!"
+
+He repeated the word almost stupidly.
+
+"Yes"--said Dr. Espinette. He did not feel inclined to mince matters
+with Backfield.
+
+"But--but--can't you do anything for her, surelye?"
+
+"I'm afraid not. Of course, one can never speak with absolute certainty
+even in a case like this. But----" and the doctor wasted some medical
+technicalities on Reuben.
+
+The young man turned from him, half-dazed. Dying! Naomi! A sudden wild
+pang smote through his heart for the mother of his children.
+
+"Do something for her! you can--you must."
+
+"I'm going over to Gablehook now, but I'll call in on the way back. I'm
+afraid there's not much hope; however, I'll do my best."
+
+Reuben's sudden pallor and blank eyes had softened his heart a little.
+But, he reflected the next moment, there was no sense in pitying
+Backfield.
+
+Reuben did not wait any longer--he dashed out of the room and upstairs
+to his wife's door.
+
+He knocked. From within came a faint sound of moaning. He knocked again.
+The midwife opened the door.
+
+"Go away," she said, "we can't let you in."
+
+"I want to see Naomi."
+
+"You can't."
+
+"I must. Hem it! äun't I her husband?"
+
+"You can come back in an hour or two. But you must go now--" and she
+shut the door in his face.
+
+Reuben slunk away, angry and miserable.
+
+He pottered about the farm all the morning. Somehow these terrible
+events reminded him of the birth of his first child, when he had moped
+and fretted and sulked--and all for nothing. That seemed twenty years
+ago. Now he did not fret for nothing. His wife was dying, still young,
+still sometimes beautiful. His mind was full of jumbled memories of
+her--he saw her as Harry's sweetheart, sitting with him on Boarzell
+while he sang; he saw her in the dairy where he had first kissed her
+stooping over the cream; he saw her as his bride, flushed and timid
+beside him at the wedding-feast, as the mother of his boys, proud and
+full-bosomed. But mostly his thoughts were more trivial and
+tattered--memories of her in certain gowns, in a cap she had bought
+because, having three little boys, she thought she must "dress older";
+memories of little things she had said--"Why don't you keep bees,
+Reuben? Why don't you keep bees? They're such pretty things, and I like
+the honey...."
+
+Towards two in the afternoon he came in, tired and puff-eyed with
+misery, his brain all of a jangle. "Why don't you keep bees, Reuben? Why
+don't you keep bees?"
+
+He sat down at the table which the children had left, and mechanically
+began to eat. His healthy young body claimed its dues, and almost
+without knowing it he cleared the plate before him. Harry sat in the
+chimney corner, murmuring, "Why döan't you kip bees, Reuben? Why döan't
+you kip bees?"--showing that he had uttered his thoughts aloud, just as
+the empty platters showed him he had made a very good dinner.
+
+At last, strengthened by the food, he went up to Naomi's room again.
+This time he was admitted.
+
+She lay propped high on the pillows, and he was astonished to see how
+well she looked, much better than before the baby was born. The infant
+George lay like a rather ugly doll on his grandmother's lap. He was not
+so healthy as the other children, indeed for a time it had been doubtful
+whether he would live.
+
+Naomi smiled feebly, and that smile, so wan, so patient, so utterly
+wistful, so utterly unregretful, with which almost every mother first
+greets the father of her child, went straight to Reuben's heart. He fell
+on his knees by the bed, and covered her hand and her thin arm with
+kisses.
+
+"Naomi, my darling, my love, git well--you mustn't die and leave me."
+
+Actually his tears fell on her hand, and a rather bitter compassion for
+him drove away the more normal mood. He had killed her, and he was sorry
+for it. But if he had it all to do over again he would do it, for the
+sake of the land which was so much more to him than her life.
+
+"My sweet," he murmured, holding her palm against his mouth, "my liddle
+creature, my liddle sweet. Git well, and you shan't never have to go
+through this agäun. Six boys is all I'll want to help me, surelye--and
+you shall rest and be happy, liddle wife, and be proud of your children
+and the gurt things they're going to do."
+
+She smiled with that same bitter compassion, and stroked his head with
+her feeble hand.
+
+"How thick your hair is," she said, and weakly took a handful of it, as
+she had sometimes done when she was well.
+
+When he left her, ten minutes later, she struck him as better. He could
+not quite smother the hope that Dr. Espinette was mistaken and that she
+would recover with nursing and care. After all, even the doctor himself
+had said that one could never be certain. He felt his spirits revive,
+and called Beatup to go with him to the hop-fields.
+
+Naomi heard him tramp off, talking of "goldings" and "fuggles." She lay
+very still, hoping that the light would soon go, and give rest to her
+tired eyes--but she was too utterly weary to ask Mrs. Backfield to draw
+the curtains. Her mother-in-law put the baby back in its cradle, then
+sat down at the foot of the bed, folding her arms over her breast. She
+was tired after her labours in the house and in the sick-room, and soon
+she began to doze. Naomi felt more utterly alone than before.
+
+Her fingers plucked nervously at the sheet. There seemed to be a strange
+tickling irritation in her skin, while her feet were dreadfully cold.
+She wondered rather dully about the baby--she supposed he could not come
+to any harm over there in the cradle by himself, but really she did not
+care much--it was all one to her what happened to him.
+
+Gradually the sun slanted and glowed, and a faint ripple of air stole
+into the room, lifting the hair on her forehead, tangled and damp. It
+struck her that she must be looking very ugly--she who had used to be
+such a pretty girl.
+
+The light trembled and pearled, and in a swift last clearness she saw
+the great Moor rolling up against the sky, purple with heather, golden
+with gorse, all strength and life. It seemed to mock her savagely--"I
+live--you die. You die--I live." It was this hateful land which had
+killed her, to which she had been sacrificed, and now it seemed to
+flaunt its beauty and life and vigour before her dying eyes. "I
+live--you die. You die--I live."
+
+Yes, she was dying--and she hoped that she would die before Reuben came
+back. She did not want to feel again that strange, half-bitter
+compassion for him. The tears ran quite fast down her cheeks, and her
+eyes were growing dim. This was the end, and she knew it. The evening
+was full of tender life, but for her it was the end. Ambition and folly
+had stolen her out of all this freshness before the spring of her life
+had run. She was like a young birch tree blighted with its April leafage
+half uncurled.
+
+The tears splashed and dribbled on, till at last for some purely
+physical reason they stopped. Then a familiar tune swam into her head.
+She had been told of people who heard music when they were dying.
+
+
+     "At last when your pride shall have brought you to sorrow,
+       And years of remorse and despair been your fate,
+     Perhaps your cold heart will remember Seth's Manor,
+       And turn to your true love--and find it too late."
+
+
+But her mind was too dim even for regrets. Instead, she seemed to see
+herself dancing with Reuben at Boarzell Fair, when the dusk had been
+full of strange whirling lights, whispers, and kisses.
+
+Dancing!... dancing!... Dying!... dying! Even the tune had faded now,
+and she could see nothing--only a grey patch where the window had been.
+She was not frightened, only very lonely. Her legs were like ice, and
+the inside of her mouth felt all rough and numb.
+
+... Even the window had faded. Her head had fallen sideways on the
+pillow, and behind Boarzell the sky had kindled into a sheet of soaring
+triumphant flame.
+
+"I live--you die. You die--I live."
+
+
+
+
+BOOK III
+
+THE ELDER CHILDREN
+
+
+§ 1.
+
+For some time after Naomi's death Reuben was sick with grief. Her going
+had been so cruel, so unexpected--and he could not forget how they had
+found her, her eyelashes wetted with tears.
+
+He also missed her in the house--her soft pale face and gentle ways. He
+forgot the sallowness and the peevishness of later years, and pictured
+her always with creamy roseal skin and timid voice. He was the only one
+who missed her. Mrs. Backfield's softer feelings seemed to have been
+atrophied by hard work--she grew daily more and more like a machine; the
+children were too young to care much, and Harry was incapable of regret.
+However, the strange thing about Harry was that he did indeed seem to
+miss someone, but not Naomi. For the first time since little Fanny's
+death he began to ask for her, and search for her about the
+house--"Where's the pretty baby?--oh, save the pretty baby!" he would
+wail--"she's gone, she's gone--the pretty baby's gone."
+
+Reuben, as was usual with him, tried to drown sorrow in hard work. He
+spent his whole day either in the yard or in the fields or out on
+Boarzell. He was digging a ditch round his new land, to let off the
+winter rain, and throughout the cool November damps he was on the Moor,
+watching the sunset's fiery glow behind the gorse, seeing the red clay
+squash and crumble thickly under his spade--spouting out drops of
+blood. In time all this fire and blood brought him back into his old
+purpose. Gradually the lust of conquest drove away regret. He had no
+more cause for self-reproach than an officer who loses a good soldier in
+battle. It is the fortune of war. And Naomi had not died without
+accomplishing her work and giving him men to help him in the fight.
+
+The young Backfields were beginning to grow into individualities.
+Albert, the eldest, was eight, and showed certain tokens of a wilful
+nature, which had not much chance where his father was concerned.
+Strange fits of dreaminess alternated with vigorous fits of passion. He
+was a difficult child to manage, for in addition to his own moods he had
+a certain corrupting influence over his more docile brothers. Reuben
+already kept him at work most of the day--either at the village school,
+or scaring birds from the orchard or the grain fields.
+
+Robert and Peter also did their share, feeding fowls, weeding
+vegetables. Robert was a stolid, well-behaved child, a trifle
+uninteresting, but hard-working and obedient. Pete was Reuben's
+delight--a wonderfully sturdy little fellow, who often amazed his father
+and Beatup by his precocious feats of strength. To amuse them he would
+sometimes shoulder Beatup's tools, or pick up a bag of chicken-meal with
+his teeth--he could even put his back against a young calf and prevent
+it entering a gate or reaching its stall. Reuben was careful not to let
+him strain himself, but he loved to handle his son's arms and shoulders,
+feeling the swell of the muscles under the skin. He even taught him the
+rudiments of boxing; he had had some practice himself as a boy in the
+Fair sparring booth, and though of late years he had been too busy to
+keep it up, he was a good teacher for little Pete, who could soon lick
+all his brothers and even deliver respectable punishment on Beatup's
+nether limbs. Richard at the age of six was not of any great
+agricultural value, but at the village school he outshone the elder
+boys. Sometimes he gave Reuben anxious moments, for the smell of the
+midden now and then made him sick, which was scarcely a hopeful sign.
+
+The younger children were to their father so many bundles--meek and
+mute, but good to count as they sat at table with porridge bowls and
+staring eyes. It never occurred to him to pick any of them up and caress
+them. Indeed they had no very distinct personalities apart from Odiam,
+though Tilly sometimes looked uncomfortably like Naomi.
+
+
+§ 2.
+
+Towards the end of '53, Reuben bought a pedigree bull at Rye market. He
+knew that he could increase his importance and effectiveness in the
+neighbourhood if he started as a cattle-breeder, and there was also a
+sound profit to be made by the animal's hiring fees. The next year he
+bought ten acres more of Boarzell for grass.
+
+He had now spent the whole of Naomi's dowry, and knew that he was not
+likely to get anything more out of old Gasson, whose housekeeper had
+during the last year smartly married him. However, he felt that the
+money had been laid out to the very best advantage, for Odiam was paying
+its way, and had, besides, of late become the most important farm in the
+neighbourhood except Grandturzel. Reuben watched Grandturzel jealously,
+though he was careful to hide his feelings. It had the advantage of
+forty acres of Boarzell, granted by the commissioners. Luckily old Realf
+was not very enterprising.
+
+In spite of the farm's new activities, he found that he could still
+manage without engaging fresh labour. The odds and ends of work which
+his boys took off him and Beatup left them free to attack the bigger
+enterprises. And as Odiam grew the children would grow. Even now they
+were all impressed for service, except little George, who was delicate
+and, moreover, subject to fits. Their work was varied--they scared birds
+from the crops, fed the poultry, collected the eggs, drove the cows to
+and from pasture, fed the pigs, ran errands to the neighbouring farms.
+In course of time Albert learned milking, and could saddle old Crump the
+roan, or put him into the gig.
+
+Then, in the house, the little girls were useful. Mrs. Backfield was not
+so energetic as she used to be. She had never been a robust woman, and
+though her husband's care had kept her well and strong, her frame was
+not equal to Reuben's demands; after fourteen years' hard labour, she
+suffered from rheumatism, which though seldom acute, was inclined to
+make her stiff and slow. It was here that Caro and Tilly came in, and
+Reuben began to appreciate his girls. After all, girls were needed in a
+house--and as for young men and marriage, their father could easily see
+that such follies did not spoil their usefulness or take them from him.
+Caro and Tilly helped their grandmother in all sorts of ways--they
+dusted, they watched pots, they shelled peas and peeled potatoes, they
+darned house-linen, they could even make a bed between them.
+
+Needless to say there was not much playtime at Odiam.
+
+
+§ 3.
+
+During the next ten years the farm went forward by strides. Reuben
+bought seven more acres of Boarzell in '59, and fourteen in '60. He also
+bought a horse-rake, and threshed by machinery. He was now a topic in
+every public-house from Northiam to Rye. His success and the scant
+trouble he took to conciliate those about him had made him disliked.
+Unprosperous farmers spoke windily of "spoiling his liddle game." Ditch
+and Ginner even suggested to Vennal that they should club together and
+buy thirty acres or so of the Moor themselves, just to spite him.
+However, money was too precious to throw away even on such an object,
+especially as everyone felt sure that Backfield would sooner or later
+"bust himself" in his dealings with Boarzell.
+
+After all, he had only fifty-six acres out of a possible three hundred,
+and had not made much profit out of them, judging by the austerity of
+ways at Odiam. Horse-rakes and steam-threshers could not blind his
+neighbours to the absence of muslin curtains and butcher's meat. "And
+the way he's working them pore childer, too ... all of 'em hard at it
+from mornun till evenun, surelye ... enough to make their mother turn in
+her grave, pore girl ... not but wot she hadn't every reason to expect
+it, considering the way he treated her," etc. etc.
+
+At Flightshot Manor comment was more enlightened.
+
+"I can't understand, papa," said Anne Bardon, "how you can go on selling
+land to that odious Backfield."
+
+"Well, my dear, he pays me good money for it, and I'm in precious need
+of that just now."
+
+"But in time the whole Moor will fall into his hands--see if it doesn't.
+And he's a Tory, a reactionary. It would be a dreadful thing for the
+parish if he became a big landowner."
+
+Anne's politics were the most vigorous in the family.
+
+"My dear, if anyone else would buy the Moor, I'd be only too pleased to
+sell it to them. But so far there hasn't been a nibble. Backfield's the
+only man who has the temerity to think he could make anything out of a
+desert like Boarzell, and I must say I admire his pluck."
+
+"It's only because he has no imagination. He's a thick-skinned brute,
+and I hate the idea of a man like that becoming powerful. Why don't you
+give the land back to the parish? Acknowledge that grandpapa's
+inclosure has failed, and let the people have their common again."
+
+"It's all very well for you to talk, Anne," said her brother Ralph, "you
+have your godmamma's fortune, and don't need to think of money. But papa
+and I have to think of it, and after all we're making a little, a very
+little, out of Boarzell--just enough to keep up the Village Institute.
+As time goes on, and Backfield gets richer and more ambitious, we shall
+sell larger pieces at higher rates, and then we'll be able to repair
+those wretched cottages at Socknersh, and do a lot more besides."
+
+"I think it would be better if you gave up the Institute and let the
+cottages tumble down. It's no good trying to raise the people if you
+leave a man like Backfield loose among them."
+
+"I think you exaggerate his importance, and fail to realise that of the
+improvements we are making in Peasmarsh. I can't help thinking, as most
+of the people round here think, that Backfield will, as they call it,
+'bust himself' over the Moor. After all he's not educated, and an
+uneducated man is hampered even in the least intellectual undertakings."
+
+"I do not agree with you, papa."
+
+Anne turned away from her father and brother, and walked towards the
+window. She disliked arguing, she thought it undignified. She was a tall
+woman, about twenty-eight years old, severely yet rather imposingly
+dressed, with a clear complexion, grey eyes, and a nose which was called
+by her friends aquiline, by her enemies hooked. She despised the Squire
+in his truck with Odiam, yet she was too fair-minded not to see the
+considerations that weighed him. And even she, as she gazed from the
+window, at the southward heap of Boarzell--stony, gorsy,
+heather-shagged, and fir-crowned--could not withhold a certain
+admiration from the man who expected of his own arm and tool to subdue
+it.
+
+
+§ 4.
+
+The Crimean War had meant the stoppage for a time of Russian grain
+supplies, and Reuben had taken every advantage of this. He had some
+forty acres under grain cultivation, mostly oats, but also some good
+kinds of wheat and barley. In rotation with these were peas and clover,
+turnips and mangolds. He also had twenty acres of hops--the rest was
+pasture for his neat Dutch and Jersey cows, which, with the orchard and
+poultry yard, were still the most profitable if not the most glorious of
+his exploits. The bull had not proved so splendid an investment as he
+had hoped; the farmers of the district could not afford big hiring fees,
+and at present his space was too limited for extensive breeding of his
+own stock. However, he exhibited Alfriston King at Lewes Agricultural
+Show, and won a first prize for him. The next year he sold him to a big
+cattle breeder down Horeham way, and bought a cheaper but more
+serviceable animal for his own business.
+
+His sons were now growing up--Albert was nearly eighteen, and Peter,
+though a year younger, looked a full-grown man, with his immense build
+and dark hairy skin. Pete was still the most satisfactory of Reuben's
+children, he had a huge and glad capacity for work, and took a real
+interest in Odiam's progress, though it was not his life, as it was his
+father's. It was strange, Reuben thought, that none of the other boys
+seemed to have a glimmer of enthusiasm. Though they had grown up under
+the shadow of Boarzell, and from their earliest childhood taken part in
+the struggle, they seemed still to think more about the ordinary things
+of young men's lives than the great victory before them. It was
+disappointing. Of course one expected it of girls, but Reuben's heart
+ached a little because the men children on whom he had set such hope and
+store cared so little about what was life itself to him. It is true
+that Robert worked well, nearly as well as Pete, but that was only
+because he was of a docile, tractable nature. He did not share his
+father's dreams--Boarzell to him was only a piece of waste ground with
+some trees on it.
+
+As for Albert and Richard, they did not even work well, and they
+grumbled and shirked as much as they dared. They had ambitions, but so
+utterly at variance with Odiam's as to be worse than none. Albert wanted
+to be a poet and Richard to be a gentleman.
+
+What there was in either Reuben or Naomi to make a poet of their eldest
+son would be hard to say. Perhaps it was the glow of their young love,
+so golden and romantic during the first year of their marriage. If so,
+there was something of bitter irony in this survival and transmutation
+of it. Odiam was no place for poets, and Reuben tried by every means in
+his power to knock the poetry out of Albert. It was not the actual
+poetry he objected to so much as the vices which went with
+it--forgetfulness, unpracticalness, negligence. Albert would sometimes
+lose quite half an hour's work by falling into a dream, he also played
+truant on occasions, and would disappear for hours, indeed now and then
+for a day or more, wandering in the fields and spinneys, tasting the
+sharp sweetness of the dawn and the earth-flavoured sleep of the night.
+
+For though he did not care for Odiam he loved the country round it, and
+made a wonderland and a dreamland of it. He did not see in Boarzell
+Robert's tree-capped waste, though neither did he see his father's enemy
+and heart's delight. He saw instead a kind of enchanted ground, full of
+mysteries of sun and moon, full of secrets that were sometimes
+beautiful, sometimes terrifying. It seemed to have a soul and a voice, a
+low voice, hoarse yet sweet; and its soul was not the soul of a man or
+of a beast, but the soul of a fetch, some country sprite, that clumped,
+and yet could skip ... he used to feel it skipping with him in the
+evening wind when the dusk made the heather misty round his knees ...
+but he knew that it danced heavy-footed round the farm at night,
+clumping, clumping, like a clod.
+
+Reuben had no sympathy with these fancies when they took his son out of
+hard-working common sense into idle-handed, wander-footed dreams, or
+when perhaps he found them scribbled on the back of his corn accounts.
+He did not spare the rod, but Albert had all the rather futile obstinacy
+of weak-willed people, and could be neither persuaded nor frightened out
+of his dreams.
+
+However, though he was a great trouble to his father, he was not so
+irritating as Richard. He had the advantage that one could lay hands on
+him and vent one's fury in blows, but Richard had an extraordinary knack
+of keeping just on the safe side of vengeance. For one thing he was the
+best educated of all Reuben's children, and the result of education had
+been not so much to fill his mind as to sharpen his wits to a formidable
+extent. For another, he loathed to be beaten, and used all his ingenuity
+to avoid it. Reuben could flog Albert for going off to the Moor when he
+was told to clean out the pigsties, but he could not flog Richard for
+being sick at his first spadeful. As a matter of fact he did actually
+perpetrate this cruelty when Richard's squeamishness caused him any
+gross inconvenience, but there was no denying that the boy was on the
+whole successful in avoiding his dues.
+
+Richard had been the brightest light in the Misses Harmans' school. His
+teachers had often praised him, and on one occasion suggested in their
+ignorance that he should take up a more intellectual trade than farming.
+Then when the Curate-in-Charge had inspected the school he had been
+struck by Richard's clever, thoughtful answers, and had, for some months
+after his leaving, lent him books. Reuben on discovering this, had gone
+over at once to the parsonage, and with all the respect due to a
+Minister of the Established Church, had informed Mr. Munk that he didn't
+want no nonsense put into his boy's head, and spades and spuds were for
+Richard's hands, not books.
+
+"I'm going to mäake a farmer of un, your reverence."
+
+"But he says he doesn't want to be a farmer."
+
+"That's why I've got to _mäake_ un one, surelye."
+
+
+§ 5.
+
+Reuben had sold Alfriston King for two hundred pounds, and this new
+capital made possible another enterprise--he bought twenty head of
+sheep. For some time he had considered the advantages of keeping sheep.
+It was quite likely that his new land on Boarzell would be mostly
+pasture, at all events for some time to come, and sheep, properly
+managed, ought to be a good source of revenue as well as a hall-mark of
+progress. He did not want Odiam to be a farm of one idea; his father had
+kept it ambitionlessly to grass, but Reuben saw grain-growing,
+dairy-keeping, cattle-breeding, sheep-rearing, hops, and fruit, and
+poultry as branches of its greatness.
+
+He decided that the sheep should be Richard's special charge--they, at
+all events, could not make him sick; and if he was kept hard at work at
+something definite and important it would clear his mind of gentility
+nonsense. Reuben also had rather a pathetic hope that it might stir up
+his ambition.
+
+Richard grumbled of course, but discreetly. His brothers were inclined
+to envy him--Albert saw more romance and freedom in keeping sheep than
+in digging roots or cleaning stables, Pete was jealous of an honour the
+recipient did not appreciate, Robert and Jemmy would have liked a new
+interest in their humdrum lives. Richard was initiated into the
+mysteries of his art by a superannuated shepherd from Doozes, only too
+glad of a little ill-paid casual labour.
+
+None of the Backfield boys was ever paid a penny of wages. Reuben's idea
+in employing them was to save money, besides he feared that his young
+men with full pockets might grow independent. It was essential to his
+plan that he should keep them absolutely dependent on him, otherwise
+they might leave home, marry without his consent, or at best fritter
+away their--or rather his--time by running after girls or drinking at
+pubs. It is true that now and then stalwart Pete made a few shillings in
+the sparring-booth at the Fair, but Reuben could trust Pete in a way he
+could not trust the other boys, so he did not offer much objection.
+
+Pete had once given a shilling to Richard, who had bought with it a
+second-hand Latin grammar, which he kept carefully hidden under his
+pillow by night, and in his pocket by day. He had an idea that the
+mastery of its obscurities would give him a key to freedom, but he had
+had so far little opportunity of studying it, as he worked and slept
+with his brothers. Richard did not extort the same sympathy for his
+rebellion as Albert. Albert had a certain influence over Pete and Jemmy,
+which he maintained partly by a definite charm of personality, partly by
+telling them tales after they were in bed at night. They had never
+betrayed his copy of Byron, also bought with a shilling from Pete, but
+Richard dared not trust them with his Lilly. Some day he would manage to
+irritate them--show his contempt for their bearish manners, scoff at
+their talk, or otherwise insult them--and they would deliver him over,
+grammar and all, into his father's hands.
+
+His new occupation, however, gave him undreamed-of opportunities. One of
+the advantages of shepherding was that it alternated periods of
+strenuous work with others of comparative idleness. During these Richard
+would pore over his "hic, hæc, hoc," and parse and analyse on bits of
+waste paper. He learned very quickly, and was soon casting about for
+means to buy a Greek grammar. He felt that his father could not possibly
+keep him at the farm if he knew both Latin and Greek.
+
+Thus Richard lived through the feasts and fasts of the Shepherd's Year.
+In spring there were hazy, drowsy days when he sat with his book under
+the hedge--some hole close by where he could stuff it if Reuben came
+that way--now and then lifting an eye to the timid, foolish faces buried
+in the sun-stained meadow-grass. Then later came the dipping, the collie
+Havelock barking and blustering at one end of the bath, while old
+Comfort poked the animals through it with his crook, and Richard
+received them terrified and evil-smelling at the other side. He grew
+furious because his hands were all sore and blistered with the dip.
+Reuben laughed at him grossly--"Yur granny shall mäake you a complexion
+wash, surelye!"
+
+Then came the shearing, that queen of feasts. The local band of shearers
+called at Odiam for the first time, and were given an inaugural welcome.
+Richard sulked at the honour paid him as shepherd--he felt it was indeed
+a case of King among Sweepers. However, in point of fact, he enjoyed the
+actual shearing well enough. It was a warm July day, the air full of the
+scent of hayseed; the sheep came hustling and panting into the
+shearing-pens, and the shearers stripped them with songs and jokes and
+shouts of "Shear close, boys!" There was also ale in buckets, brought
+out by a girl hired for the occasion, who was stout and pretty and
+smiled at Richard. And it was good to watch the yellowish piles of
+fleece grow at one's knees, and comical to see the poor shorn sheep
+stagger up from the ground, all naked and confused, hardly knowing
+themselves, it seemed.
+
+When the shearing was done there was supper in the kitchen at Odiam,
+with huge drinks of "black ram," and sheep-shearing songs such as "Come,
+all my jolly boys," and "Here the rose-buds in June." Also the Sussex
+Whistling Song:
+
+
+     "There was an old Farmer in Sussex did dwell,
+     And he had a bad wife, as many knew well."
+
+
+But Richard did not enjoy the supper as much as the shearing, for most
+of the men over-ate themselves, and all of them over-drank. Also the
+pretty serving-girl forsook him for Albert, who on one occasion was
+actually seen to put his arm round her waist, and hold it there till a
+scowl from his father made him drop it.
+
+Then in winter came the lambing, which is the shepherd's Lent. Richard
+and the old man from Doozes kept long vigils in the lambing hut, and
+those nights and days were to young Backfield dreams of red, fuggy
+solitude, the stillness broken only by the slip of coals in the brazier,
+or the faint bleating of the ewes outside--while sometimes mad Harry's
+fiddle wept down the silences of Boarzell.
+
+Richard began to take a new interest in his flock--hitherto they had
+merely struck him as grotesque. Their pale silly eyes, their rough,
+tic-ridden fleeces, their scared repulsiveness after the dipping, their
+bewildered nakedness after the shearing, had filled him either with
+amusement or disgust; but now, when he saw them weakly lick the backs of
+their new-born lambs, while the lambs' little tails quivered, and tiny,
+entreating sounds came from their mouths, he found in them a new beauty,
+which he had found nowhere else in his short, hard life--the beauty of
+an utterly loving, tender, and helpless thing.
+
+He had his Lilly with him in the hut, for there were long hours of
+idleness as well as of anxiety, but he was careful to hide away the book
+if Reuben came to inspect; for he knew that his father would have sat
+through the empty hours in concentration and expectancy, his ears
+straining for the faintest sound. He would have thought of nothing but
+the ewes, and he looked to everyone to think of nothing else. But
+Richard studied Latin, and the old Doozes man put in plenty of light,
+easily startled sleep.
+
+
+§ 6.
+
+Towards the end of February there was a period of intense cold, and some
+heavy falls of snow. Snow was rare in that south-east corner, and all
+farm-work was to a certain extent dislocated. Reuben would have liked to
+spread blankets over his corn-fields and put shirts on his cattle.
+Adverse weather conditions never failed to stir up his inborn
+combativeness to its fiercest. His sons trembled as his brain raged with
+body-racking plans for fighting this new move of nature's. Richard was
+glad to be away from farmyard exertions, most of which struck him as
+absurd. He was now busy with the last of his lambing, the snow blew
+against the hut from the north-east, piling itself till nothing was to
+be seen from that quarter but a white lump. Inside was a crimson
+stuffiness, as the fumes of the brazier found their way slowly out of
+the little tin chimney. Sometimes before the brazier a motherless lamb
+would lie.
+
+There was a lamb there on the last evening in February, its tiny body
+and long, weak legs all rosed over with the glow. Above it Richard
+crouched, grammar in hand. There had been a lull in the snowstorm during
+the afternoon, but now once more the wind was piping and screaming over
+the fields and the whiteness heaping itself against the wall.
+
+Suddenly he heard a knock at the door, and before he could answer, it
+flew open, and the icy blast, laden with snow, rushed in, and whirled
+round the hut, fluttering the pages of Lilly's grammar and the fleece of
+the lamb.
+
+"Shut that door!" cried Richard angrily, and then realised that he was
+speaking to a lady.
+
+She had shut the door, and stood against it, a tall, rather commanding
+figure, in spite of her snow-covered garments and dishevelled hair.
+
+"Oh--ma'am!" said Richard, rising to his feet, and recognising Miss Anne
+Bardon.
+
+"I trust I'm not in the way," she said rather coldly, "but the storm is
+so violent, and the drifts are forming so fast, that I hope you will not
+mind my sheltering here."
+
+Richard was embarrassed. Her fine words disconcerted him. He had often
+watched Miss Bardon from a respectful distance, but had never spoken to
+her before.
+
+"You're welcome, ma'am," he replied awkwardly, and offered her his
+chair.
+
+She sat down and held her feet to the brazier. He noticed that her shoes
+were pulped with wet, and the water was pouring off her skirts to the
+floor. He did not dare speak, and she evidently did not want to. He felt
+the colour mounting to his face; he knew that he was dirty and unkempt,
+for he had been hours in the hut--his hands were grimed from the
+brazier, and he wore an old crumpled slop. She probably despised him.
+
+Suddenly he noticed that the wet of her garments was dropping on the
+lamb. He hastily gathered it up in his arms.
+
+"What a dear little creature!"
+
+She spoke quite graciously, and Richard felt his spirits revive.
+
+"His mother's dead, and I have to be looking after him, surelye."
+
+"Poor little thing!"
+
+She asked him a few questions about the lambing, then:
+
+"You're one of Mr. Backfield's sons, are you not?"
+
+"Yes, ma'am. I'm Richard."
+
+"I've seen you before--in church, I think. Are you your father's
+shepherd?"
+
+"Yes, ma'am."
+
+"Again I hope I am not in your way. I've been over to see the carter's
+widow at Socknersh--he died two days ago, you know, and she hasn't a
+penny to go on with. Then when I saw the storm coming I thought I would
+take a short cut home across the fields; I was caught after all--and
+here I am!"
+
+She smiled suddenly as she finished speaking. It was a sweet smile,
+rather aloof, but lighting up the whole of her face with a sudden flash
+of youth and kindness. Richard gazed at her, half fascinated, and
+mumbled lamely--"you're welcome, ma'am."
+
+She suddenly caught sight of his Latin grammar.
+
+"That's a strange thing to see in a shepherd's hand."
+
+He felt encouraged, for he had wanted her to see the difference between
+him and an ordinary shepherd, but had been too awkward to show her.
+
+"I've had it three months--I can construe a bit of Horace now."
+
+"Acquam memento rebus in arduis servare mentem," said Anne.
+
+"Onmes eodem cogimen," said Richard, and blushed.
+
+There was silence, but not of the former discouraging sort. Richard was
+even bold enough to break it:
+
+"I never knew ladies cud speak Latin."
+
+"Some can. I was educated with my brother, you know, and when we
+construed Horace I was always five or six pages ahead. What made you
+want to learn Latin?"
+
+"I want to git out o' this."
+
+"Out of your farm duties, you mean?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"But surely your father would let you adopt some other profession if he
+knew you did not like this one?"
+
+Richard shook his head.
+
+"He wants justabout all of us--we've got to push on the farm."
+
+"Yes--I know he is ambitious, but surely he doesn't want unwilling
+helpers."
+
+"Oh, he döan't mind who it is, so long as the work's done."
+
+"And don't you care about the farm?"
+
+"I, ma'am?--no. I want to be a gentleman."
+
+Anne was growing interested. This farm boy was gloriously unlike others
+of his kind that she had met.
+
+"And you think that if you learn Latin, it'll help you be a gentleman
+someday?"
+
+"Yes--and Greek, when I've adone wud the Latin."
+
+"Have you many books?"
+
+"No--only this one."
+
+"Then I must lend you some books."
+
+Richard flushed with pleasure. After all he was not acquitting himself
+so badly with this fine lady. They talked together for a few more
+minutes, the boy trying to clip his speech like hers. He noticed how
+much shorter and crisper it was than his--while he said "döan't," she
+could say "don't" twice.
+
+They were interrupted by the entrance of the Doozes shepherd,
+accompanied by a swirl of flakeless wind. The old man was astonished and
+rather scandalised to find Anne Bardon. She looked positively rakish
+sitting there in her steaming clothes, her hat over one ear, her hair in
+wisps, and her face more animated and girlish than any of his kind had
+ever seen it.
+
+Old Comfort scraped and mumbled, and fussed over the lamb, which the two
+Latinists had entirely forgotten. Then Richard, seeing himself free and
+the sky clear, offered to help her through the drifts to Flightshot. She
+let him accompany her as far as the edge of the Manor estate, where the
+going was no longer dangerous.
+
+"Your servant, ma'am," he said, as he opened the gate; and she answered
+classically:
+
+"Vale!"
+
+
+§ 7.
+
+On the whole, the most unsatisfactory of Reuben's sons was Albert.
+Richard might be more irritating, but Albert had that knack of public
+sinning which gives a certain spectacular offensiveness to the most
+trivial faults. Any trouble between Reuben and his eldest son invariably
+spread itself into the gossip of ten farms; the covert misdoings of and
+private reckonings with the other boys gave place to tempestuous
+scandals, windy stormings, in which Albert contrived to grab the general
+sympathy, and give a decorative impression of martyrdom.
+
+At the same time he tantalised Reuben with vague hints of enthusiasm,
+sometimes almost making him think that, undependable and careless as he
+was, he had in him certain germs of understanding. But these were mere
+promises that were never fulfilled. Albert would whet Reuben's hopes by
+asking him questions about the country round: Why was such and such a
+farm called Stilliand's Tower or Puddingcake? Why were there about six
+places called Iden Green within a square of twenty miles? Was there any
+story to account for the names of Mockbeggar, Golden Compasses,
+Castweasel, or Gablehook? But directly Reuben digressed from these
+general questions to the holy particulars of Odiam and Boarzell, he
+would lose his interest and at last even his attention, escaping into
+some far-wandering dream.
+
+Reuben could not understand how his sons could care so little about that
+which was all things to him. He had brought them up to his
+ambitions--they were not like Naomi, thrust into them in later,
+less-impressionable years. He had not been weak with them, and not been
+cruel--yet only Pete was at all satisfactory. However, he was not the
+man to sit down and despair before his obstacles. He made the best of
+things as they were--ground work out of his lads, since he could not
+grind enthusiasm, and trusted to the future to stir up a greater hope.
+He somehow could not believe that his boys could go through all their
+lives not caring for Odiam.
+
+Albert continued weakly and picturesquely to offend. He was now nearly
+twenty-one, and had begun to run after girls in a stupid way. Reuben,
+remembering how sternly he had deprived himself of pleasures of this
+kind, ruthlessly spoiled his son's philanderings ... but the crime he
+could not forgive, which set the keystone on his and the boy's
+antagonism, was the publication of some verses by Albert in the _Rye
+Advertiser_.
+
+To begin with, it was a Liberal paper, and though the verses were of a
+strictly non-political kind, dealing chiefly with Amelia's eyes, it
+seemed to Reuben shockingly unprincipled to defile oneself in any way
+with Radical print. But even without that the thing was criminal and
+offensive.
+
+"I wöan't have no hemmed poetry in my family!" stormed Reuben, for
+Albert had as usual stage-managed a "scene." "You've got your work to
+do, and you'll justabout do it."
+
+"But fäather, it didn't täake up any of my time, writing that poem. I
+wrote it at my breakfast one mornun two months ago----"
+
+"Yes, that's it--instead of spending twenty minnut at your breakfast,
+you spend forty. You idle away my time wud your hemmed tricks, and I
+wöan't have it, I tell you, I wöan't have it. Lord! when I wur your age,
+I wur running the whole of this farm alone--every ströak of work, I did
+it. I didn't go wasting time over my meals, and writing rubbidge fur
+low-down Gladstone päapers. Now döan't you go sassing me back, you young
+good-fur-nothing, or I'll flay you, surelye!"
+
+Albert could not help a grudging admiration of his father. Reuben could
+be angry and fling threats, and yet keep at the same time a certain
+splendour, which no violence or vulgarity could dim. The boy, in spite
+of his verses, which were execrable enough, had a poet's eye for the
+splendid, and he could not be blind to the qualities of his father's
+tyranny, even though that tyranny crushed him at times. Reuben was now
+forty-three; a trifle heavier in build, perhaps, but otherwise as fine
+and straight a man as he had been at twenty. His clear brown skin, keen
+eyes, thick coal-black hair, his height, his strength, his dauntless
+spirit, could not fail to impress one in whom the sense of life and
+beauty was developing. Albert even once began a poem to his father:
+
+
+     "You march across the mangold field,
+     And all our limbs do shake...."
+
+
+But somehow found the subject more difficult to grapple than the
+fascinations of Amelia.
+
+With Richard things were different. He despised Reuben as bestial, and
+sometimes jeopardised his skin by nearly showing his contempt. He now
+had a peculiar friendship with Anne Bardon. They had met accidentally a
+second time, and deliberately half a dozen more. In Richard Anne had
+made a discovery--he appealed to her imagination, which ran on severe
+lines. She sympathised with his ambition to break free from the grind
+and grossness of Odiam, and resolved to help him as much as she could.
+She lent him books, and guided him with her superior knowledge and
+education.
+
+Their meetings were secret, from her family as well as his. But they
+were dignified--there was no scurrying like rabbits. Richard's work kept
+him mostly on the Flightshot borders of Odiam, and often the grave Anne
+would walk down to the hedge, and help him construe Tacitus or parse
+from Ovid. There was an old tree by the boundary fence, in the hollow of
+which she put new books for him to find, and into which he would return
+those he had finished. She was very careful to maintain the right
+attitude towards him; he was always her humble servant, he never forgot
+to call her "ma'am."
+
+But the disciple of Anne Bardon could aspire to be master among other
+men. Richard began to startle and amuse his family by strange new ways.
+He took to washing his neck every morning, and neatly combed his hair.
+He cut up an old shirt into pocket-handkerchiefs. He began to model his
+speech on Miss Bardon's--clipping it, and purging it ridiculously.
+Reuben would roar with laughter.
+
+"'Pray am I to remove this dirt?'--Did you ever hear such präaperness
+and denticalness?--all short and soft lik the Squire himself. You wash
+out all that mucky sharn, my lad, if that's wot you mean."
+
+
+§ 8.
+
+Robert Backfield was a member of Peasmarsh choir. He had a good, ringing
+bass voice, which had attracted the clerk's notice, and though Reuben
+disapproved of his son's having any interests outside Odiam, he realised
+that as a good Tory he ought to support the Church--especially as the
+hours of the practices did not clash with Robert's more important
+engagements.
+
+Peasmarsh choir consisted of about eighteen boys and girls, with an
+accompaniment of cornets, flutes, and a bass viol--the last played by an
+immensely aged drover from Coldblow, who, having only three fingers on
+his left hand, had to compromise, not always tunefully, with the score.
+The singing was erratic. Eighteen fresh young voices could not fail to
+give a certain pleasure, but various members had idiosyncrasies which
+did not make for the common weal--such as young Ditch, who never knew
+till he had begun to sing whether his voice would be bass or alto, all
+intermediary pitches being somehow unattainable--or Rosie Hubble from
+Barline, who was always four bars behind the rest--or even young Robert
+himself, who in crises of enthusiasm was wont to sing so loud that his
+voice drowned everyone else's, or in a wild game of follow-my-leader led
+the whole anthem to destruction.
+
+Robert loved these choir practices and church singings. Though he never
+complained of his hard work, he was unconsciously glad of a change from
+the materialism of Odiam. The psalms with their outbreathings of a
+clearer life did much to purge even his uncultured soul of its
+muddlings, the hymns with their sentimental farawayness opened views
+into which he would gaze enchanted as into a promised land. He would
+come in tired and throbbing from the fields, scrape as much mud as
+possible off his boots, put on his Sunday coat, and tramp through the
+dusk to the clerk's house ... the little golden window gleaming to him
+across Peasmarsh street and pond was the foretaste of the evening's
+sweetness.
+
+The practices were held in the clerk's kitchen, into which the
+choristers would crush and huddle. On full attendance nights all elbows
+touched, and occasionally old Spodgram's bow would be jolted out of his
+hand, or someone would complain that Leacher was blowing his trumpet
+down his neck. Afterwards the choristers would wander home in clusters
+through the fields; the clusters generally split into small groups, and
+then the groups into couples. The couples would scatter widely, and vex
+their homes with late returnings.
+
+Robert was first of all part of a cluster which included young Coalbran
+from Doozes, Tom Sheane from Dinglesden, the two Morfees from Edzell,
+Emily Ditch, and Bessie Lamb from Eggs Hole. Then in time the company
+reduced itself to Robert, Emily, and Bessie--and one wonderful night he
+found himself with Bessie alone. How they had chosen each other he could
+not say. All he knew was that for sometime she had become woven with the
+music into his thoughts. She was a poor labourer's daughter, living in
+a crumbled, rickety cottage on Eggs Hole Farm, helping her mother look
+after eight young children. She was only seventeen herself, sturdy yet
+soft, with a mass of hay-coloured hair, and rather a broad face with
+wistful eyes. Robert thought she was beautiful--but Robert thought that
+old Spodgram's playing and the choir's singing were beautiful.
+
+Though they were technically a Couple, they never spoke of love. They
+never even kissed or held each other's hands, however tenderly the
+velvet darkness called. He told her about his work at Odiam--about the
+little calf that was born that day, or the trouble he had had, patching
+the rent in the pigsty, or how the poultry had not taken well to their
+new food, but preferred something with more sharps in it. She in her
+turn would tell him how she had washed little Georgie's shirt--taking
+advantage of a warm day when he could run about naked--how her mother
+had lamentable hard pains all down her back, how her father had got
+drunk at the harvest supper and tried to beat her.
+
+Sometimes they looked in the hedges for birds' nests, or watched the
+rabbits skipping in the dusk. They would gape up at the stars together
+and call the constellations by names of their own--Orion was "the gurt
+tree," and Cassiopeia was "the sheep trough," and Pegasus was "the
+square meadow."
+
+It was all very wonderful and sweet to Robert, and when at last he crept
+under the sheets in the apple-smelling garret he would dream of him and
+Bessie wandering in the Peasmarsh fields--or sometimes in those starry
+meadows where the hedges shone and twinkled with the fruit of
+constellations, and Charles drove his waggon along a golden road, and
+sheep ate from a flickering trough under a great tree of lamps.
+
+
+§ 9.
+
+Bessie tinted the world for Robert like a sunrise. All through the day
+he carried memories of lightless woods, of fields hushed in the swale,
+of the smudge of her old purple cotton beside him--of, perhaps, some dim
+divine moment when his hand had touched hers hanging at her side.
+
+Then winter came, with carol-singing, and the choristers tramped round,
+lantern-led, from farm to farm. There in the fluttering light outside
+Kitchenhour, Old Turk, Ellenwhorne, or Edzell, Robert would watch
+Bessie's chicory-flower eyes under her hood, while the steam of their
+breath mingled in the frosty air, and they drooped their heads together,
+singing to each other, only to each other, "Good King Wenceslas," "As
+Joseph was a-walking," or "In the Fields with their Flocks."
+
+As they were both simple souls, their love only made the words more
+real. Sometimes it seemed almost as if they could see up in the white
+glistering field behind the barn, the manger with the baby in it, the
+mother watching near, and the ox and the ass standing meekly beside them
+in the straw. Bessie said she felt sure that the shepherds watched their
+flocks by night in the little old meadow at the corner of Totease ...
+she once thought she had heard them singing. But she would not go and
+look.
+
+As the year climbed up again into spring, a tender pity for Bessie
+mingled with Robert's love. It was not the pity which begets love, but
+the sweeter kind which is begotten of it. Robert forgot all about his
+own hard life, the monotonous ruthless grind of work, the absence of all
+softness, homeliness, or sympathy, the denial of all gaiety and sport.
+He thought only of Bessie's troubles, and would have given the world to
+lighten them. He longed to give her some little treat, or a present.
+But he had no money. For the first time he inwardly rebelled against the
+system which kept him penniless. None of the boys had any money, except
+Pete on Fair days--not even Albert, for the _Rye Advertiser_ did not pay
+its poets. For the first time Robert saw this as unjust.
+
+March blew some warm twilights to Peasmarsh, and the choristers began
+their summer lingering. Bessie and Robert often took the longer way home
+by Ellenwhorne--he would not leave her now till they were at her cottage
+door, and often he would run home hare-footed from Eggs Hole, afraid
+that he might be shut out of Odiam, and perhaps his precious comradeship
+discovered and put under the tyrant's ban.
+
+Then came an evening in April, when the air smelled of primroses and
+young leaves. The choir practice was early, and rifts of sunshine sloped
+up the clerk's kitchen, linking in one golden slant Robert's dark
+healthy face just under the ceiling, Bessie's shoulders pressed against
+his arm, the frail old hands of Joe Hearsfield on his flute, and the
+warm plum-brown of the bass viol close to the floor. To Robert it was
+all a dream of holiness and harmony. Old Spodgram confined himself
+almost entirely to two notes, Miss Hubble insisted on her four bars of
+arrears, young Ditch extemporised an alto of surprising reediness, and
+Robert bellowed the last lines of the last verse just as the other
+choristers were loudly taking in breath preparatory to line three--but
+the whole thing was to him a foretaste of Paradise and the angels
+singing ever world without end.
+
+When the practice was over it was still light, and Robert and Bessie
+turned inevitably along the little bostal that trickles through the
+fields towards Ramstile. As usual they did not speak, but in each glowed
+the thought that they had a full two hours to live through together in
+the mystery of these sorrowless fields.
+
+The sun set as they came to Ellenwhorne. They stood and watched it dip
+behind the little cluster of roofs and oast-houses in the west. The
+turrets of the oasts stood out black against the crimson, then suddenly
+they purpled, faded into their background of night-washed cloud.
+
+The fields were very dark in their low corners, only their high sweeps
+shimmered in the ghostly lemon glow. Out of the rabbit-warrens along the
+hedges, from the rims of the woods, ran the rabbits to scuttle and play.
+Bessie and Robert saw the bob of their white tails through the dusk, and
+now and then a little long-eared shape.
+
+The boy and girl were still silent. But in the consciousness each had of
+the other, kindled and spread a strange dear poignancy. They walked side
+by side through the dusk, now faintly cold. Dew began to tremble and
+shine on the grass, to pearl the brambles and glimmer on the twigs.
+
+Robert looked sideways at Bessie. She was colourless in the dark, or
+rather coloured all over with the same soft grey, which gathered up into
+itself the purple of her gown and the pale web of her hair. In her eyes
+was a quiver of starlight.
+
+Their feet splashed on the soaking grass, and suddenly Bessie stopped
+and lifted her shoe:
+
+"It's justabout wet, Robby."
+
+He looked.
+
+"So it be--I shudn't have brought you through all this damp grass. We
+shud have gone by the lane, I reckon."
+
+"Oh, no," she breathed, and her voice and the half-seen glimmer of her
+eyes troubled him strangely.
+
+"Lookee, I'll carry you--you mustn't git wet."
+
+She opened her lips to protest, but the sound died on them, for he
+stooped and swept her up in his arms. She slipped her hand to his neck
+to steady herself, and they went forward again towards the south.
+
+Bessie was a sturdily built little person, but the weight of her was a
+rich delight, and if his arms strained, they strained with tenderness as
+well as with effort. Under them her frock crushed and gave out a
+fragrance of crumpled cotton, her hand was warm against his neck, and on
+his cheek tickled her soft hair. The shadows ran towards them from the
+corners of the field, slipping like ghosts over the grass, and one or
+two pale stars kindled before them, where the sky dropped into the
+woods.... An owl lifted his note of sadness, which wandered away over
+the fields to Ellenwhorne....
+
+Her young face bowed to his neck, and suddenly his lips crept round and
+lay against the coolness of her cheek. She did not move, and he still
+walked on, the grass splashing under his feet, the rabbits scampering
+round him, showing their little cotton-tails in the dark.
+
+Then his mouth stole downwards and groped for hers. Their lips fluttered
+together like moths. Then suddenly she put her arms round his neck, and
+strained his head to her, and kissed him and kissed him, with queer
+little sobs in her throat....
+
+He still walked on through the deepening night and skipping rabbits. He
+never paused, just carried her and kissed her; and she kissed him,
+stroking his face with her hands--and all without a word.
+
+At last they reached the lane by Eggs Hole Cottage, which with
+shimmering star-washed front looked towards the south. He stopped, and
+she slid to the ground. Then suddenly the words came.
+
+"Oh, my liddle thing! My dear liddle thing ... my sweet liddle thing!"
+
+"Robby, Robby...."
+
+They kissed each other again and again, eagerly like children, but with
+the tears of men and women in their eyes.
+
+"Robby ... I love you ... I love you so!"
+
+"Oh, you liddle thing!"
+
+They were hungry ... their arms wound about each other and their faces
+pressed close, now cheek to cheek, now with lips fluttering together in
+those sweet kisses of youth which have so much of shyness in their
+passion.
+
+Suddenly a light kindled in the little house. Bessie slipped from him,
+and ran up the pathway into the dark gape of the door.
+
+
+§ 10.
+
+In August Reuben bought ten more acres of Boarzell, and the yoke
+tightened on Odiam. All had now been pressed into service, even the
+epileptic George. From morning till night feet tramped, hoofs stamped,
+wheels rolled, backs bent, arms swung. Reuben himself worked hardest of
+all, for to his actual labour must be added long tramps from one part of
+the farm to the other to superintend his sons' work. Besides, he would
+allow nothing really important to be undertaken without him. He must be
+present when the first scythe swept into the hay, when his wonderful
+horse-reaper took its first step along the side of the cornfield, he
+must himself see to the spreading of the hops over the drying furnaces
+in the oasts, or rise in the cold twinkling hour after midnight to find
+out how Buttercup was doing with her calf.
+
+Pete made an able and keen lieutenant, but the other boys were still
+disappointing. It is true that Benjamin worked well and was often smart
+enough, but he had a roving disposition, which was more dangerous than
+Albert's, since it led him invariably down to the muddy Rother banks at
+Rye, where the great ships stood in the water, filling the air with good
+smells of fish and tar. Jemmy would loaf for hours round the capstans
+and building-stocks, and the piles of muddy rope that smelled of ooze,
+and he would talk to the sailormen and fishermen about voyages to the
+Azores and the Cape or to the wild seas south of the Horn, and would
+come home prating of sails and smoke-stacks, charts and logs, and other
+vain things that had nothing to do with Odiam. Reuben remembered that
+the boy's mother came of a family of ship-builders and sailormen, and he
+would tremble for Jemmy's allegiance, and punish his truancies twice as
+severely as Albert's.
+
+Another trial to him now was that Robert seemed half-hearted. Hitherto
+he had always worked conscientiously and well, even though he had never
+been smart or particularly keen; but now he seemed to loaf and slack--he
+dawdled, slipped clear of what he could, and once he actually asked
+Reuben for wages! This was unheard-of--not one of Reuben's sons had ever
+dreamed of such a thing before.
+
+"Wages!--wot are you wanting wages fur, young räascal? You're working to
+save money, not to earn it. You wait till all yon Moor is mine, and
+Odiam's the biggest farm in Sussex, before you ask fur wages."
+
+Up till then Robert had never troubled much about money. He did not want
+to buy books like Albert and Richard, neither did he care for drinking
+in Rye pubs with fishermen like Jemmy. But now everything was changed.
+He wanted money for Bessie. He wanted to marry her, and he must have
+money for that, no matter how meanly they started; and also he wanted to
+give her treats and presents, to cheer the dullness of her life. Reuben
+had indeed been wise in trying to keep the girls away from his sons!
+
+There are no two such things for sharpening human wits as fullness of
+love and shortness of cash. Robert's brain was essentially placid and
+lumbering, but under this double spur it began to work wonders. After
+much pondering he thought of a plan. It was part of his duties to snare
+rabbits on Boarzell. Every evening he went round and inspected the
+traps, killed any little squealing prisoners that were in them, and sold
+them on market days at Rye. It was after all an easy thing to report and
+hand over the money for ten rabbits a week, while keeping the price of,
+say, three more, and any other man would have thought of it sooner.
+
+In this way he managed to do a few little things to brighten Bessie's
+grey life--and his own too, though he did not know it was grey. Every
+week he put aside a shilling or two towards the lump sum which was at
+last to make their marriage possible. It was Reuben's fight for Boarzell
+on an insignificant scale--though Robert, who had not so much iron in
+him as his father, could not resist spending money from time to time on
+unnecessary trifles that would give Bessie happiness. For one thing he
+discovered that she had never been to the Fair. She had never known the
+delights of riding on the merry-go-round, throwing balls at Aunt Sally,
+watching the shooting or the panorama. Robert resolved to take her that
+autumn, and bought her a pair of white cotton gloves in preparation for
+the day.
+
+Unluckily, however, he was not made for a career of prolonged fraud, and
+he ingloriously foundered in that sea of practical details through which
+the cunning man must steer his schemes. He fixed the number of rabbits
+to be sold at Rye as ten a week, pocketing the surplus whether it were
+one or six. This was a pretty fair average, but its invariable
+occurrence for seven or eight weeks could not fail to strike Reuben,
+whose brain was not placid and slow-moving like his son's.
+
+The one thing against the idea that Robert was swindling him was that he
+thought Robert utterly incapable of so much contrivance. However, he had
+noticed several changes in the boy of late, and he resolved to wait
+another two weeks, keeping his eyes open and his tongue still. Each week
+ten rabbits were reported sold at Rye and the money handed over to him.
+On the morning of the next market day, when Robert's cart, piled with
+eggs, fruit, vegetables, and poultry, was at the door, Reuben came out
+and inspected it.
+
+"Let's see your conies," he said briefly.
+
+It was as if someone had suddenly laid a cold hand on Robert's heart.
+He guessed that his father suspected him. His ears turned crimson, and
+his hands trembled and fumbled as he opened the back of the cart and
+took out his string of properly skinned and gutted conies.
+
+Reuben counted them--ten. Then he pushed them aside, and began rummaging
+in the cart among cabbages and bags of apples. In a second or two he had
+dragged out five more rabbits. Robert stood with hanging head, flushed
+cheeks, and quivering hands, till his father fulfilled his expectations
+by knocking him down.
+
+"So that's the way you queer me, you young villain. You steal, you hide,
+you try to bust the farm. It's luck you're even a bigger fool than you
+are scamp, and I've caught you justabout purty."
+
+He kicked Robert, and called up Richard to drive the cart over to Rye.
+
+An hour later the whole of the boy's plans, and worse still his sinews
+of war, were in the enemy's possession. Reuben ransacked his son's mind
+as easily as he ransacked his pockets and the careful obvious little
+hiding-place under his mattress where lay the twenty-two shillings of
+which he had defrauded Odiam. His love for Bessie, his degraded and
+treacherous hopes, filled the father with shame. Had he then lived so
+meanly that such mean ambitions should inspire his son?
+
+"A cowman's girl!" he groaned, "at Eggs Hole, too, where they döan't
+know plums from damsons! Marry her! I'd sooner have Albert and his
+wenches."
+
+"I love her," faltered Robert.
+
+"Well, you'll justabout have to stop loving her, that's all. I'm not
+going to have my place upset by love. Love's all very well when there's
+something wud it or when there's nothing in it. But marrying cowmen's
+girls wudout a penny in their pockets, we can't afford to kip that sort
+o' love at Odiam."
+
+"Fäather," pleaded Robert, "you loved my mother."
+
+"Yes--but she wur a well-born lady wud a fortun. D'you think I'd have
+let myself love her if she'd bin poor and a cowman's daughter? Not me,
+young feller!"
+
+"But you can't help loving, surelye."
+
+"Well, if that's wot you think, the sooner you find out that you can
+help loving the better. Did I ever hear such weak womanish slop! Help
+loving? You'll help it before you're many days older. Meantime you kip
+away from that girl, and all them hemmed choir-singings which are the
+ruin of young people."
+
+The colour rushed into Robert's cheeks, and something very unfamiliar
+and very unmanly into his eyes.
+
+"I'll----" he began desperately. But even Robert had the wit not to
+finish his sentence.
+
+
+§ 11.
+
+For the next two or three days the boy was desperate. His manhood was in
+a trap. He thought of a dozen plans for breaking free, but whichever way
+he turned the steel jaws seemed to close on him. What could he do? He
+was not strong and ruthless like his father, or he might have broken his
+way out; he was not clever like Richard, or he might have contrived it.
+Money, money--that was what lay at the bottom of his helplessness. Even
+if he had a very little he could take Bessie away and marry her, and
+then they could both find work together on a farm. But he had not a
+penny. He tried to borrow some of Pete, but Pete showed him his empty
+pockets:
+
+"If you'd asked me after the Fair, lad, I might have been able to let
+you have a shillun or two. But this time o' year, I'm as poor as you
+are."
+
+Meantime Bessie knew nothing of the darkness in her lover's life. She
+was working away sturdily and patiently at Eggs Hole, looking forward to
+meeting him on practice night, and going with him to the Fair a week
+later.
+
+Saturday came, the day which had always been Robert's Sabbath, with a
+glimpse into Paradise. He toiled miserably with the horses, Reuben's
+stern eye upon him, while hatred rose and bubbled in his heart. What
+right had his father to treat him so?--to make a prisoner and a slave of
+him? He vowed to himself he would break free; but how?--how?... A chink
+of pence in Reuben's pocket seemed like a mocking answer.
+
+In the evening the taskmaster disappeared, to gloat over his
+wheatfields. Robert knew he would not be back till supper-time; only
+Albert was working with him in the stable, and he felt that he could
+persuade his brother to hold his tongue if he disappeared for an hour or
+two.
+
+"I want to go into Peasmarsh," he said to Albert; "if Fäather comes and
+asks where I am, you can always tell him I've gone over to Grandturzel
+about that colt, can't you now?"
+
+"Reckon I can," said Albert good-naturedly, knowing that some day he
+might want his brother to do the same for him.
+
+So Robert put on his Sunday coat as usual and tramped away to the
+village. The only drawback was that from the high wheatfield Reuben
+distinctly saw him go.
+
+He reached the clerk's house a little while after the practice had
+started, and stood for a moment gazing in at the window. A terrible
+homesickness rose in his heart. Must he really be cut off from all these
+delights? There they stood, the boys and girls, his friends, singing
+"Disposer Supreme" till the rafters rang. Perhaps after to-night he
+would never sing with them again. Then his eyes fell on Bessie, and the
+hunger drove him in.
+
+He took his place beside her, but he could not fix his mind on what they
+sang. In the intervals between the anthems he was able to pour out
+instalments of his tragedy. Bessie was very brave, she lifted her eyes
+to his, and would not let them falter, but he felt her little coarse
+fingers trembling in his hand.
+
+"I döan't know what I'm to do, my dear," he mumbled; "I think the best
+thing 'ud be fur me to git work on a farm somewheres away from here, and
+then maybe in time I cud put a liddle bit of money by, and you cud join
+me."
+
+"Oh, döan't leave me, Robert."
+
+For the first time the courage dimmed in her eyes.
+
+"Wot else am I to do?" he exclaimed wretchedly; "'täun't even as if I
+cud go on seeing you here. Oh, Bessie! I can't even täake you to the
+Fair on Thursday!"
+
+"Wot does a liddle thing lik that count when it's all so miserable?"
+
+
+     "Disposer Supreme,
+       And judge of the earth,
+     Who choosest for thine
+       The weak and the poor...."
+
+
+The anthem crashed gaily into their sorrow, and grasping the hymn-sheet
+they sang together.
+
+"Wöan't you be never coming here no more?" whispered Bessie in the next
+pause.
+
+"Depends on if my fäather catches me or not."
+
+He drank in the heat and stuffiness of the little room as a man might
+drink water in a desert, not knowing when the next well should be. He
+loved it, even to the smoke-stains on the sagging rafters, to the faint
+smell of onions that pervaded it all.
+
+
+     "All honour and praise,
+       Dominion and might,
+     To God, Three in One,
+       Eternally be,
+     Who round us hath shed
+       His own marvellous light,
+     And called us from darkness
+       His glory to see."
+
+
+Young Ralph Bardon had come into the room, and stood by the door while
+the last verse was being sung. He was there to give an invitation from
+his father, for every year the Squire provided the choristers with a
+mild debauch at Flightshot. Robert had been to several of these, and
+they glittered in his memory--the laughter and games, the merry fooling,
+the grand supper table gay with candles. What a joke it had been when
+someone had given the salt to Rosie Hubble instead of the sugar to eat
+with her apple pie, and when some other wag had pulled away Ern
+Ticehurst's chair from under him....
+
+"Thank you, sir--thank you kindly."
+
+The invitation had been given, and the choristers were crowding towards
+the door. Robert followed them mechanically. It was raining hard.
+
+"Oh, dear, oh, dear," said Bessie, "I never brought my cloak."
+
+"You must put on my coat."
+
+He began taking it off when he heard someone beside them say:
+
+"I have a great-coat here."
+
+Robert turned round and faced Bardon, whose eyes rested approvingly on
+the gleaming froth of Bessie's hair.
+
+"I'm driving home in my gig with a rug and hood," continued the young
+man, "so I've no need of a great-coat as well."
+
+Robert opened his mouth to refuse. He was offended by the way the Squire
+looked at Bessie. But on second thoughts he realised that this was no
+reason for depriving her of a wrap; his own coat was too short to be
+much good. After all he could see that the acquaintance went no further.
+
+Bessie had, however, already taken the matter out of his hands by
+saying--"Thank you kindly, sir."
+
+"You see, this is my very best gown," she confided to Robert outside
+the house, "and I döan't know wot I shud do if anything happened to it."
+
+"Well, you're not to täake that coat back to Flightshot yourself. Give
+it to me when we come to Eggs Hole, and I'll see that he has it."
+
+"Very well, dear," she answered meekly.
+
+They did not speak much on that walk home. Their minds seemed dank and
+washed out as the night. Their wet fingers gripped and twined ... what
+was the use of speaking? Everything seemed hopeless--no way to turn, no
+plans to make, no friends to look to.
+
+It was quite dark when they reached Eggs Hole, and parted after kisses
+no longer as shy as they used to be.
+
+On arriving at Odiam, Robert was seized by his father and flogged within
+an inch of his life.
+
+
+§ 12.
+
+Reuben thought that he had efficiently broken his son's rebellion. All
+the next day Robert seemed utterly cowed. He was worn out by the misery
+of the last few hours, and by the blows which in the end had dulled all
+the sore activities of mind and soul into one huge physical ache. Reuben
+left him alone most of the day, smiling grimly to himself when he saw
+him. Robert spent several hours lying on the hay in the Oast barn, his
+mind as inert and bruised as his body. He had ceased to contrive or
+conjecture, even to dread.
+
+Towards evening, however, a new alarm stirred him a little. He
+remembered Bardon's coat, which he had brought back with him to Odiam.
+If he did not take it over to Flightshot, the young Squire might call
+for it at Eggs Hole. Robert was most anxious that he should not meet
+Bessie again; he could not forget the admiration in his eyes, and was
+consumed with fear and jealousy lest he should try to take his treasure
+from him, or frighten or hurt her in any way. It is true that Bardon had
+a blameless record, and also a most shy and fastidious disposition, but
+Robert was no psychologist. And if anyone had said that the Squire's
+gaze had merely been one of tolerant approval of a healthy
+country-wench, and that he would not have taken the peerless Bessie as a
+gift, and rather pitied the man who could see anything to love in that
+bursting figure and broad yokelish face--then Robert would not only have
+disbelieved him, but fought him into the bargain.
+
+So he managed with an effort to pull himself together and walk a couple
+of miles across the fields to the Manor. He was climbing the gate by
+Chapel Barn when something fell out of the pocket of the coat. Unluckily
+it fell on the far side of the gate, and Robert with many groans and
+curses forced his stiff body over again, as the object was a smart
+shagreen pocket-book, evidently of some value. It had dropped open in
+its fall, and as he picked it up, a bank-note fluttered out and eddied
+to the grass. It was a note for ten pounds, and Robert scowled as he
+replaced it in the pocket-book.
+
+It was a hemmed shame--life was crooked and unfair, in spite of the
+Disposer Supreme and Judge of the Earth. For the first time he doubted
+the general providence of things. Why should young Bardon with his easy
+manners and roving lustful eye have a pocket full of money to spend as
+he pleased, whereas he, Robert, who loved truly and wanted to marry his
+love, should not have a penny towards his desires? This was the first
+question he had ever asked of life, and its effect was to upset not only
+the little store of maxims and truisms which made his philosophy, but
+those rules of conduct which depended on them. One did not take what did
+not belong to one because in church the Curate said, "Thou shalt not
+steal," whereat the choristers would sing, "Lord have mercy upon us, and
+incline our hearts to keep this law." Nevertheless, that bank-note spent
+the last mile of the way in Robert's pocket.
+
+The act was not really so revolutionary as might at first appear, for
+up to the very steps of the Manor he kept on telling himself that he
+would put it back. But somehow he did not do so--when he handed the coat
+to the man-servant the pocket-book was still in his stable-smelling
+corduroys.
+
+Well, he had taken it now--it was too late to give it back. Besides, why
+should he not have it? Those ten pounds probably did not mean much to
+the Squire, but they meant all things to him and Bessie. He could marry
+her now. He could take her away, find work on some distant farm, and
+comfortably set up house. The possibilities of ten pounds were
+unlimited--at all events they could give him all he asked of life.
+
+In the middle of the night he woke up feeling quite differently. A sick
+and guilty horror overwhelmed him. He must have been delirious the day
+before, light-headed with pain and misery. Now he saw clearly what he
+had done. He was a thief. He had committed a terrible sin--broken one of
+the Ten Commandments. He might be caught and put in prison, anyhow, the
+God who said, "Thou shalt not" would punish him and perhaps Bessie too.
+The sweat poured down Robert's forehead and off his cheeks. The future
+seemed to be closing in upon him with iron walls. He trembled, cowered,
+and would have said, "Our Father" if he dared. Oh God, why had he done
+this dreadful thing?
+
+Luckily his body was so tired that even his kicking mind could not keep
+it awake. Suddenly, in the midst of all his remorse and terror, he fell
+asleep, and did not wake till sunshine two hours old was on his pillow.
+
+When he woke, the nightmare had passed. Instead, he saw things as he had
+seen them yesterday. He could marry Bessie--and he must do so quickly,
+seize his chance for fear it should slip from him again. This time he
+must not muddle things. Above all he must avoid coming into conflict
+with his father--he was more afraid of Reuben than of all the police in
+Sussex.
+
+
+§ 13.
+
+All that day he expected to hear that the theft had been discovered. The
+Squire would be sure to remember his pocket-book and where he had put
+it. However, time passed and nothing happened. It was possible that
+young Bardon had not yet found out his loss. But Robert felt sure that
+when, sooner or later, the money was missed, it would be traced to him.
+He must act quickly. Oh Lord! how he hated having to act quickly! It was
+now a race between him and fate--and Fate must have smiled....
+
+First of all he had to see Bessie. He could not send her a letter, for
+she could not read. He must somehow manage to go over to Eggs Hole. He
+would not tell her how he had come by the ten pounds. A pang went into
+his heart like a thorn as he realised this, but he felt that if she knew
+she might refuse to go away with him. He would marry her first, and
+confess to her afterwards. Perhaps some day they might be able to return
+the money--meantime he would say that a friend had lent it to him. The
+thought of this, his first lie to her, hurt him more than the actual
+theft.
+
+He managed to slip over to Eggs Hole that evening. Albert, whom his
+father had not treated gently on the day of the choir practice, refused
+to be his accomplice a second time, but Reuben, thinking his rebellion
+crushed, kept a less strict watch over him, and took himself off after
+supper to the Cocks, where he had weighty matters of politics and
+agriculture to discuss. Robert seized his opportunity, and ran the whole
+way to Eggs Hole--laid his plans before Bessie--and ran the whole way
+back again.
+
+Bessie was as surprised as she was delighted to hear that he should
+suddenly have found a friend to lend him ten pounds--"a feller called
+Tim Harman, lives over at Rolvenden," said Robert in a perspiring
+effort to be convincing. However, it never struck her to doubt his word,
+and she put down to emotion and hard running all that seemed strange in
+her sweetheart's manner.
+
+Bessie was quicker and more practical than Robert, and between them they
+evolved a fairly respectable scheme. Next Thursday was Fair Day, and all
+the Backfield family, including Robert, would be at the Fair. She would
+meet him in Meridiana the gipsy's tent at five--it was right on the
+outskirts of the Fair, and they could enter separately without
+attracting attention, on the pretext of having their fortunes told. Then
+they could easily steal off under cover of dusk. They would go to
+Wadhurst, where there were many farms--get work together, and marry at
+once. Meantime Robert was to divert suspicion by his blameless conduct,
+and find out as well as he could exactly what one did to get married.
+
+On arriving home he was uncertain as to whether it would be more
+diplomatic to go straight to bed or let his father on his return from
+the Cocks find him industriously working at the corn accounts. He
+decided on the latter, and was soon with many groans and lickings of his
+pencil crediting and debiting Odiam's wheat.
+
+Backfield came in about nine, by which time Robert's panting had
+completely subsided and his complexion lost the beetroot shade which
+might have betrayed his exertions. His father was in a good temper, and
+over-flowed with the Cocks' gossip--how Realf had got twenty-five pounds
+for his heifer at Battle, how the mustard had mixed in with Ticehurst's
+beans and spoilt his crop, how Dunk of Old Turk said he would vote
+Radical at the next election, and how young Squire Bardon had been
+robbed of his pocket-book, with certificates for three hundred pounds of
+Canadian stock and a ten-pound bank-note in it.
+
+Robert bit off the end of his pencil, which his father, who was looking
+the other way, luckily did not see. The boy crouched over the fire,
+trying to hide his trembling, and longing yet not daring to ask a
+hundred questions. He was glad and at the same time sorry when Reuben
+having explained to him the right and the wrong way of sowing beans, and
+enlarged on the wickedness of Radicals in general and Gladstone in
+particular, returned to Bardon's loss.
+
+"Of course he äun't sure as it wur stolen--he may have dropped it. But
+policeman döan't think that's likely."
+
+"Then policeman's bin töald about it?" came faintly from Robert.
+
+"Surelye! I wur spikking to him over at the Cocks. I said to him as I
+wur sartain as one of those lousy Workman's Institute lads of his had
+done it. That's wot comes of trying to help labourers and cowmen and
+such--there's naun lik helping the poor fur putting them above
+themselves, and in these times when everyone's fur giving 'em votes and
+eddicating them free, why----" and Reuben launched into politics again.
+
+That night was another Hell. Robert lay wakeful in a rigor of despair.
+It was all over now. The constable would be at Odiam the first thing
+next morning. Bardon was bound to remember that his pocket-book was in
+the coat he had lent Bessie. He might even think that Bessie had taken
+it! This fresh horror nearly sent Robert out of the window and over the
+fields to the Manor to confess his crime. But he was kept back by the
+glimmerings of hope which, like a summer lightning, played fitfully over
+his mental landscape. He dared not stake everything. Perhaps after all
+young Bardon could not remember where he had put the pocket-book; he
+must have forgotten where it was when he offered the coat to Bessie, and
+it was possible that he would not remember till the lovers had
+escaped--after which he might remember as much as he liked, for Robert
+never thought for a moment that he could be traced once he had left
+Peasmarsh.
+
+As a matter of fact his simplicity had done much for him in this matter.
+A man with a readier cunning would have taken out the money and restored
+the pocket-book exactly as he had found it. Robert had blunderingly
+grabbed the whole thing--and to that he owed his safety. If Bardon had
+found the pocket-book in his great-coat, he would at once have
+reconstructed the whole incident. As things were, he scarcely remembered
+lending the coat to Bessie, and it had certainly never occurred to him
+that his pocket-book was in it. Being rather a careless and
+absent-minded young man, he had no recollection of putting it there
+after some discussion with Sir Miles about his certificates. He
+generally kept it in his drawer, and thought that it must have been
+taken out of that.
+
+So no constable called at Odiam the next morning, and at breakfast the
+whole Backfield family discussed the Squire's loss, with the general tag
+of "serve him right!"
+
+The following day was market-day at Rye, and Robert and Peter were to
+take over the cart. Robert was glad of this, for he had made up his mind
+that he must change the bank-note. If he tried to change it at the Fair
+or after he had gone away with Bessie it might arouse suspicion; but no
+one would think anything of his father having so large a sum, and he
+could offer it when he went to pay the harness bill at the saddler's. As
+for the pocket-book, he threw that into the horse-pond when no one was
+looking; it was best out of the way, and the three hundred pounds' worth
+of certificates it contained meant nothing to him.
+
+Fate, having thus generously given him a start, continued to encourage
+him in the race he was running against her. On the way to Rye he fell in
+with Bertie Ditch. Bertie was going to marry a girl up at Brightling,
+and Robert found that there was nothing easier than to discuss with him
+the ways and means of marriage. From his ravings on his marriage in
+particular precious information with regard to marriage in general could
+be extracted. Oh, yes, he had heard of fellows who got married by
+licence, but banns were more genteel, and he didn't doubt but that a
+marriage by banns was altogether a better and more religious sort. He
+and Nellie, etc., etc.... Oh, he didn't think a licence cost much--two
+or three pounds, and an ordinary wedding by banns would cost quite as
+much as that; when one had paid for the choir and the ringers and the
+breakfast. Now he and Nellie ... oh, of course, if you were in a
+hurry--yes; but anyhow he thought one of the parties must live a week or
+so in the parish where the marriage was to take place.
+
+Robert, after some considering, decided to go with Bessie to Wadhurst,
+and ask the clergyman there exactly what they ought to do. He could
+easily find a room for her where she could stay till the law had been
+complied with. They would travel by the new railway. It would be rather
+alarming, but Jenny Vennal had once been to Brighton by train and said
+that the only thing against it was the dirt.
+
+So gradually the difficult future was being settled. When they came to
+Rye Robert left Peter to unpack the cart and went to pay the harness
+bill at the saddler's. Reuben had given him five pounds, but he handed
+over the terrible bank-note, which was accepted without comment.
+
+Fate still allowed him to run ahead.
+
+
+§ 14.
+
+Thursday broke clear and windy--little curls of cloud flew high against
+spreads of watery blue, and the wind raced over Boarzell, smelling of
+wet furrows. As usual everyone at Odiam was going to the Fair--even
+Mrs. Backfield, for Reuben said that he would not let the girls go
+without her. Caro and Tilly were now fifteen and sixteen, and their
+father began to have fears lest they should marry and leave him. Tilly
+especially, with her creamy complexion like Naomi's, and her little
+tip-tilted nose, freckled over the bridge, gave him anxious times. He
+sternly discouraged any of the neighbouring farmers' sons who seemed
+inclined to call; he was not going to lose his daughters just when Mrs.
+Backfield's poor health made them indispensable. It could not be long
+before his mother died--already her bouts of rheumatism were so severe
+that she was practically crippled each winter--and when she died Tilly
+and Caro must take her place.
+
+Robert had not slept at all that night. Already sleeplessness,
+excitement, and anxiety had put their mark on him, giving a certain
+waxiness to his complexion and dullness to his eyes; but this morning he
+had curled and oiled his hair and put on his best clothes, which
+diverted the family attention, and in some way accounted for his altered
+looks. Everyone at the breakfast-table wore Sunday-best, except Beatup,
+who was to mind the farm in the morning, Richard taking his place in the
+afternoon.
+
+Peter's strong frame and broad shoulders were shown off in all their
+glory by his tight blue coat--he was spoiling for the fight, every now
+and then clenching his fists under the table, and dreaming of smart cuts
+and irresistible bashes. Albert thought of the pretty girls he would
+dance with, and the one he would choose to lead away into the rustling
+solitude of Boarzell when his father was not looking ... to lie where
+the gorse flowers would scatter on their faces, and her dress smell of
+the dead heather as he clasped her to him. Richard was inclined to sneer
+at these rustic flings, and to regret the westward pastures where Greek
+syntax and Anne Bardon exalted life. Jemmy and George thought of
+nothing but the swings and merry-go-rounds; Tilly and Caro did not think
+at all, but wondered. Reuben watched their big eyes, so different from
+the boys', Tilly's very blue, Caro's very brown, and felt relieved when
+he looked from them to their grandmother, sitting stiffly in a patched
+survival of the widow's dress, her knotted hands before her on the
+table, at once too indifferent and too devoted to pity the questing
+youth of these two girls.
+
+Reuben himself, in his grey cloth suit, starched shirt, and spotted tie,
+was perhaps the most striking of the company. Albert, the only one who
+had more than a vague appreciation of his father's looks, realised how
+utterly he had beaten his sons in their young men's game before cracked
+mirrors, showing up completely the failure of their waistcoats, ties,
+and hair oils in comparison with his. As was usual on festive occasions,
+his hair was sleeked out of its accustomed roughness, lying in
+blue-black masses of extraordinary shininess and thickness on his
+temples; his tight-fitting trousers displayed his splendid legs, and
+when he spoke he showed finer teeth than any of the youngsters. Albert
+scowled as he admired, for he knew that no girl would take him if she
+had a chance of his father.
+
+Next to Reuben sat Harry--the other man whom Boarzell had made. He
+slouched forward over his plate, in terror lest the food which dropped
+continually out of his mouth should fall on the tablecloth, and he
+should be scolded. He looked at least ten years older than Reuben, for
+his face was covered with wrinkles, and there were streaks of grey in
+his hair. As he sat and ate he muttered to himself. No one took any
+notice of him, for the children had been brought up to look upon Uncle
+Harry as a sort of animal, to whom one must be kind, but with whom it
+was impossible to hold any rational conversation. Tilly was the most
+attentive to him, and would cut up his food and sometimes even put it
+in his mouth.
+
+After breakfast the whole family set out for the Moor. Odiam looked
+unnatural with its empty yard, where the discouraged Beatup mouched,
+gazing longingly and chewing a straw. But every farm round Boarzell
+looked the same, for Boarzell Fair emptied the neighbourhood as
+completely as a pilgrimage would empty a Breton hamlet--only the beasts
+and unwilling house-keepers were left behind.
+
+Though it was not yet ten o'clock the Fair was crowded. A shout greeted
+Harry's appearance with his fiddle, for it was never too early to dance.
+Blind Harry climbed on his tub, flourished his bow with many horrible
+smiles--for he loved his treats of popularity and attention--and started
+the new tune "My Decided Decision," which Caro and Tilly had taught him
+the day before. Albert immediately caught a pretty girl by the waist,
+and spun round with her on the grass while Pete vanished into the
+sparring-booth, his shoulders already out of his coat. Mrs. Backfield
+led off Caro and Tilly, looking sidelong at the dancers, to the more
+staid entertainment of the stalls. Jemmy and George ran straight to the
+merry-go-round, which now worked by steam, and hooted shrilly as it
+swung. Robert and Richard stood with their arms folded, watching the
+dancing with very different expressions on their faces.
+
+At last Robert decided to lead out Emily Ditch, thinking that it might
+lull his father's suspicions if he had any. As a matter of fact the son
+Reuben watched most closely was Albert. He looked upon Robert's affair
+as settled, for the present at any rate, and credited him--perhaps
+rightly--with so poor a cunning that an occasional glance would serve;
+whereas Albert's oiled hair, stiff shirt-front, and clean white
+handkerchief roused all his fears and carefulness together.
+
+After the dance, which did not last long, as poor Robert trod so
+heavily on his partner's feet that she soon begged him to stop, they
+strolled off round the Fair. Robert thought that if he made it a custom
+to roam among the booths his father would not notice his final
+disappearance so quickly. Lord! he was getting a hemmed crafty fellow.
+All the boys were allowed a shilling or two to spend at the Fair, so
+Robert treated Emily to a ride on the merry-go-round and five sea-sick
+minutes in the swings. Then he took Mrs. Button--Realf's married
+daughter, who had come over from Hove, to see the Panorama and a new
+attraction in the shape of a fat lady, which struck him as disgusting,
+but made her laugh tremendously.
+
+He clung to Mrs. Button for most of the morning and afternoon, for he
+felt that she drove away suspicion, and at the same time had not the
+disadvantage of Emily Ditch, who had once or twice alarmed him by
+affectionately squeezing his hand. He did not take her to the fighting
+booth, as public opinion had shut that to ladies during the years that
+had passed since Reuben had sat with Naomi in the heat and sawdust--but
+she stood behind him in the shooting gallery, whilst he impartially
+scored bulls in the mouths of Disraeli, Gladstone, and the Emperor of
+France.
+
+"Let's go and dance now," she said as he pocketed his bag of nuts.
+
+Robert wondered anxiously what time it was; already a faint blear of red
+was creeping into the cold, twinkling afternoon. The moon rose at a
+quarter to five--when he saw it come up into the sky out of Iden Wood he
+must go to Meridiana's tent. He led Mrs. Button to where the dancers
+jigged to Harry's unending tune. Reuben stood on the outskirts, among
+the spectators, watching with a stern eye Albert snatch kisses off a
+Winchelsea girl's brown neck as he swung her round. Luckily for Robert
+his brother was behaving outrageously--his misdeeds were as usual
+flagrant; just at that moment he pulled down his partner's hair, and
+they whirled about together, laughing in the coarse mesh that blinded
+them both. Reuben's mouth was a hard, straight line, and his eyes like
+steel. He scarcely noticed Robert and Mrs. Button hopping about
+together, and he did not see when half an hour later the boy stole away
+alone.
+
+Robert felt warm and glowing--he had enjoyed that dance, and wished he
+could have danced with Bessie. Perhaps he would dance with her some
+day.... Behind him, the creak of Harry's fiddle sounded plaintively,
+with every now and then a hoot from the merry-go-round. The dusk was
+falling quickly. Yellow flares sprang up from the stalls, casting a
+strange web of light and darkness over the Fair. Gideon Teazel looked
+like some carved Colossus as he stood by the roundabout, his great beard
+glowing on his breast like flames ... behind, in the smeeth of twilight,
+with the wriggling flare of the lamps, the lump of dancers did not seem
+to dance, but to writhe like some monster on the green, sending out
+tentacles, shooting up spines, emitting strange grunts and squalls--and
+at the back of it all the jig, jig, jig of Harry's tune.
+
+Further on, in the secrecy of the tents and caravans, the dusk became
+full of cowering shapes, sometimes slipping and sliding about apart,
+sometimes blotted together ... there were whispers, rustlings,
+strugglings, low cries of "döan't" and "adone do!"--the sound of kisses
+... kisses ... they followed Robert all the way to Meridiana's tent,
+where, standing in the brazier glow, and flushed besides with crimson of
+her own, stood Bessie.
+
+Their eyes met over the flames, then Robert remembered the need for
+keeping up appearances, and said he wanted his fortune told. He could
+scarcely wait while Meridiana muttered about a fair young lady and a
+heap of money coming to him in a year or two. Bessie slipped round the
+brazier and stood beside him, their hands impudently locked, each finger
+of the boy's clinging round a finger of the girl's.
+
+Meridiana's low sing-song continued:
+
+"It's a gorgeous time I see before you, dear; riches and a carriage and
+servants in livery, and a beautiful wife decked over with jewels and
+gold as bright as her hair--success and a fair name, honour and a ripe
+old age--and remember the poor gipsy woman, won't you, darling?"
+
+But he had already forgotten her. He stood with his arm round Bessie,
+stooping under the canvas roof, half choking in the brazier reek, while
+his lips came closer and closer to her face....
+
+"Hir me duval!" said Meridiana to herself, "but they've forgotten the
+poor person's child."
+
+She saw them go out of the tent, still linked and in their dream, then
+watched their dark shapes stoop against the sky.
+
+They clung together panting and trembling, for she was really his at
+last, and he was hers. Before them lay the darkness, but they would go
+into it hand in hand. She was his, and he was hers.
+
+At last they dropped their arms and stood apart. The dusk was full of
+rustlings, flittings, scuttlings, kisses....
+
+"God bless you, gorgeous lady and gentleman," cried Meridiana shrilly
+from the tent--"the dukkerin dukk tells me that you shall always wear
+satin and velvet, and have honour wherever you go."
+
+Then suddenly a heavy hand fell on Robert's shoulder, and a voice said:
+
+"Robert Backfield, I arrest you on the charge of stealing a pocket-book
+containing bonds and money from Squire Ralph Bardon of Flightshot."
+
+
+§ 15.
+
+With many tears, and the help of the kindly farmer's daughter at Eggs
+Hole, who acted as penwoman, Bessie wrote a letter to Robert in the
+Battery gaol:
+
+
+     "You must not think, my dearest lad, that anything what you have
+     done can separate you and me. We belong to each other as it seems,
+     and what you have done I forgive as you would if I had done it. I
+     shall always be yours, Robby, no matter how long you are in prison,
+     I shall be waiting, and thinking of you always. And I forgive you
+     for not telling me you had taken the money, but that a friend had
+     lent it to you, because you thought I would not have gone away with
+     you, but I would have, surely. Be brave and do not fret. I wish it
+     was all over, but we must not fret.
+
+     "From your loving
+     "BESSIE."
+
+
+The proceedings before the Rye magistrates had been brief, and ended in
+Robert's committal for trial at Quarter Sessions. He had made no attempt
+to deny his guilt--it would have been useless. He was almost dumb in the
+dock, for his soul was struck with wonder at the cruel circumstances
+which had betrayed him.
+
+He had been tracked by the number on the note--it was the first time he
+realised that notes had numbers. This particular note had been given by
+Sir Miles Bardon to his son as a part of his quarterly allowance, and
+though Ralph was far too unpractical to notice the number himself, his
+father had a habit of marking such things, and had written it down.
+
+The saddler at Rye had not heard of the theft when young Backfield
+handed over the note in payment of the harness bill. He had at the time
+remarked to his wife that old Ben seemed pretty flush with his money,
+but had thought no more of it till the matter was cried by the Town
+Crier that evening, after Robert and Pete had gone home. Then out of
+mere curiosity he had looked at the number on his note, and found it was
+the same as the Crier had announced. Early the next day he went to the
+Police Station, and as young Bardon now remembered lending his coat to
+Robert Backfield it was fairly easy to guess how the theft had been
+committed.
+
+The Squire regretted the matter profoundly, but it was too late now not
+to proceed with it, so he made it a hundred times worse by writing an
+apologetic letter to Reuben, and asking the magistrate to deal gently
+with the offender. Robert's pathetic story, and the tearful evidence of
+his sweetheart, gave him at once all the public sympathy; the blame was
+divided pretty equally between the Bardons and Backfield.
+
+Richard bitterly abused his father to Anne, as they met in the midst of
+the strife of their two families:
+
+"It's always the same, he keeps us under, and makes our lives a misery
+till we do something mad. He's only got himself to thank for this. We're
+all the slaves of his tedious farm----"
+
+"I should rather say 'abominable,'" Anne interrupted gently.
+
+"His abominable farm--he gets every bit of work out of us he can, till
+we're justabout desperate----"
+
+"Till we're absolutely desperate."
+
+"And he expects us to care for nothing but his vulgar ambitions. Oh
+Lord! I wish I was out of it!"
+
+"Perhaps you will be out of it some day."
+
+He shrugged.
+
+"How should I get free?"
+
+"Perhaps a friend might help you."
+
+He looked into her face, then suddenly crimsoned--then paled, to flush
+again:
+
+"Oh, ma'am, ma'am--if ever you cud help me get free--if ever ... oh,
+I--I'd sarve you all my life--I'd----"
+
+"Hush," she said gently--"that's still in the future--and remember not
+to say 'sarve.'"
+
+The Quarter Sessions were held early in December, and Robert's case came
+wedged between the too hopeful finances of a journeyman butcher and the
+woes of a farmer from Guldeford who had tried to drown himself and his
+little boy off the Midrips. Robert was sentenced to three years'
+imprisonment.
+
+There was nothing remarkable about the trial, and nothing to be said
+against the sentence from the point of either justice or humanity. Ten
+years ago the boy would have been transported to Van Diemen's Land. The
+Bardons took it upon themselves to be outrageously sorry, and were
+rather mystified by Reuben's contemptuous attitude towards them and
+their regrets.
+
+The evidence had been merely a repetition of that which had been given
+before the magistrate, though Bessie did not cry this time in the
+witness-box, and Robert in the dock was not dumb--on the contrary, he
+tried to explain to the Recorder what it felt like to have absolutely no
+money of one's own.
+
+Reuben was present at the trial, and sitting erect, in his good town
+clothes, drew the public glance away both from the prisoner and the
+Recorder. Feeling was against him, and when in his summing-up Mr. Reeve
+remarked on the strangeness of a young man of Backfield's age having no
+money and being compelled to work without wages, a low murmur went round
+the court, which Reuben did not seem to hear. He sat very stiffly while
+the sentence was pronounced, and afterwards refused to see his son
+before he was taken away to Lewes.
+
+"Poor feller, this 'ull be the breaking of him," said Vennal outside the
+Court-house.
+
+"No more'n he deserves. He's a hard man," said Ditch.
+
+"Thinks only of his farm and nothing of his flesh and blood," said old
+Realf.
+
+"It sarves un right," said Ginner.
+
+So it was throughout the crowd. Some said "poor man," others muttered
+"his own fault." But all words, either of pity or blame, were silenced
+when Backfield came out of the Court-house and walked through the
+people, his head high, his step firm, his back straight.
+
+
+§ 16.
+
+The next few weeks were for Reuben full of bitter, secret humiliation.
+He might show a proud face and a straight back to the world, but his
+heart was full of miserable madness. It was not so much his son's
+disgrace that afflicted him as the attitude of people towards it--the
+Bardons with their regrets and apologies, the small fry with their
+wonder and cheap blame. What filled him with rage and disgust beyond all
+else was the thought that some people imagined that Robert had disgraced
+Odiam--as if a fool like Robert, with his tinpot misdoings, had it in
+his power to disgrace a farm like Odiam! This idea maddened him at
+times, and he went to absurd lengths to show men how little he cared.
+Yet everywhere he seemed to see pity leering out of eyes, he seemed to
+see lips inaudibly forming the words: "poor fellow"--"what a blow for
+his schemes!"--"how about the farm?--now he'll lie low for a bit."
+
+This was all the worse to bear, as now, for the first time, he began
+seriously to dread a rival. The only farm in the district which could
+compete with Odiam was Grandturzel, but that had been held back by the
+indifference of its owner, old Realf. Early in the March of '65 old
+Realf died, and was succeeded by his son, Henry Realf, whom rumour spoke
+of as a promising and ambitious young man. Skill and ambition could do
+even more with Grandturzel than they could with Odiam, for the former
+had the freehold of forty acres of Boarzell. Reuben had always counted
+on being able to buy these some day from old Realf, but now he expected
+his son to cling to them. There would be two farms fighting for
+Boarzell, and Grandturzel would have the start.
+
+All the more reason, therefore, that Odiam should stand high in men's
+respect. Now, of all times, Reuben could not afford to be looked upon
+with contempt or pity. He must show everyone how little he cared about
+his family disgrace, and do everything he could to bring himself more
+prominently into the social and agricultural life of the district.
+
+For the first time since his father's death he gave suppers at Odiam;
+once more he spent money on French wines which nobody wanted to drink,
+and worked his mother and daughters to tears making puddings and pies.
+He bought a new gig--a smart turnout, with a sleek, well-bred horse
+between the shafts--and he refused to let Harry fiddle any more at Fairs
+and weddings; it was prestige rather than profit that he wanted now.
+
+In May people began to talk of a general election; the death of
+Palmerston and the defeat of Gladstone's Reform Bill made it inevitable.
+Early in June Parliament was dissolved, and Rye electors were confronted
+with the postered virtues and vices of Captain MacKinnon (Radical) and
+Colonel MacDonald (Conservative).
+
+Reuben had not hitherto had much truck with politics. He had played the
+part of a convinced and conscientious Tory, both at home and in the
+public-house; and every evening his daughter Tilly had read him the
+paper, as Naomi had used to do. But he had never done more at an
+election than record his vote, he had never openly identified himself
+with the political life of the district. Now it struck him that if he
+took a prominent part in this election it would do much to show his
+indifference to the recent catastrophe, besides giving him a certain
+standing as a politician, and thus bestowing glory and dignity on Odiam.
+
+The local Tories would be glad enough of his support, for he was
+important, if not popular, in the neighbourhood, and had always been
+known as a man who took an intelligent interest in his country's
+affairs.
+
+Not that Rye elections had ever been much concerned with national
+events. Borough had always been a bigger word than country on those
+occasions. It was the question of the Harbour rather than the Ballot
+which had sent up Captain Curteis in 1832, while later contests had
+centred round the navigation of the Brede River, the new Sluice at
+Scott's Float, or the Landgate clock. Reuben, however, cared little for
+these petty town affairs. His chief concern was the restoration of the
+tax on wheat, and he also favoured the taxing of imported malt and hops.
+He hated and dreaded Gladstone's "free breakfast table," which he felt
+would mean the ruin of agriculture in England. He would like to
+concentrate country Toryism into an organised opposition of Free Trade,
+and his wounded pride found balm in the thought of founding a local
+agricultural party of which he would be the inspirer and head.
+
+
+§ 17.
+
+Reuben began to attend the Tory candidate's meetings. Colonel MacDonald
+was not a local man, any more than Captain MacKinnon, but he had some
+property in the neighbourhood, down on the marsh by Becket's House. Like
+the other candidate, he had spent the last month or so in posting
+himself in local affairs, and came to Rye prepared, as he said, "to
+fight the election on herrings and sprats."
+
+However, at his first meeting, held at Guldeford Barn, he was surprised
+to find a strong agricultural element in the audience. He was questioned
+on his attitude towards the wheat tax and towards the enfranchisement of
+six-pound householders. The fact was that for a fortnight previously
+Reuben had been working up public opinion in the Cocks, and also in the
+London Trader, the Rye tavern he used on market-days. He had managed to
+convince the two bars that their salvation lay in taxing wheat, malt,
+and hops, and in suppressing with a heavy hand those upstarts whom
+Radical sentimentalists wanted at all costs to educate and enfranchise.
+
+Reuben could speak convincingly, and his extraordinary agricultural
+success gave weight to his words. If not liked, he was admired and
+envied. He was "a fellow who knew what he was doing," and could be
+trusted in important matters of welfare. In a word, he achieved his
+object and made himself head of an Agricultural Party, large enough to
+be of importance to either candidate.
+
+It was not long before he had overtures from Captain MacKinnon. The
+Captain had expected an easy triumph; never since it became a free
+borough had Rye sent a Tory to Parliament. Now he was surprised and a
+little alarmed to see signs of definite Tory enterprise, banded under
+one of the most important and successful farmers in the district. It is
+true that he had the Bardons on his side, but the Bardons were too
+gentlemanly to be useful. He would have given much to corrupt Reuben,
+but Flightshot, which held the only bribe that could have made him so
+much as turn his head, insisted on keeping pure. He tried to hold his
+own by appealing to the fishermen and sailors against the
+agriculturists--but as these in the past had made little fortunes by
+smuggling grain, they joined the farmers in demanding a wheat-tax.
+
+He then turned to the small householders and shop-keepers, dazzling
+them with visions of Gladstone's free breakfast table--he even invited
+the more prominent ones to an untaxed breakfast in the Town Hall;
+whereat the Colonel, at Reuben's instigation, retaliated with a
+sumptuous dinner, which he said would be within the reach of every
+farmer when a moderate wheat-tax no longer forced him to undersell his
+harvests.
+
+Rye platforms, instead of being confined to arguments on herrings and
+sprats, rang unusually with matters of national import. The free
+education of the poor was then a vital question, which Reuben and his
+party opposed with all their might. Educated labourers meant higher
+wages and a loss of that submissive temper which resulted in so many
+hours' ill-paid work. Here the Bardons waxed eloquent, but Backfield,
+helped by Ditch of Totease, who could speak quite well if put through
+his paces beforehand, drew such a picture of the ruin which would attend
+an educated democracy, that the voice of Flightshot, always too
+carefully modulated to be effective, was silenced.
+
+As usual the local printing-presses worked hard over pamphlets and
+posters, and as a Rye election was nothing if not personal, Reuben was
+soon enlightened as to the Radical opinion of him. Posters of a
+startlingly intimate and insulting nature began to appear about the
+town; a few were displayed in Peasmarsh, and some were actually found on
+the walls of his own barns.
+
+
+     "Bribed, stolen, or strayed, an Ugly Gorilla, answering to the name
+     of Ben. The animal may be distinguished by his filthy habits,
+     associates frequently with swine and like hogs, delights in rolling
+     in manure, and is often to be found in Ditches. Is remarkable for
+     his unnatural cruelty towards his own young, whom he treats with
+     shocking unkindness. The animal has likewise a propensity for
+     boasting and lies. The Gorilla's temper is dreadfully bad,
+     horribly vicious, and fearfully vindictive. A reward of Five Pounds
+     will be given by Jothan True Blue, chairman of the Poor Man's Big
+     Loaf Association, to any Blue Lamb who may find this Odious
+     Creature, as his one object while at large is to steal the Poor
+     Man's Loaf. He would also take, if he could, the Poor Man's Vote,
+     and confine the Poor Man's Children to the dirt and ignorance in
+     which he himself wallows, being unable to read or write, and was
+     once heard to ask the Cringing Colonel, his keeper, what was the
+     meaning of Tory Principle and Purity' on his election banners. We
+     too would like to know."
+
+
+Reuben tore the posters down whenever he found them, but this kind of
+attack did not humiliate him as the old pitying curiosity had done. He
+was not lowered in his own esteem. On the contrary, he enjoyed the fame
+which Radical hate conferred on him. There was no doubt about Odiam's
+importance now.
+
+The Tories were not to be beaten in invective, and posted Rye with
+enquiries after the Rabid Hybrid or Crazy Captain:
+
+
+     "The habits of this loathsome creature are so revolting that all
+     who have beheld them turn from them in horror and disgust. It is
+     afflicted with a dirty disease called Gladstone Fever, and in its
+     delirium barks horribly 'Educate! Educate!'"
+
+
+Much more was written in this strain on both sides, and Colonel
+MacDonald hired a band of youths to parade the streets singing:
+
+
+     "Conservatives, 'tis all serene--
+     MacDonald for ever! Long live the Queen!"
+
+
+or:
+
+
+     "The people of Rye now they all seem to say
+     That MacDonald's the man who will carry the sway,
+     Triumphant he'll drive old MacKinnon away--
+       For MacDonald's the man for the people!"
+
+
+Reuben did not care much for these doings; they were, he thought, a
+mere appeal to scum, and he preferred to give his mind to weightier
+things. He organised meetings in the furthest hamlets of the district,
+and managed to stir up the interest of the farmers to such a pitch that
+it soon looked as if the Tory candidate would carry all before him.
+MacKinnon could not open his mouth on the platform without shouts of:
+"Wheat at seventy shillings a quarter!" or "What's the use of a big loaf
+if we've got no money to buy it with?"
+
+The Radicals began to quake for their victory. Speakers were sent for
+from London, but could not even get a hearing, owing to the enemy's
+supplies of bad eggs. Meetings were everywhere broken up in disorder,
+and the Captain was reported to have said that the Liberal party ought
+to offer a knighthood to anyone who would poison Backfield's beer.
+
+
+§ 18.
+
+So time passed till within a week of polling day. The feeling in the
+district grew more and more tense--no prominent member of either party
+could appear in Rye streets without being insulted by somebody on the
+opposite side. Meetings were orgies of abuse and violence, but whereas
+the Radical meetings were invariably broken up in disorder by their
+opponents, interruptions at Tory meetings resulted only in the
+interrupters themselves being kicked out. For the first time it looked
+as if a Conservative would be returned for Rye, and the Colonel knew he
+owed his success to Backfield's agricultural party.
+
+Then suddenly the unexpected happened. At the end of one of Reuben's
+most successful meetings in Iden Schoolhouse, a mild sandy-haired
+person, whom nobody knew, rose up and asked meekly whether it was true
+that the Scott's Float toll-gate was on Colonel MacDonald's estate, and
+if so, what use did he make of the tolls? He was answered by being flung
+into the street, but afterwards the Conservative tenant of Loose Farm on
+the Marsh remarked to Reuben that it was "a hemmed ark'ard question."
+
+Reuben, however, absorbed by his enthusiasm for Protection and a
+restricted franchise, scarcely thought twice about the toll-gate, till
+the next day a huge poster appeared all over the district:
+
+
+                    "MACDONALD'S GATE"
+
+     "Sing ye who will of Love, or War, or Wine,
+       Of mantling Cups, Bright Eyes, or deeds of Might--
+     A theme unsung by other harps is mine--
+       I sing a Gate--a novel subject quite.
+
+     O Tolls! ye do afflict us all--a bore!
+       E'en when by Law imposed on evil slight!
+     Who has not loaded ye with curses sore
+       When in this Coat of Proof enveloped tight?
+
+     Therefore to what is Law I say 'content'--
+       But for a Private Man to raise a toll,
+     To stop the public, tax them, circumvent,
+       Moves me to passion I can scarce control,
+       Makes boil the rushing blood and thrills my very soul."
+
+
+Hitherto any verse that had been written in the controversy had been
+meant for street singing, and turned out in the less serious moments of
+politicians who certainly were not poets. But "MacDonald's Gate"
+impressed the multitude as something altogether different. The sounding
+periods and the number of capitals proclaimed it poetry of the very
+highest order, and its prominent position throughout the town soon
+resulted in the collection of excited groups all discussing the Scott's
+Float toll-gate, which nobody hitherto had thought much about.
+
+The Tories were a little disconcerted--the toll-gate did not fit into
+their campaign. Tolls had always been unpopular in the neighbourhood,
+even though Government-owned, and it was catastrophic that the enemy
+should suddenly have swooped down on the Colonel's private venture and
+rhymed it so effectively.
+
+Of course a counter-attack was made, but it had the drawback of being
+made in prose, none of the Tory pamphleteers feeling equal to meeting
+the enemy on his own ground. Also there was not very much to be said, as
+it was impossible to deny the Scott's Float toll-gate. So the writers
+confined themselves to sneering at the Radical poet's versification, and
+hinting that Captain MacKinnon had done many worse things than own a
+toll-gate, and that all the money the Colonel had from his went to the
+upkeep of his land, a statement which deceived nobody.
+
+The next day a fresh poster appeared, printed this time in flaming red
+letters:
+
+
+     "If you'd know what the Colonel is, pray travel over
+     The Sluice at Scott's Float--and then drive on to Dover--
+     You'll find yourself quickly brought up by a Gate
+     Where a Toll they will charge at no moderate rate.
+
+     Oh why is a Gate stuck across at this Spot?
+     Is the Colonel so poor or so grasping--or what?
+     'Tis that he may gain some more hundreds this way in,
+     To swell out the purse where his Thousands are laying.
+
+     Awake, oh, for shame, ye electors of Rye!
+     Let the banner of freedom float gaily on high,
+     Throw your bonds to the winds, ye Electors--for know
+     That he who'd be free must himself strike the Blow."
+
+
+Thenceforward the whole character of the election was changed. The Poor
+Man's Loaf was forgotten as completely as the wheat-tax which should
+make the farmer rich. Six-pound householders became as uninteresting as
+anybody else who had not a vote. Nobody cared a damn whether the poor
+were educated at the nation's expense or not. The conflict raged
+blindly, furiously, degradingly round the Scott's Float toll-gate.
+
+No one thought or spoke or wrote of anything else. If at meetings
+Reuben tried to introduce Protection or the Franchise, he was silenced
+even by his own party. The Scott's Float toll-gate became as important
+as the Sluice or the Brede River or the Landgate Clock had been in other
+elections, and nothing, no matter of what national importance, could
+stand against it.
+
+Reuben cursed the base trucksters who had brought it forward, and he
+cursed the scummy versifier who was its laureate--whose verses appeared
+daily on six-foot hoardings, and were sung by drunken Radicals to drown
+his speeches. No one knew who the Radical poet was, for his party kept
+him a mystery, fearful, no doubt, lest he should be bribed by the other
+side. Some said that he was a London journalist, sent down in despair by
+the Liberals at head-quarters. If so they must have congratulated
+themselves on their forlorn hope, for the tide of events changed
+completely.
+
+The worst of that toll-gate was that the Conservatives could never
+explain it away. They printed posters, they printed handbills, they
+attempted verse, they made speeches, they protested their
+disinterestedness, they even tried to represent the abomination as a
+philanthropic concern, but all their efforts failed. They quickly began
+to lose ground. It was the Conservative instead of the Liberal meetings
+that were broken up in disorder. Colonel MacDonald was howled down, and
+Reuben came home every evening his clothes spattered with rotten eggs.
+
+
+§ 19.
+
+Polling day broke gloomily on Rye Tories. The country voters were
+brought into town at the Candidates' expense, having received according
+to custom printed notices that the Colonel, or the Captain, "would
+endeavour to ensure to every elector access to the poll free from every
+sort of insult."
+
+In Rye bells were ringing and bands were playing, and the town looked
+quite strange with huge crowds surging through its grass-grown streets,
+which were, moreover, blocked with every kind of trap, gig, cart, and
+wain. About three hundred special constables had been enrolled for the
+occasion, and it was likely that they would be needed, for all the
+public-houses had been thrown open by the candidates.
+
+In the market-place, where the hustings stood, a dense throng was
+packing itself, jostling and shoving, and--Reuben saw to his dismay as
+he drove up to the London Trader--showing strong Radical tendencies.
+Several Conservative banners waved from the windows of the
+public-house--"MacDonald the Farmer's Friend"--"MacDonald and
+Protection"--"Wheat at seventy shillings a quarter"--"Ratepayers! beware
+of Radical pickpockets." These had all been prepared at the beginning of
+the contest. The Radical banners bore but one device--"The Scott's Float
+Toll-gate." It waved everywhere, and any other banner which appeared in
+the streets was immediately seized and broken, the bearer being made to
+suffer so horribly for his convictions, that soon nobody could be found
+to carry one.
+
+Every now and then the crowd would break into the latest rhymings of
+MacKinnon's poet:
+
+
+     "Who fill their pockets at Scott's Float,
+     And on their private Toll-gate doat,
+     While o'er our hard-earned pence they gloat?
+           The Tories."
+
+
+Reuben felt his heart sink, and his beer nearly choked him. Soon a vast
+struggle was raging round the hustings, as the voters fought their way
+through fists and sticks, often emerging--especially the
+Conservatives--with their clothes half torn off their backs and quite
+ruined by garbage. The special constables were useless, for their own
+feelings betrayed them, and unluckily even in their ranks the Radicals
+predominated. The state of the poll at ten-thirty was twenty-seven for
+Captain MacKinnon and only eleven for Colonel MacDonald.
+
+Speeches were made from time to time, but were lost in the general
+hubbub. One of the local butchers had delivered over his entire stock of
+entrails, skin and hoof cuttings, and old blood-puddings to the Radical
+cause, and Conservative Speakers were soon a sight to behold. When
+Reuben stood up his voice was drowned in shouts of "Ben the Gorilla!
+Stop the dirty animal!" while a bleeding sheep's head caught him full on
+the chest. Too proud to take his dismissal from the mob, he spoke
+unheard for five minutes, at the end of which he was silenced by half a
+brick, which hit his temple and stunned him sufficiently for Ditch and
+MacDonald to pull him away.
+
+At twelve the poll stood at a hundred and one for the Captain and
+sixty-five for the Colonel. The Tories were getting desperate--they
+threw into the crowd handbills wet from the printers, declaring that
+MacDonald's toll-gate should not stand an hour after he was elected. But
+the crowd only sang derisively:
+
+
+     "Who fill their pockets at Scott's Float,
+     And on their private Toll-gate doat,
+     While o'er our hard-earned pence they gloat?
+           The Tories."
+
+
+At three o'clock the poll stood at two hundred and twelve and
+eighty-three. Then came the close--Captain MacKinnon elected by a
+majority of sixty-nine.
+
+Loud cheers rose up from the struggling, drunken mass in the
+market-place.
+
+"Hurray for MacKinnon!--Down with the Tollkeepers!"
+
+In the Court-house the beaten Conservatives heard the shouts and turned
+fiercely--on one another.
+
+"It's that hemmed gëate of yourn--lost everything!" cried Reuben.
+
+"By God, it's not my gate--it's your wheat."
+
+"My wheat!--wot d'you mean, sir?"
+
+"I mean that, thanks to you, we wasted about three weeks talking to
+those damned fools about a matter they don't care twopence about. You
+worked up a false interest, and the result is, that when anything that
+really touches them is brought forward, the whole campaign drops to
+pieces."
+
+"It's unaccountable easy to put the blame on me, when it's your hemmed
+gëate----"
+
+"I tell you, sir, it's your damned wheat----"
+
+"And your damned son!" furiously cried Ditch of Totease.
+
+"My son!"--Reuben swung round on the men who had once rallied under his
+leadership, but now stood scowling at him and muttering to themselves.
+"My son!"
+
+"Yes," said Coalbran of Doozes, "you know as well as us as how it wur
+your Albert wrote them verses about the gëate, wot have bust up
+everything."
+
+"You're a liar!" cried Reuben.
+
+"You dare miscall me," and the two men, mad with private hate and public
+humiliation, flew at each other's throats.
+
+Ditch and the Colonel pulled them apart.
+
+"Hang it all, Coalbran, we don't know it's his son. But we do know it's
+his wheat. Good God, sir--if only you'd kept your confounded self out of
+politics----"
+
+Reuben did not wait to hear more. He pushed his way out of the room and
+downstairs to where his trap was waiting. The crowd surged round him as
+he climbed into it. An egg burst against his ear, and the filthy yolk
+ran down his cheek to mingle with the spatter of blood on his neck and
+shirt-front.
+
+"Ben the Gorilla! Ben the Gorilla! Give him tar and feathers!"
+
+Reuben struck his horse with the whip, and the animal sprang forward. A
+man who had been trying to climb into the gig, fell off, and was nearly
+trampled on. Reuben flogged his way through the pack, a shower of
+missiles hurtling round him, while his ears burned with the abuse which
+had once been his badge of pride, but now in the hour of defeat smote
+him with a sick sense of impotence and degradation. "Ben the Gorilla!
+Ben the Gorilla!"
+
+He was free of them at last, galloping down the Landgate hill towards
+Rye Foreign.
+
+"I'm hemmed," he muttered, grinding his teeth, "if I ever touch their
+dirty politics again--from this day forward--so help me God!"
+
+
+§ 20.
+
+On reaching Odiam, Reuben did not go into the kitchen where his children
+were gathered, expectant and curious. He went straight upstairs. Caro,
+who caught a glimpse of him in the passage, ran away in terror--he
+looked so dreadful, his face all dabbled with blood and yolk of egg.
+
+He went up to Albert's room. He had furiously given Ditch the lie in the
+Courthouse, but he had never trusted his son, and the accusation had
+poured over him a flood of shame which could be quelled only by its
+proof or its refutation. If Albert's guilt were proved--which Reuben,
+now bathing in this luminous shame, saw was quite probable--then he knew
+what to do to clean the smirch off Odiam; if, on the other hand, his
+innocence were established, then he would punish those swine who threw
+mud at him and his farm.
+
+Albert slept in one of the attics with Jemmy and Pete. Reuben had no
+intention of meeting him till he had something to confront him with, for
+he was pretty sure that the boy would lie to him. He began turning the
+room topsy-turvy, and had soon found in a drawer a heap of papers
+scrawled over with writing. It was unlucky that he could not read, for
+he could not even tell whether the handwriting were Albert's--these
+might be some letters he had received. Suddenly, however, a word caught
+his eye which he had seen a hundred times on hoardings, letters, bills,
+and other documents--MacKinnon. He could trace it out quite clearly.
+What had Albert to do with MacKinnon? Reuben clenched the papers
+together in his fist, and went downstairs to the kitchen.
+
+Albert was not there. All the better! Reuben strode up to Tilly, unaware
+of how terrible he looked with the traces of his battle not yet washed
+from his face, and banged the papers down in front of her.
+
+"Wot's all this?"
+
+Tilly was frightened.
+
+"It's--it's only poetry, fäather."
+
+"Read me some of it."
+
+"It's only Albert's."
+
+"That's why I want to hear wot it's about. You read it."
+
+Tilly began to read in a faltering voice:
+
+
+     "If you'd know what the Colonel is, pray travel over
+     The Sluice at Scott's Float--and then drive on to Dover--
+     You'll find yourself quickly brought up by a Gate...."
+
+
+Reuben struck his fist on the table, and she dropped the paper with a
+little cry.
+
+"It's true, then! Oh Lard! it's true!"
+
+"Wot, fäather?"
+
+"Them's Albert's verses right enough?"
+
+"Yes, fäather, but----"
+
+"Fetch him here."
+
+Tilly was more frightened than ever. She had never heard anything about
+the great Gate controversy, and could not understand why Reuben was so
+angry with Albert. The verses seemed to her quite harmless, they were
+not even about love. However, she could not disobey her father, so she
+ran and fetched Albert out of the corn-chamber, begging him to be
+careful what he said, "fur fäather's unaccountable vrothered to-night
+about something."
+
+"How did the Election go?"
+
+"I never asked."
+
+"Oh, you gals! Well, I expect that's wot's the matter. The Liberal's got
+in."
+
+"But why should that mäake fäather angry wud you?"
+
+Albert stuck out his chest and looked important, as he invariably did
+before an encounter with Reuben, in spite of the fact that these always
+ended most ingloriously as far as he was concerned.
+
+"He's bin reading some poetry of yours, Bertie," continued his sister,
+"and he's justabout dreadful, all his clöathes tore about, and a nasty
+mess of blood and yaller stuff on his face."
+
+Albert suddenly began to look uneasy.
+
+"Oh Lard! perhaps I'd better bolt fur it.--No, I'll square him out.
+You'll stand by me, Tilly?"
+
+"Yes, but döan't mäake him angry--he might beat you."
+
+Bertie's pride was wounded by this suggestion, which was, however,
+soundly based on precedent, and he entered the kitchen with something
+very like a swagger.
+
+Reuben was standing by the table, erect, and somehow dignified in spite
+of the mess he was in.
+
+"Well," he said slowly, "well--MacKinnon's hound!"
+
+Albert saw the heap of scribbled paper on the table, and blenched.
+
+Reuben walked up to him, took him by the shoulders, and shook him as a
+dog might shake a rabbit.
+
+"You hemmed, scummy, lousy Radical!"
+
+Albert could not speak, for he felt as if his brains and teeth were
+rattling about inside his head. The rest of the family hunched together
+by the door, the boys gaping idiotically, the girls in tears.
+
+"Well, wot've you got to say fur yourself before I kick you round the
+table?"
+
+"I'll write wot I please, surelye," growled Albert, trying rather
+unsuccessfully to resume his swagger.
+
+"Oh, will you! Well, there'll be naun to prevent you when you're out of
+this house--and out you go to-night; I'll have no Radical hogs on my
+farm. I'm shut of you!"
+
+"Fäather!" cried Tilly.
+
+"Hold your tongue! Does anyone here think I'm going to have a Radical
+fur my son?--and a tedious lying traitor, too, wot helps his fäather's
+enemies, and busts up the purtiest election that wur ever fought at Rye.
+Do you say you didn't write those lousy verses wot have lost us
+everything?"
+
+"No--I döan't say it. I did write 'em. But it's all your fault that I
+did--so you've no right to miscall me."
+
+"My fault!"--Reuben's jaw dropped as he faced the upstart.
+
+"Yes. You've allus treated me lik a dog, and laughed at my writing and
+all I wanted to do. Then chaps came along as didn't laugh, and promised
+me all sorts o' things if I'd write fur them."
+
+"Wot sort o' things?"
+
+"Mr. Hedges, the Liberal agent, promised that if I'd write fur him, he'd
+git me work on a London paper, and I could mäake my fortune and be free
+of all this."
+
+"All wot?"
+
+"Odiam!" shrieked Albert.
+
+Reuben faced him with straight lips and dilated nostrils; the boy was
+now quivering with passion, hatred seemed to have purged him of terror.
+
+"Yes--Odiam!" he continued, clenching his fists--"that blasted farm of
+yourn wot's the curse of us all. Here we're made to work, and never
+given a penny fur our labour--we're treated worse than the lowest
+farm-hands, like dogs, we are. Robert stole money to git away, and can
+you wonder that when I see my chance I should täake it. I'm no
+Radical--I döan't care one way or t'other--but when the Radicals offered
+me money to write verses fur 'em, I wurn't going to say 'no.' They
+promised to mäake my fortun, and save me from you and your old farm,
+which I wish was in hell."
+
+"Stop your ranting and tell me how the hogs got you."
+
+"I met Mr. Hedges at the pub----"
+
+"Wur it you or him wot thought of the Scott's Float Gëate?"
+
+"I heard of it from old Pitcher down at Loose, and I töald Hedges. I
+justabout----"
+
+A terrific blow from Reuben cut him short.
+
+
+§ 21.
+
+The rest of the family had gone to bed, though scarcely to sleep. Reuben
+had washed the blood and filth off his face, and had stripped to his
+shirt, but he felt too sick and restless to lie down. He sat at his
+window, staring out into the dark gulf of the night.
+
+His skin burned, his pulses throbbed, in his head was a buzzing and
+humming.
+
+"Wished my farm wur in hell, dud he? He cursed my farm, dud he? The
+young whelp!"
+
+He peered out into the blackness. Was that something he saw moving
+against the sky on the shoulder of Boarzell? It was too dark for him to
+make sure. Where had Albert gone? To his Radical friends, of course.
+They had offered to make his fortune--well, let them make it, and durn
+them!
+
+Two sons were gone now. Life was hitting him hard. But he would have no
+traitors in his camp. Albert was his son no longer.
+
+He bowed his head on the sill, and his throbbing brain revisualised the
+whole horrible day. He owed the humiliation and defeat of it all to
+Albert, who for the sake of money and a milk-and-water career, had
+betrayed Odiam's glory, and foully smirched its name.
+
+There was no denying it--he had been basely dealt with by his elder
+children. Robert was in prison, Albert existed no longer except in the
+memory of a bitter disgrace, Richard was contemptuous, and, his father
+suspected, up to nothing good.... And he had looked to them all to stand
+and fight by his side, to feel his ambition, and share his conquest.
+Pete was a good lad, but what was one where there should have been four?
+He could not deny it--his elder children had failed him.
+
+Something almost like a sob shook Reuben. Then, ashamed of his weakness,
+he raised his head, and saw that behind Boarzell the night had lifted,
+and a cowslip paleness was creeping into the sky. The great dark hump of
+the Moor showed clearly against it with its tuft of firs. A faint thrill
+stole through Reuben's tired limbs. Boarzell was always there to be
+loved and fought for, even if he had no heart or arm but his own.
+Gradually hope stirred as the dawn crept among the clouds. The wind came
+rustling and whiffling to him over the heather, bringing him the rich
+damp smell of the earth he loved.
+
+Oh, Boarzell, Boarzell!... his love, his dream, his promised land, lying
+there in the cold white hope of morning! No degenerate sons could rob
+him of his Moor, though they might leave him terribly alone on it. After
+all, better be alone with his ambition, than share it with their
+defiling thoughts, their sordid, humdrum, milk-and-water schemes. In
+future he would try no more to interest his children in Boarzell. He had
+tried to thrill Robert and Albert and Richard with his glorious
+enterprise, and they had all forsaken him--one for love, one for fame,
+and one for some still unknown unworthiness. He would not trouble about
+the others; they should serve him for no other reason but that he was a
+hard master. He had been hard with the three boys, but he had been
+exciting and confiding too. Now he would drop all that. He would cease
+to look for comradeship in his children, as years ago he had ceased to
+look for it in his wife. It would be enough if they were just slaves
+working under his whip. He had been a fool to expect sympathy....
+Boarzell, looming blacker and blacker against the glowing pinks and
+purples of the sky, seemed to mock at sympathy and its cheap colours,
+seemed to bid him Be Hard, Be Strong, Be Remorseless--Be Alone.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK IV
+
+TREACHERIES
+
+
+§ 1.
+
+Reuben's domestic catastrophes might be summed up in the statement that
+he had lost two farm hands. It is true that Albert had never been much
+good--if he had his father would probably not have turned him away--but
+he had been better than nothing, and now Reuben would have to hire a
+substitute. One would be enough, for Jemmy and George were now able to
+do a man's full work each. So another hand was engaged for Odiam--Piper,
+a melancholy, lean-jowled cowman from Moor's Cottage.
+
+The family was forbidden to speak of the absent sons. No one ever wrote
+to Robert in Lewes gaol or to Albert living on London's cruel
+tender-mercies. The shame of them was to be starved by silence. Soon
+most of the children had forgotten them, and they lived solely in
+Tilly's unhappy thoughts or Richard's angry ones, or in certain bitter
+memories of their father's, sternly fought.
+
+Reuben had learnt his first lesson from experience. Quietly but
+decidedly he altered his conduct. He no longer made the slightest appeal
+to his family's enterprise or ambition, he no longer interrupted his
+chidings with those pathetic calls to their enthusiasm which had
+mystified or irritated them in times past. On the other hand he was
+twice as hard, twice as fierce, twice as ruthless and masterful as he
+had ever been.
+
+Old Mrs. Backfield was getting very decrepit. She could not walk
+without a stick, and her knotted hands were of little use either in the
+kitchen or the dairy. Reuben was anxious to avoid engaging anyone to
+help her, yet the developments of her sphere made such help most
+necessary. Odiam now supplied most of the neighbouring gentry with milk,
+butter, and eggs; the poultry-yard had grown enormously since it had
+been a mere by-way of Mrs. Backfield's labours, and she and the girls
+also had charge of the young calves and pigs, which needed constant
+attention, and meant a great deal of hard work. Besides this, there was
+all the housework to do, sweeping, dusting, cooking, baking, and mending
+and washing for the males.
+
+It occurred to Reuben that Harry might be of some use to the women.
+Since he had given up fiddling he was entirely on the wrong side of
+Odiam's accounts; it would do much to justify his existence if he could
+help a little in the house and thus save engaging extra labour.
+
+Unfortunately Harry's ideas of work were fantastic, and he was, besides,
+hindered by his blindness. Any use he could be put to was more than
+balanced by the number of things he broke. His madness had of late
+developed both a terrible and an irritating side. He was sometimes
+consumed by the idea that the house was burning, and had on one or two
+occasions scared the family by jumping out of bed in the middle of the
+night and running about the passages shouting--"The house is afire! the
+house is afire! Oh, God save us all!" After he had done this once or
+twice, young Piper was made to sleep in his room, but even so he was
+often visited by his terrors during the day, and would interrupt work or
+meals with shrieks of--"The house is afire! Oh, wot shall we do! The
+house is afire, and the children are burning."
+
+Another habit of his, less alarming, but far more annoying, was to
+repeat some chance word or sentence over and over again for hours. If
+his mother said "Take these plates into the kitchen, Harry," he would
+spend the rest of the day murmuring, "Take these plates into the
+kitchen, Harry," till those about him were driven nearly as mad as he.
+
+It was soon found that he hindered rather than helped the work, so
+Reuben had to cast about for fresh plans. He felt utterly ruthless now,
+and was resolved to make his daughters manage the house alone. He
+redistributed the labour, and by handing over the poultry, calves, and
+pigs to Beatup, and taking some of his work upon his own shoulders, made
+it physically possible for Caro and Tilly to run the house and dairy
+with the feeble help of old Mrs. Backfield. He told them that he could
+not afford to engage a woman, and that they must do without her--making
+no appeal to their interest or ambition as he might have done six months
+ago.
+
+Caro and Tilly did not rebel. Somehow or other their young backs did not
+break under the load of household toil, nor, more strangely, did their
+young hearts, in the loneliness of their hard, uncared-for lives.
+
+Tilly was now nearly eighteen. She had always been like her mother, but
+as she grew older the likeness became more and more pronounced, till
+sometimes it seemed to Reuben as if it were Naomi herself with her milky
+skin and fleeting rose-bloom who sat at his table and moved about his
+house. The only difference lay in a certain prominence of the chin which
+gave her an air of decision that Naomi had lacked. Not that Tilly was
+ever anything but docile, but occasionally Reuben felt that some time or
+other she might take her stand--a fear which had never troubled him with
+Naomi.
+
+Caro was not like her sister; she was of larger build, yet thinner, and
+much darker, inheriting her father's swarthy skin and thick black hair.
+She did not give Reuben the same anxiety as Tilly--she was heavy and
+coltish, and, he felt, would not appeal to men. But Tilly, especially
+when the summer heats had melted together the little freckles over her
+nose, struck his masculine eye in a way that made him half proud, half
+fearful.
+
+No young men ever visited Odiam. The young Ditches, the young Vennals,
+or Coalbrans, or Ginners, who had business to transact with Backfield,
+did so only at a safe distance. Reuben could not as yet afford to lose
+his housemaids. Some day, he told himself, he would see that the girls
+married to the honour of his farm, but at present he could not do
+without them.
+
+They did not murmur, for they had known no different life. They had
+never, like other girls, wandered with bevies of young people through
+the lanes at dusk, or felt in the twilight a man's hand grope for
+theirs. They had not had suitors to visit them on Sundays, to sit very
+stiff and straight in the parlour, and pass decorous remarks about the
+weather all the while their eyes were eating up a little figure from toe
+to hair.
+
+Nevertheless when they worked side by side in the kitchen or dairy,
+skimming milk, churning butter, watching puddings bubble and steam, or
+when they made Reuben's great bed together, they had queer, half-shy,
+half-intimate talks--in which their heads came very close and their
+voices sank very low, and an eavesdropper might have often caught the
+word "lover," uttered mysteriously and sometimes with an odd little
+sigh.
+
+
+§ 2.
+
+That spring the news flew round from inn to inn and farm to farm that
+Realf of Grandturzel had bought a shire stallion, and meant to start
+horse-breeding. This was a terrible shock to Reuben, for not only was
+horse-breeding extremely profitable to those who could afford it, but it
+conferred immeasurable honour. It seemed now as if Odiam were seriously
+threatened. If Realf prospered at his business he could afford to fight
+Reuben for Boarzell.
+
+As a man in love will sometimes see in every other man a plotter for his
+beloved, and would never believe it if he were told that he alone sees
+charm in her and that to others she is undesirable, so Reuben could not
+conceive ambition apart from the rugged, tough, unfruitful Boarzell,
+whom no man desired but he. He at once started negotiations for buying
+another twenty acres, though at present he could ill afford it, owing to
+the expenses involved by his family misfortunes and his new mania for
+prestige.
+
+He watched Grandturzel's developments with a stern and anxious eye, and
+kept pace with them as well as he could. The farm consisted of about
+fifty-five acres of grass and tilth, apart from the forty acres of
+Boarzell, which neither Realf nor his father had ever attempted to
+cultivate, using them merely for fuel and timber, or as pasturage for
+the ewes when their lambs were taken from them. Old Realf had allowed
+the place to acquire a dilapidated rakish look, but his son at once
+began to smarten it up. He tarred the two oast-houses till they shone
+blue with the reflected sky, he painted his barn doors green, and
+re-roofed the Dutch Barn with scarlet tiles that could be seen all the
+way from Tiffenden Hill. He enriched his poultry-yard with a rare strain
+of Orpington, and was the only farmer in the district besides Reuben to
+do his reaping and hay-making by machinery.
+
+Realf was about twenty-five, a tall, well-set-up young fellow, with
+certain elegancies about him. In business he was of a simple,
+open-temperament, genuinely proud of his farm, and naïve enough to boast
+of its progress to Backfield himself.
+
+Indeed he was so naïve that it was not till Reuben had once or twice
+sneered at him in public that he realised there was any friction between
+Grandturzel and Odiam, and even then he scarcely grasped its
+importance, for one night at the Cocks, Coalbran said rather maliciously
+to Reuben:
+
+"Which of your gals is it that young Realf is sweet on?"
+
+"My gals! Neither of 'em. Wot d'you mean?"
+
+"Only that he walks home wud them from church every Sunday, and föalkses
+are beginning to wonder which he's going to mäake Mrs. Realf, surelye!"
+
+Reuben turned brick-red with indignation.
+
+"Neither of my gals is going to be Mrs. Realf. I'd see her dead fust!
+And the fellers as spread about such ugly lying tales, I'll----" and
+Reuben scowled thunderously at Coalbran, whom he had never forgiven
+since the scene in Rye Court-house.
+
+"He slanders my sons and he slanders my daughters," he muttered to
+himself as he went home, "and I reckon as this time it äun't true."
+
+However, next Sunday he astonished his family by saying he would
+accompany them to church. Hitherto Reuben's churchmanship had been
+entirely political, he had hardly ever been inside Peasmarsh church
+since his marriage, except for the christenings of his children--though
+he considered himself one of the pillars of the Establishment. His
+family were exceedingly suspicious of this change of heart, and the
+girls whispered guiltily together. "He's found out," said Caro, and
+Tilly sighed.
+
+There was much turning of heads when Ben Backfield was seen to take his
+place with his children in their pew.... "Wot's he arter now?"--"Summat
+to do wud his farm you may be sartain."--"He's heard about his gals and
+young Realf."--"Ho, the wicked old sinner! I wish as Passon 'ud tip it
+to un straight."
+
+Realf of Grandturzel sat a little way ahead on the opposite side, and
+Reuben watched him all through the service. Times had changed since
+Robert had hurled his big voice among the rafters with the village
+choir. The choir now sat in the chancel and wore surplices; the Parson
+too wore a surplice when he preached; for the Oxford Movement had spread
+to Peasmarsh, and Mr. Barnaby, the new clergyman, lived at the Rectory,
+instead of appointing a curate to do so, and unheard-of things happened
+in the way of week-day services and Holy Communion at eight o'clock in
+the morning. Reuben, however, scarcely noticed the changes, so absorbed
+was he in young Realf. Occasionally the boy would turn his head on his
+shoulder and rashly contemplate the Backfield pew. Reuben invariably met
+him with a stare and a scowl.
+
+All through the sermon he sat with his eyes fixed on Realf's profile.
+There was his rival, the man with whom he would have to reckon most
+during the difficult future, with whom he was fighting for Boarzell. He
+looked marvellously young and comely as he sat there in the fretted
+light, and suddenly for the first time Reuben realised that he was not
+as young as he had been. He was forty-six--he was getting old.
+
+Something thick and icy seemed to creep into his blood, and he gripped
+the edge of the pew, as he stared at Realf, sitting there so
+unconsciously, his damped and brushed hair gleaming ruddily in the light
+that poured through some saint's aureole. He must not let this youngster
+beat him.... Beat him?--the ice in his blood froze thicker--after all he
+had not done so very much during the twenty-six years he had toiled and
+struggled; he had won only a hundred acres of Boarzell--little more than
+Realf had to start with ... and Realf was only twenty-five.
+
+Caro and Tilly, sitting carefully so as not to crush their muslins, both
+their heads slewed round a little towards Realf, noticed how their
+father's throat was working, how hot flows of colour rushed up and ebbed
+away under the tan on his cheeks. For the first time Reuben was
+contemplating failure, looking that livid horror full in the face,
+seeing himself beaten, after all his toil and heartache, by a younger
+man.
+
+But the next moment he cast the coward feeling from him. His experience
+had given him immeasurable advantage over this babe. Realf who had never
+felt the sweat pouring like water down his tired body, who had never
+swooned asleep from sheer exhaustion, or lain awake all night from sheer
+anxiety, who had not sacrificed wife and children and friends and self
+to one dear, loved, darling ambition ... bah! what could he do against
+the man who had done all these things, and was prepared to go on doing
+them to the end?
+
+When the congregation rose to sing Reuben held his head proudly and his
+shoulders square. He felt himself a match for any youngster.
+
+
+§ 3.
+
+That summer old Mrs. Backfield became completely bedridden. The
+gratefulness of sunshine to her old bones was counteracted by the clammy
+fogs that streamed up every night round the farm. It was an
+exceptionally wet and misty summer--a great deal of Reuben's wheat
+rotted in the ground, and he scarcely took any notice when Tilly
+announced one morning that grandmother was too ill to come downstairs.
+
+When the struggle on the lower slopes of Boarzell between the damp earth
+and the determined man had ended in the earth's sludgy victory and a
+pile of rotten straw which should have been the glory of the man--then
+Reuben had time to think of what was going on in the house. He sent for
+the doctor--not Dr. Espinette, but a Cockney successor who boiled his
+instruments and washed his hands in carbolic--and heard from him that
+Mrs. Backfield's existence was no longer justified. She could not expect
+to work again.
+
+Reuben was grieved, but not so much grieved as if she had been cut down
+in her strength--for a long time she had been pretty useless on the
+farm. He handed her over to the nursing of the girls, though they were
+too busy to do more for her than the barest necessities. Now and then he
+went up himself and sat by her bed, restlessly cracking his fingers, and
+fretting to be out again at his work.
+
+Sometimes Harry would sit by her. He had wandered in one day when she
+was feeling especially ill and lonely, and in her desperation she had
+begged him to stay. At all events he was someone--a human being, or very
+nearly so. He shuffled restlessly round and round the room, fingering
+her little ornaments and pictures, and muttering to himself, "Stay wud
+me, Harry."
+
+He liked her room, for she had a dozen things he could finger and play
+with--little vases with flowers modelled over them, woolly mats, a
+velvet pincushion, and other survivals of her married life, all very
+dusty and faded now. Soon she began to find a strange comfort in having
+him there; the uneasiness and vague repulsion with which he had filled
+her, died down, and she began to see in him something of the old Harry
+whom she had loved so much better than Reuben in days gone by.
+
+As the summer wore on she grew steadily worse. She lay stiff and
+helpless, through the long August days, watching the sunlight creep up
+the wall, slip along the ceiling, and then vanish into the pale,
+heat-washed sky that gleamed with it even after the stars had come. She
+did not fret much, or think much--she watched things. She watched the
+sunshine from its red kindling to its red scattering, she watched the
+moon slide across the window, and haunt the mirror after it had
+passed--or the sign of the Scales dangling in the black sky. Sometimes
+the things she looked at seemed to fade, and she would see a room in
+which she and her husband were sitting or a lane along which they were
+walking ... but just as she had begun to wonder whether she were not
+really still young and happy and married and this vision the fact and
+the sickness and loneliness the dream, then suddenly everything would
+pass away like smoke, and she would be back in her bed, watching the
+travelling sun, or the haunting moon, or the hanging stars.
+
+In October a steam-thresher came to Odiam. The wheat had been bad, but
+there was still plenty of grain to thresh, and for a whole day the
+machine sobbed and sang under the farmhouse
+walls--"Urrr-um--Urrr-um--Urrr-um."
+
+Mrs. Backfield lay listening to it. She felt very ill, but everyone was
+too busy to come to her--Reuben was out in the yard feeding his monster,
+while the boys gathered up and sacked what it vomited out; Caro and
+Tilly were washing blankets. Harry had gone off on some trackless errand
+of his own.
+
+The afternoon was very still and soft. It was full of the smell of
+apples--of apples warm and sunny on the trees, of apples fallen and
+rotting in the grass, of apples dry and stored in the loft. There were
+little apples on the walls of the house, and their skins were warm and
+bursting in the heat.
+
+The thresher purred and panted under the window--"Urrr-um--Urrr-um." Now
+and then Reuben would call out sharply, "Now then! mind them
+genuines--they're mixing wud the seconds!" or "Kip them sacks closed,
+Beatup." But for most of the afternoon the stillness was broken only by
+the hum of the machine which sometimes almost seemed a part of it.
+
+Mrs. Backfield according to her custom watched the sun. It bathed the
+floor at first, but gradually she saw the square of the window paint
+itself on the wall, and then slide slowly up towards the ceiling. Her
+eyes mechanically followed it; then suddenly it blazed, filmed, flowed
+out into a wide spread of light, in the midst of which she saw the
+kitchen at Odiam as it used to be, with painted fans on the
+chimney-piece and pots of flowers on the window-sill. Her husband sat by
+the fire, smoking his pipe, while Harry was helping her tidy her
+workbasket.
+
+"There now!" she said to him, "I knew as it really wur a dream."
+
+"Wot?" he asked her, and she, in her dream, felt a spasm of delight, for
+it was all happening so naturally--it must be true.
+
+"About fäather being dead, and you being blind, and Ben having the
+farm."
+
+"Of course it's a dream--fäather äun't dead, and I äun't blind, and
+Ben's picking nuts over at Puddingcake."
+
+"You couldn't spik to me lik this if it wur a dream, Harry--could you,
+dear?"
+
+He didn't answer--and then suddenly he turned on her and shouted:
+
+"Sack your chaff, now--can't you sack your chaff?"
+
+"Harry! Harry!" she cried, and came to herself in the little
+sun-smouldering room, while outside Reuben stormed at his boys to "sack
+their chaff," and the machine purred and sang--"Urrr-um--Urrr-um."
+
+A sudden terrible lucidity came to Mrs. Backfield.
+
+"It's machines as he wants," she said to herself, "it's machines as he
+wants...."
+
+Then a gentle darkness stole upon her eyes, as her overworked machine of
+flesh and blood ran down and throbbed slowly into stillness and peace.
+
+Outside the great fatigueless machine of steel and iron sang
+on--"Urrr-um--Urrr-um--Urrr-um."
+
+
+§ 4.
+
+The girls cried a great deal at their grandmother's death--she had never
+taken up enough room in the boys' lives for them to miss her much. As
+for Reuben, though he had been fond of her, he could not sincerely
+regret her, since for the last few months she had, so to speak, been
+carried on entirely at a loss.
+
+He needed every penny and every minute more desperately than ever, for
+Grandturzel ran Odiam closer and closer in the race. Realf now plainly
+saw how matters stood. As yet there was no open breach between him and
+Reuben--when one of them came into the public-house the other always
+waited a decent interval before clearing out--but if there was no open
+breach, there was open rivalry. All the neighbourhood knew of it, and
+many a bet was made.
+
+The odds were generally on Reuben. It was felt that a certain
+unscrupulousness was necessary to the job, and in that Backfield had the
+advantage. "Young Realf wudn't hurt a fly," his champions had to
+acknowledge. Though the money was with Reuben, the sympathy was mostly
+with Realf, for the former's dealings had scarcely made him popular. He
+was a hard man to his customers, he never let them owe him for grain or
+roots or fodder; his farm-hands, when drunk, spoke of him as a monster,
+and a not very tender-hearted peasantry worked itself sentimental over
+his treatment of his children.
+
+For some months the antagonism between Odiam and Grandturzel remained in
+this polite state, most of the fighting being done by their champions.
+The landlord of the Cocks grew quite tired of chucking out Odiamites and
+Grandturzelites who could not, like their leaders, confine their war to
+words. But it only wanted some cause, however trivial, to make the
+principals show their fists. The time that Reuben would stay in the bar
+after Realf had entered it grew shorter and shorter, and his pretexts
+for leaving more and more flimsy. Realf himself, though a genial,
+good-tempered young man, could not help resenting the scorn with which
+he was treated. He once told Ginner that Backfield was an uncivilised
+brute, and Ginner took care to forward this remark to the proper
+quarter.
+
+At last the gods, who are more open-handed than ungrateful people
+suppose, took pity on the rivals, and gave them something to fight
+about. The pretext was in itself trivial, but when the gunpowder is laid
+nothing bigger than a match is needed. This particular pretext was a
+barrow of roots which had been ordered from Kitchenhour by Reuben and
+sent by mistake to Grandturzel. Realf's shepherd, not seeing any cause
+for doubt, gave the roots as winter fodder to his ewes, and said nothing
+about them. When Reuben tramped over to Kitchenhour and asked furiously
+why his roots had never been sent, the mistake was discovered. He came
+home by Grandturzel, and found his precious roots, all thrown out on the
+fields, being nibbled by Realf's ewes.
+
+Realf himself was away, but Reuben left such a stinging message for him,
+that apology was impossible except in a form that could only be regarded
+as a fresh insult. An apology in this shape reached Odiam at
+dinner-time, and Reuben at once sent off Beatup with an acceptance of it
+that was very nearly obscene. The result was that Realf himself arrived
+about three o'clock furiously demanding an explanation of his
+neighbour's insulting conduct.
+
+The two men met in the kitchen, Peter backing up his father, and for a
+long time the scene was stormy, the word "roots" whirling about the
+conversation, with the prefix "my good" or "your hemmed" as the case
+might be. Realf was genuinely angry--Reuben's attitude of mingled
+truculence and scorn had wounded even his easy pride.
+
+"You're justabout afeard of me, that's wot you are. You think I'll bust
+up your old farm and show myself a better man than you. You're afeard of
+me because I'm a younger man than you."
+
+"Ho, afeard of you, am I?--and because you're a youngster? I'll
+justabout show you wot a youngster's worth. A better man, are you?--Put
+up your fists, and we'll see who's the better man."
+
+Reuben began to take off his coat--young Realf drew back almost in
+disgust.
+
+"I'm not going to fight a man old enough to be my father," he said,
+flushing.
+
+"Ho, äun't you?--Come on, you puppy-dog, and see fur yourself if you
+need täake pity on my old age."
+
+He had flung off his coat, and squared up to Realf, who, seeing no
+alternative, began to strip.
+
+Peter interposed:
+
+"Let me täake him on, fäather. I'll show him a thing or two."
+
+Reuben turned on him savagely.
+
+"Stand clear!--who wants your tricks? I'm going to show him wot a man's
+worth--a man wot's had his beard longer than this puppy's bin in the
+warld."
+
+"But you're out of training."
+
+"I'm in training enough to whip boys. Stand clear!"
+
+Pete stood clear, as the two combatants closed. Neither knew much of the
+game. Realf had been born too late for boxing to have been considered a
+necessary part of his education, and Reuben had been taught in an old
+school--the school of Bendigo and Deaf Burke--mighty bashers, who put
+their confidence in their strength, despised finesse, and counted their
+victories in pints of blood.
+
+He fairly beat down on Realf, who was lithe enough generally to avoid
+him, but not experienced enough to do so as often as he might. Every
+time Reuben struck him, the floor seemed to rush up to his eyes, and the
+walls to sag, and the house to fill with smoke. Pete danced round them
+silently, for while his sympathies were with his father his sporting
+instincts bade him keep outwardly impartial. He was disgusted with their
+footwork, indeed their whole style outraged his bruising ideals; but it
+pleased him to see how much Reuben was the better man.
+
+They hardly ever clinched--on the other hand, there was much plunging
+and rushing. Reuben brought down Realf three times and Realf brought
+down Reuben once. It was noticeable that if the younger man fell more
+easily he also picked himself up more quickly. Between the rounds they
+leaned exhausted against the wall, Pete prowling about between them,
+longing to take his father on his knee, but still resolved to see fair
+play.
+
+It was not likely that the fight would be a long one, for both
+combatants were already winded. Realf, moreover, was bleeding from the
+nose, and Reuben's left eye was swollen. Once he caught a hit flush on
+the mouth which cut his nether lip in two, and, owing to his bad
+footwork, brought him down. But he was winning all the same.
+
+For once that Realf managed to land a blow, Reuben landed a couple, and
+with twice as much weight behind them. The younger man soon began to
+look green and sick, he staggered about, and flipped, while the sweat
+poured off his forehead into his eyes. Reuben breathed stertorously and
+could scarcely see out of his left eye, but was otherwise game. Pete
+felt prouder of him than ever.
+
+Suddenly Backfield's fist crashed into Realf's body, full on the mark.
+The wind rushed out of him as out of a bellows, and he doubled up like a
+screen. This time he made no effort to rise; he lay motionless, one arm
+thrown out stiff and jointless as a bough, while a little blood-flecked
+foam oozed from between his teeth.
+
+"You've done it!" cried Pete.
+
+Reuben had flopped down in a heap on the settle, and his son ran off for
+help. He flung open the door, and nearly fell over Tilly who was
+cowering behind it.
+
+
+§ 5.
+
+"Here--bring some water!" cried Peter, too much relieved to see her to
+be surprised at it.
+
+Tilly flung one wide-eyed glance over her shoulder into the room where
+young Realf lay, and dashed off for water and towels, while Pete fetched
+a piece of raw meat out of the larder.
+
+It was a minute or two before Realf opened his swollen, watering eyes,
+and gazed up bewildered into the face of the woman he had said his
+prayers to for a dozen Sundays. She held his head in the crook of her
+arm, and wiped the froth and blood from his lips.
+
+"Better now?" asked Pete.
+
+Realf suddenly seemed to shrink into himself. The next minute he was
+swaying unsteadily on his legs, refusing the hands held out to support
+him.
+
+"I'm going home," he mumbled through his bruised lips.
+
+"I'll täake you," said Pete cheerily.
+
+But Realf of Grandturzel shook his head. His humiliation was more than
+he could bear. Without another look at Pete or Tilly, or at Reuben
+holding the raw chop to his eye, he turned and walked out of the room
+with bent head and dragging footsteps.
+
+For a moment Pete looked as if he would follow him, but Reuben
+impatiently called him back.
+
+"Leave the cub alone, can't you? Let him go and eat grass."
+
+Tilly stood motionless in the middle of the room, her little nose
+wrinkled with horror at the bloodstains on the floor and at Reuben whose
+face was all bruised and swollen and shiny with the juice of the raw
+meat. Pete saw her shudder, and resented it.
+
+"It wur a präaper fight," he declared. "You want to manage them feet of
+yourn a bit slicker, fäather--but you wur justabout smart wud your
+fists."
+
+Tilly's blood ran thick with disgust; she turned from them
+suddenly--that coarse, bloodthirsty, revolting pair--and ran quickly out
+of the room.
+
+She ran out of the house. Away on Boarzell a man plodded and stumbled.
+She saw him stagger as the wind battered him, reel and nearly fall among
+the treacheries of the dead heather. He was like a drunken man, and she
+knew that he was drunk with shame.
+
+All flushed with pity she realised the bitterness of his fate--he who
+was so young and strong and clean and gay, had been degraded, shamed by
+her father, whom in that moment she looked upon entirely as a brute. It
+must not be. He had been so good to her, so friendly and courteous in
+their Sunday walks--she must not let him go away from her shamed and
+beaten.
+
+She gathered up her skirts and ran across the garden, out on to the
+Moor. She ran through the heather, stumbling in the knotted thickness.
+The spines tore her stockings, and in one clump she lost her shoe. But
+she did not wait. Her little chin was thrust forward in the obstinacy of
+her pursuit, and when she came closer to him she called--"Mr. Realf! Mr.
+Realf!"
+
+He stopped and looked round, and the next minute she was at his side.
+Her hair was all blown about her face, her cheeks were flushed the
+colour of bell-heather, and her breast heaved like a wave. She could not
+speak, but her eyes were blessing him, and then suddenly both her hands
+were in his.
+
+
+§ 6.
+
+Early in the next year Sir Miles Bardon died, and his son Ralph became
+Squire. Reuben had now, as he put it, lived through three Bardons. He
+despised the enfeebled and effete race with its short life-times, and
+his own body became straighter when he thought of Sir Miles's under the
+earth.
+
+For every reason now, Odiam was being forced on. Realf had sought
+comfort for his personal humiliation in making his farm more spick and
+span than ever. Reuben became aware of a certain untidiness about Odiam,
+and spent much on paint and tar--just as the frills of a younger rival
+might incite to extravagance a woman who had hitherto despised the
+fashions. He painted his waggons a beautiful blue, and his oasts were
+even blacker and shinier than Grandturzel's. He had wooden horses to
+dance on their pointers, whereupon Realf put cocks on his.
+
+The thought of Tilly did not check the young man in this
+beggar-my-neighbour, for he knew that her father's ambition meant her
+slavery. So when Reuben added a prize Jersey heifer to his stock, Realf
+bought a Newlands champion milker, and when Reuben launched desperately
+on a hay-rope twister, Realf ran him up with a wurzel-cutter. Finally
+Reuben bought twenty acres, of Boarzell, in which Realf did not attempt
+to rival him, for he already had forty which he did not know what to do
+with. Reuben's strugglings with Boarzell struck him as pathetic rather
+than splendid, an aberration of ambition which would finally spoil the
+main scheme.
+
+So Realf's answer took the form of an extra cowman, whereupon Reuben
+hired a couple of new hands, causing his family to leap secretly and
+silently for joy and to bless the man who by his rivalry had lightened
+their yoke. As a matter of fact, Reuben would have been forced to engage
+one man, anyhow; for the new piece of land had at once to be prepared
+for cultivation, and gave even more trouble than the pieces which had
+already been cultivated but showed a distressing proneness to relapse
+into savagery. The lower slope of Boarzell was now covered with fields,
+where corn grew, as the neighbours said, "if one wur careful not to spik
+too loud," and the ewes could pasture safely if their shepherd were
+watchful. But it somehow seemed as if all these things were only on
+sufferance, and that directly Reuben rested his tired arm Boarzell would
+snatch them back to itself, to be its own for ever.
+
+Reuben swaggered a little about his new farm-hands, especially as Realf
+showed no signs of going any further in hirelings. One man, Boorman,
+came from Shoyswell near Ticehurst, and was said to be an authority on
+the diseases of roots, while the other, Handshut, came from Cheat Land
+on the western borders of Peasmarsh. Reuben went over to get his
+"character" from Jury the tenant--and that was how he met Alice Jury.
+
+
+§ 7.
+
+The door was opened to him by a tall young woman in a grey dress covered
+by an apron. Reuben was struck by that apron, for it was not the sacking
+kind to which he was accustomed, or the plain white muslin which his
+women-folk wore on Sundays, but a coarse brick-coloured cotton, hanging
+from her shoulders like a pinafore. The girl's face above it was not
+pretty, but exceptionally vivid--"vivid" was the word, not prominent in
+Reuben's vocabulary, which flashed into his mind when he saw her. Her
+colouring was pale, and her features were small and irregular, her hair
+was very frizzy and quite black, while her grey eyes were at once the
+narrowest and the liveliest he had ever seen.
+
+"I'm sorry--father's not at home," she said in answer to his question.
+
+"But I töald him as I wur coming over--it's about that Handshut."
+
+She smiled.
+
+"I'm afraid father forgets things. But come in, he's bound to be home to
+his dinner soon."
+
+Reuben grumbled and muttered to himself as he crossed the
+threshold--small fry like these Jurys must not be allowed to think that
+he had any time to spare. The young woman led him into the kitchen and
+offered him a seat. Reuben took it and crossed his legs, looking
+appraisingly round the room, which was poorly furnished, but beautifully
+kept, with some attempts at decoration. There was a print of Rossetti's
+"Annunciation" above the meal-chest, and a shelf of books by the
+fireplace. It all struck him as strange and rather contemptible. He
+remembered what he had been told about the Jurys, who had only just come
+to Cheat Land. Tom Jury had, so rumour said, kept a bookshop in
+Hastings, but trade had gone badly, and as his health demanded an
+outdoor life and country air, charitable friends had established him on
+a small holding. He had an invalid wife, and one daughter, who was not
+very strong either--an ignoble family.
+
+The daughter must be the girl who was talking to him now. She sat on a
+little stool by the fire, and had brought out some sewing.
+
+"You come from Odiam, don't you?" she asked.
+
+"Yes, that's it."
+
+"Is Odiam that farm near Totease?"
+
+Reuben looked as if he had swallowed the poker. He stared at her to see
+if she were making fun of him, but her bright eyes were quite innocent.
+
+"Yes," he said huskily--"it is."
+
+"We've only been here a month, so I haven't got the neighbourhood quite
+clear. You see I can't often go out, as my mother's generally in bed,
+and I have all the house-work to do. That's why my father has to have a
+man to help him out of doors. It's a pity, for wages are so
+high--Handshut's leaving us because we could do with someone cheaper and
+less experienced."
+
+Reuben liked her voice, with its town modulation, the only vestige of
+Sussex taint being a slight drawl. It struck him that Alice Jury was a
+"lady," and that he was not condescending very much in speaking to her.
+
+"It's unaccountable hard to know what to do about labour. Now as these
+fellers are gitting eddicated they think no end of theirselves and 'ull
+ask justabout anything in wages--as if a man hoed turnups any better for
+being able to read and write."
+
+"But don't you think he does?"
+
+"No--I döan't. I'm all agäunst teaching poor people anything and setting
+them above theirselves. It's different fur their betters. Now I've got
+six boys, and they can all read and write and cast accounts."
+
+"Six boys, have you? Are they grown up?"
+
+"Yes, the youngest's sixteen."
+
+"And do they help you on the farm?"
+
+"Yes--leastways four of 'em do. Two have--have left home."
+
+"I suppose they didn't care for farming?"
+
+"One's in prison, and t'other I turned away."
+
+Reuben had no idea why he said this. It must have been the way her eyes
+were fixed on him, glowing above bistred shadows.
+
+"Oh, indeed!--how sad."
+
+He flushed the colour of her apron. What a fool he was!--and yet after
+all she would be bound to hear the truth sooner or later; he had only
+been beforehand. All the same he was surprised at himself. A sudden tide
+of anger went over him.
+
+"Sad fur them, I reckon, but not fur me. I'm well shut of them."
+
+"Don't you miss them at all?"
+
+"Naun particular. Robert he wur good and plodding-like, but you couldn't
+trust his stacking, and he'd be all nohow wud the horses--and Albert
+he'd shirk everything wotsumdever, he'd go off into dreams in the middle
+of killing a pig--surelye!"
+
+"But in themselves, I mean."
+
+"Wot's that--in themselves?"
+
+"Well, as boys, as sons, not as farm-servants."
+
+"I döan't never think of them that way. One's no good to me wudout
+t'other."
+
+Alice Jury said nothing, and Reuben began to feel vaguely uncomfortable.
+What queer eyes she had!--they seemed to bore into him like nails. He
+suddenly rose to his feet.
+
+"See here--I must be going."
+
+"But father won't be long now."
+
+"I'm sorry--I can't wait. I've a load of field-bean coming in. I'll be
+round agäun to-morrow."
+
+"What time?--and I'll promise father shall be here to see you."
+
+"About eleven, say. Good-bye, miss."
+
+"Good-bye."
+
+She went with him to the door. A great lump of phlox grew on either side
+of it. She stood between them, and suddenly pointed out over Jury's
+miserable little root-patch towards Boarzell, heaving its great hummocks
+against the east.
+
+"What's that?" she asked.
+
+
+§ 8.
+
+Reuben came away from Cheat Land with odd feelings of annoyance,
+perplexity, and exhilaration. Alice Jury was queer, and she had insulted
+him, nevertheless those ten minutes spent with her had left him tingling
+all over with a strange excitement.
+
+He could not account for it. Women had excited him before, but merely
+physically. He took it for granted that they had minds and souls like
+men, but he had not thought much about that aspect of them or allowed it
+to enter his calculations. Of late he had scarcely troubled about women
+at all, having something better to think of.
+
+Now he found himself thrown into a kind of dazzle by Alice Jury. He
+could not explain it. Her personal beauty was negligible--"a liddle
+stick of a thing," he called her; their conversation had been limited
+almost entirely to her tactless questions and his forbearing answers.
+
+"She äun't my sort," he mumbled as he walked home, "she äun't at all my
+sort. Dudn't know where Odiam wur--never heard of Boarzell--oh, yes,
+seems as she remembered hearing something when I töald her"--and
+Reuben's lip curled ironically.
+
+He had not told her of his ambitions with regard to Boarzell, and now he
+found himself wishing that he had done so. He had been affronted by her
+ignorance, but as his indignation cooled he longed to confide in her.
+Why, he could not say, for unmistakably she "wasn't his sort"; it was
+not likely that she would sympathise, and yet he wanted to pour all the
+treasures of his hope into her indifference. He had never felt like this
+towards anyone before.
+
+He spent the day restlessly, and the next morning walked over to Cheat
+Land before half-past ten. Alice Jury opened the door, and looked
+surprised to see him.
+
+"You said you were coming at eleven. I'm afraid father's out again."
+
+"I wur passing this way, so thought I'd call in on the chance," said
+Reuben guiltily--"I döan't mind waiting."
+
+She called a long-legged boy who was weeding among the turnips, and bade
+him go over to Puddingcake and fetch the master. Then she led the way to
+the kitchen, which smelled deliciously of baking bread.
+
+"You don't mind if I go on with my baking? I've twelve loaves in the
+oven."
+
+"Oh, no," said Reuben, sitting in yesterday's chair, and gazing up at
+the Rossetti.
+
+"Do you like pictures?" asked Alice, thumping dough.
+
+"Some," said Reuben, "but I like 'em coloured best."
+
+"I paint a little myself," said Alice--"when I've time."
+
+"Wot sort o' things do you paint?"
+
+"Oh, landscapes mostly. That's mine"--and she pointed to a little
+water-colour sketch of a barn.
+
+"Could you paint a picture of Odiam?"
+
+"I expect I could--not really well, you know, just something like this."
+
+"Could you paint Boarzell?"
+
+He leaned towards her over the back of his chair.
+
+"Yes, I dare say."
+
+"Could you do it wud all the colours on it and all that?--all the pinks
+you git on it sometimes, and the lovely yaller the gorse mäakes?"
+
+She was surprised at his enthusiasm. His eyes were kindling, and a blush
+was creeping under his sunburn.
+
+"Oh, I could try! Do you want a picture of Boarzell?"
+
+"I'd like one if you could really do it to look natural."
+
+She smiled. "Perhaps I could. But why do you think so much of Boarzell?"
+
+"Because I'm going to mäake it mine."
+
+"Yours!"
+
+"Yes--I mean to have the whole of it."
+
+"But can you grow anything on a waste like that?"
+
+"_I_ can. I've got near a hundred acres sown already" ... and then all
+the floodgates that had been shut for so long were burst, and the tides
+of his confidence rolled out to her, moaning--all the ache of his
+ambition which nobody would share.
+
+Her eyes were fixed on him with their strange spell, and her sharp
+little face was grave. He knew that she did not sympathise--he had not
+expected it. But he was glad he had told her.
+
+Her first words startled him.
+
+"Do you think it's worth while?"
+
+"Wot's worth while?"
+
+"To give up so much for the sake of a piece of land." Reuben gaped at
+her.
+
+"I've no right to preach to you; but I think I may be allowed to ask
+you--'is it worth while?'"
+
+He was too flabbergasted to be angry. The question had simply never come
+into his experience. Many a man had said, "Do you think you'll do it?"
+but no one had ever said, "Do you think it's worth while?"
+
+Alice saw her blunder. She saw that she had insulted his ambition; and
+yet, though she now understood the ferocities of that ambition, it
+filled her with a definite hostility which made her want to fight and
+fight and fight it with all the strength she had. At the same time, as
+his surprise collapsed, his own antagonism rose up. He felt a sudden
+hatred, not for the girl, but for the forces which somehow he knew she
+was bringing to oppose him. They faced each other, their eyes bright
+with challenge, their breasts heaving with a stormier, earthlier
+emotion--and the white flame of antagonism which divided them seemed at
+the same time to fuse them, melt them into each other.
+
+
+§ 9.
+
+Reuben was going through a new experience. For the first time in his
+life he had fallen under the dominion of a personality. From his boyhood
+he had been enslaved by an idea, but people, in anything except their
+relation to that idea, had never influenced him. Now for the first time
+he had a life outside Boarzell, an interest, a set of thoughts, which
+were not only apart from Boarzell but antagonistic to it.
+
+Hitherto he had always considered the opposite of his ambition to be the
+absence of it. Either one lived to subdue the hostile earth, or one
+lived with no object at all. It was a new experience to find someone
+whose life was full of hopes, ideals, and ambitions, all utterly
+unconnected with a farm, and it was even more strange than new that he
+should care to talk about them. Not that he ever found himself being
+tempted from his own--the most vital part of his relations with Alice
+Jury lay in their warfare. He fought her as he fought Boarzell, though
+without that sense of a waiting treachery which tinctured his battles
+with the Moor; their intercourse was full of conflict, of fiery, sacred
+hostilities. They travelled on different roads, and knew that they could
+never walk together, yet each wanted to count the other's milestones.
+
+Sometimes Reuben would ask himself if he was in love with her, but as
+the physical element which he had always and alone called love was
+absent, he came to the conclusion that he was not. If he had thought he
+loved her he would have avoided her, but there was no danger in this
+parliament of their minds. Her attitude towards life, though it obsessed
+him, no more convinced him than his convinced her. They would rail and
+wrangle together by the hour.
+
+"Life is worth while," said Alice, "in itself, not because of what it
+gives you."
+
+"I agree with you there," said Reuben, "it's not wot life gives that's
+good, it's wot you täake out of it."
+
+"I don't see that. Suppose that because I liked that girl's face in the
+picture I tore it out and kept it for myself, I should only spoil the
+picture--the piece I'd torn out wouldn't be any good to me away from the
+rest."
+
+"I can't foller you," said Reuben gruffly.
+
+"Now don't pretend to be stupid--don't pretend you can't understand
+anything but turnips."
+
+"And döan't pretend you can't understand naun but picturs. A good solid
+turnup in real life is worth a dozen pretty gals in picturs."
+
+"That's right--have the courage of your earthiness. But don't try to
+make me think that when you look out of the window at Boarzell, you
+don't see the sky beyond it."
+
+"And döan't you try and make out as when you're looking at the sky you
+döan't see Boarzell standing in between."
+
+"I don't try and make it out. I see your point of view, but it's only
+'in between' me--and you--and something greater."
+
+"Rubbidge!" said Reuben.
+
+He always came away from these wrangles with a feeling as if he had been
+standing on his head. He was not used to mental scoutings and
+reconnoitrings. Also, he felt sometimes that Alice was laughing at him,
+which irritated him, not so much because she mocked as because he could
+never be really sure whether she mocked or not. Her laughter seemed to
+come from the remotest, most exalted part of her. The gulfs between
+their points of view never gaped so wide as when she laughed.
+
+
+§ 10.
+
+Reuben's constant visits to Cheat Land were soon noticed at Odiam, and
+every advantage was taken of them. A period of licence set in. Richard
+read Anne Bardon's Homer quite openly by the kitchen fire, Caro dropped
+tears over East Lynne in the dairy, and Jemmy spent long tarry hours at
+Rye, coming home with a rank chew in his mouth, and sailors' oaths to
+salt his work on the farm.
+
+Tilly had private affairs of her own which occasionally led her out on
+Boarzell of an afternoon. She always took her sewing, for she dared not
+be behindhand with it. Strangely enough, in spite of Jemmy's and Tilly's
+truancies, the work was somehow got through as usual, for shortcomings
+would have been found out and punished on the master's return--or worse
+still, he might have stayed at home. For the first time a certain
+freemasonry was established between the brothers and sisters. Hitherto
+their rebellion had been too secret even for confederacy, but now some
+of the crushing weight was lifted, and they could combine--all except
+Peter, who was too much Reuben's man for them to trust him; luckily he
+was rather stupid. So Peter did not see and no one else took any notice
+if Caro read and wept over sentimental novels, or Jemmy brought home
+harbour mud on his shoes, or George, who was delicate and epileptic,
+slept away an hour under a haystack, or Richard pondered the Iliad, or
+Tilly ran out on the Moor--even though she went to meet Realf of
+Grandturzel.
+
+They met on the further side of the fir clump, on the edge of
+Grandturzel's inclosure. Here Tilly would sit under a gorse-bush with
+her sewing, while young Realf lay along the grass at her feet. They did
+not talk much, for Tilly was busy, and generally had her mouth full of
+pins; but Realf's manhood worshipped her as she sat there, her delicious
+head bowed, and stains of sunshine, with sprinkled gorse-petals, in her
+hair. He loved her little determined chin, and the sweet smudge of
+freckles on her nose. Love filled their simplest actions, kindled their
+simplest words; it dreamed in their eyes and laughed on their lips; its
+silences linked them closer than the most passionate embraces.
+
+Both unconsciously dreaded the time when they should demand more of each
+other--when the occasional enlacing of their hands would no longer be
+enough to open Paradise, when from sweet looking and longing they would
+have to pass into the bitterness of action. Tilly, though essentially
+practical and determined, was enjoying her first visit to faery, and
+also inherited her mother's gift of languor. She basked in those hours
+of sun and bees. She, like her father, was passing for the first time
+into a life outside the dominion of the farm--but, whereas he fought
+it, and sought it only to fight it, she submitted to it as to a caress.
+
+She cared nothing for Odiam; it was no thought of disloyalty to it and
+her father, of breaking from her service, which made her mark time in
+dreams. As the weeks went by she felt more and more the hatefulness of
+the yoke. She now had a standard of comparison by which to judge Reuben
+and Odiam. She saw herself and her brothers and her sister more and more
+as victims. Other farmers' children were not slaves. Other farms did not
+hang like sucking incubuses on boys' and girls' backs, draining all the
+youth and joy and sport out of them.
+
+It made her blood boil to think of Robert and Albert in their exile.
+Robert had now been released from gaol, and had been sent by a
+charitable society to Australia. Reuben had refused to move a hand to
+help him. As for Albert, a few months ago a piteous letter had arrived,
+begging for money. He had, through Mr. Hedges, found work on a small
+Radical paper which soon came to grief, and since then had been
+practically starving, having had no success as a freelance. A friend of
+his wanted to start a weekly review--Tory this time, for Albert's
+politics were subservient to occasion--and only required funds. Did
+Reuben feel prepared to make an investment? Thus poor Albert cloaked and
+trimmed his begging.
+
+Of course Reuben had refused to help him, and Tilly had been unable to
+get any money out of Pete. Her heart bled for her brothers, and at the
+same time she could not help envying their freedom, though one enjoyed
+it as a beggar and the other as a felon.
+
+
+§ 11.
+
+At last the crisis came--through George, the youngest, least-considered
+son at Odiam. He had always been a weakling, as if Naomi had passed into
+his body her own passionate distaste for life. Also, as is common with
+epileptic children, his intellect was not very bright. It had been the
+habit to spare him, even Reuben had done so within reason. But he should
+not really have worked at all, or only in strict moderation--certainly
+he should not have been sent out that October evening to dig up the
+bracken roots on the new land. Tilly expostulated--"Anyhow he didn't
+ought to work alone "--but Reuben was angry with the boy, whom he had
+caught loafing once or twice that day, and roughly packed him off.
+
+He himself went over to Moor's Cottage about a load of trifolium, and
+returning in the darkness by Cheat Land was persuaded to stay to supper.
+That was one of the nights when he did not like Alice Jury--he sometimes
+went through the experience of disliking her, which was an adventure in
+itself, so wild and surprising was it, so bewildering to remember
+afterwards. She seemed a little colourless--she was generally so vivid
+that he noticed and resented all the more those times when her shoulders
+drooped against her chair, and her little face looked strangely wistful
+instead of eager. It seemed as if on these occasions Alice were actually
+pleading with him. She lost that antagonism which was the salt of their
+relations, instead of fighting she pleaded. Pleaded for what? He dared
+not ask that question, in case the answer should show him some strange
+new Canaan which was not his promised land. So he came away
+muttering--"only a liddle stick of a woman. I like gurt women--I like
+'em rosy, I like 'em full-breasted.... She'd never do fur me."
+
+He tramped home through the darkness. A storm was rising, shaking the
+fir-plumes of Boarzell against a scudding background of clouds and
+stars. The hedges whispered, the dead leaves rustled, the woods sighed.
+Every now and then a bellow would come from the Moor, as the sou'wester
+roared up in a gust, then a low sobbing followed it into silence.
+
+On the doorstep Reuben was greeted by Tilly--where was George? He had
+not been in to supper.
+
+"Have you looked in the new field?"
+
+"Yes--Benjamin went round. But he äun't there."
+
+"Well, I döan't know where he is."
+
+"Reckon he's fallen down in a fit somewhere and died."
+
+Tilly was not looking at all like Naomi to-night.
+
+"Nonsense," said Reuben, resenting her manner.
+
+"It äun't nonsense. I always know when his fits are coming on because
+he's tired and can't work präaperly. He was like that to-day. And
+you--you drove him out."
+
+Reuben had never been spoken to like this by his daughter. He turned on
+her angrily, then suddenly changed his mind. For the first time he
+really saw what a fine girl she was--all that Alice was not.
+
+"We'll go and look for him," he said--"send out the boys."
+
+All that night they hunted for George on Boarzell. It was pitch dark.
+Soon great layers of cloud were sagging over the stars, and Boarzell's
+firs were lost in the blackness behind them. Reuben, his sons, Beatup,
+Piper, Handshut, Boorman, fought the dark with lanterns as one might
+fight Behemoth with pin-pricks. They scattered over the Moor, searching
+the thorn-clumps and gorse-thickets. It was pretty certain that he was
+not on the new ground by Flightshot. Richard said openly that he did not
+believe in the fit and that George had run away, and--less openly--that
+it was a good job too. The other boys, however, did not think that he
+had enough sense to run away, and agreed that his condition all day had
+foretold an attack.
+
+Reuben himself believed in the fit, and a real anxiety tortured him as
+he thrust his lantern into the gaping caverns of bushes. He had by his
+thoughtless and excessive zeal allowed Boarzell to rob him of another
+man. Of course, it did not follow that George was dead, but unless they
+found him soon it was quite likely that he would not survive exposure on
+such a night. If so, Reuben had only himself to thank for it. He should
+have listened to his daughter, and either let George off his work or
+made him work near home. He did not pretend to himself that he loved
+this weakling son, or that his death would cause his fatherhood much
+grief, but he found himself with increasing definiteness brought up
+against the conviction that Boarzell was beating him, wringing its own
+out of him by slow, inexorable means, paying him back a hundredfold for
+every acre he took or furrow he planted.
+
+He had become separated from the other searchers, and was alone on the
+west side of the Moor. The wind barked and howled, hurling itself upon
+him as he stood, beating his face with hail, which hissed into the dead
+tangles of the heather, while the stripped thorns yapped and rattled,
+and the bushes roared. So great was the tumult that he seemed to fall
+into it like a stone into a wave--it passed over him, round him, seemed
+even to pass under him, he was hardly conscious of the solid ground. The
+blackness was impenetrable, save where his lantern stained it with a
+yellow smudge. He shouted, but his voice perished in the din--it seemed
+as if his whole man, sight, voice, hearing, and sensation, was blurring
+into the storm, as if Boarzell had swamped him at last, made him merely
+one of its hundred voices, mocking the manhood which had tried so much
+against its earth.
+
+The wind seemed to be laughing at him, as it bellowed up in gusts,
+struck him, sprayed him, roughed his hair out madly, smacked his cheeks,
+drove the rain into his skin, and then rumbled away with a hundred
+chatterings and sighings. It seemed to be telling him that as his breath
+was to this wind so was he himself to Boarzell. The wind was the voice
+of the Moor, and it told him that in fighting Boarzell, he did not fight
+the mere earth, an agglomeration of lime and clay which he could
+trample and compel, but all the powers behind it. In arming himself
+against Boarzell he armed himself against the whole of nature's huge
+resources, the winds, the storms, the droughts, the early and the latter
+rain, the poisons in plants, and the death in stones, the lusts which
+spilling over from the beasts into the heart of man slay him from within
+himself. He had armed himself against all these, and once again the old
+words sang in his head--"Canst thou draw out Leviathan with a hook? or
+bore his jaw through with a thorn? Will he make a covenant with thee?
+Wilt thou take him for a servant for ever?"
+
+He had shrunk into the rattling shelter of some thorn-bushes. They
+scraped their boughs like grotesque violins, and every other moment they
+would sweep down over him and shut him into a cavern of snapping twigs.
+He was soaked to the skin and his teeth chattered. He lay close to the
+earth, seeking shelter even from the skeleton heather which writhed
+woody stems all round him. He cursed. Must he spend the night here, lost
+and grovelling, to listen while Boarzell screeched its triumph over his
+cold, drenched body....
+
+"Canst thou draw out Leviathan with a hook? or bore his jaw through with
+a thorn? Will he make a covenant with thee? Wilt thou take him for a
+servant for ever?
+
+"His heart is as firm as a stone; yea, as hard as a piece of the nether
+millstone.
+
+"The sword of him that layeth at him cannot hold; the spear, the dart,
+nor the habergeon.
+
+"He esteemeth iron as straw, and brass as rotten wood.
+
+"Sharp stones are under him...."
+
+A crash of thunder and a spit of lightning tore open the sky, and for a
+moment Reuben saw the slope of the Moor livid in the flash, and the
+crest of firs standing against the split and tumbling clouds. The air
+rang, screamed, hissed, rushed, and rumbled. Reuben, hardly knowing what
+he did, had sprung to his feet.
+
+"I'll have wheat growing here in a twelvemonth!" he shouted.
+
+
+§ 12.
+
+The dawn broke over Boarzell like a reconciliation. The clamouring
+voices of wind and trees were still, and only a low sobbing came now and
+then from the woods. In the sky pale streamers of rose barred and
+striped a spreading violet. One or two clouds flew low, and slowly
+pilled themselves, scattering into the fields. On every blade of grass
+and twig of thorn, on every leaf and spine, glimmered pearls of rain,
+washing the air with a faint scent of stagnant water, perfuming it with
+the steams of sodden grass.
+
+Reuben crept out of his thorn cavern and looked down the slope. At the
+bottom by Socknersh one or two lanterns moved through the dusk. He
+stiffly threw up his arm and tried to shout. His throat felt cramped and
+swollen, and it was not till after one or two attempts that a sound
+pitifully like a bleat came out of it. A voice answered him from the
+hollow, and then he saw that they were carrying something. He limped
+painfully down to them. Richard, Boorman, and Handshut carried a hurdle
+between them, and on the hurdle lay a draggled boy, whose clenched hand
+clutched a tuft of earth and grass as a victim might clutch a handful of
+his murderer's hair.
+
+"Is he dead?" asked Reuben.
+
+"Yes, mäaster," said Boorman.
+
+Richard's mouth twisted in contemptuous silence--Handshut being young
+and silly was crying.
+
+"He wurn't on the new land," continued Boorman, "he'd fallen into the
+ditch by Socknersh palings--that's why we cudn't find un. Reckon as he'd
+felt the fitses coming on un, and tried to git höame, pore souly."
+
+"When did you find him?"
+
+"Half an hour agone. He'd bin dead for hours, mäaster. He must have
+choked in the ditch--see, his mouth is full of mud."
+
+Reuben drew back with a shiver. He limped behind the little procession
+towards Odiam, slouching for the first time in his life. In spite of his
+conquests he and Boarzell still were quits, still had to prove which was
+the better man. George, lying there muddy, white, and crumpled, was a
+sign that the Moor had its victories, in spite of the spreading corn.
+
+He looked down at George--the boy's face had an unhuman chalky
+appearance under the mudstains; on the forehead a vein had swollen up in
+black knots, others showed pale, almost aqueous, through the stretched
+skin. After all, George was the weakest, the best-spared of his
+children. This thought comforted and stiffened him a little, and he went
+into the house with something of his old uprightness.
+
+The other children were in the kitchen. They had seen their dead brother
+from the window, and stood mute and tearless as he was carried into the
+room. Reuben gave orders for him to be taken upstairs and the doctor to
+be sent for. No one else spoke. Tilly's breast heaved stormily, and he
+did not like the dull blaze in her eyes. Strange to say, of his whole
+family, excepting Pete, she was the only one of whom he was not faintly
+contemptuous. She had spirit, that girl--he prophesied that she would
+turn out a shrew.
+
+For the very reason that he could not despise her, he took upon himself
+to bully her now.
+
+"Get me some tea," he said roughly, "I'm cold."
+
+
+§ 13.
+
+Though there had been no open rupture, from that day forward Odiam was
+divided into two camps. On one side were Reuben and Pete, on the other,
+Tilly and Richard. Benjamin and Caro were neutrals; they were
+indifferent to vital issues, one engrossed in snatching holidays, the
+other in hankering after she did not quite know what. Pete had always
+been a good son, hard-working and enthusiastic, not exactly a comrade,
+but none the less an ally, always to be depended on and now and then
+taken into confidence. He seemed to accept his father's attitude towards
+George's death and to resent Richard's and Tilly's. That spring he beat
+Squinty Bream at Robertsbridge Fair, and gave half the purse to Reuben
+to buy a chaff-cutter.
+
+Of the enemy Tilly was the most effective--Reuben did not quite know how
+to deal with her. His inability to despise her told heavily against him.
+Richard, on the other hand, he despised from the depths of his heart.
+The boy was insufferable, for he still had his old knack of saving his
+skin. It was nearly always impossible to pick any definite faults in his
+work--it was wonderful how he managed to combine unwillingness with
+efficiency. He also had an irritating habit of speaking correct English,
+and of alluding to facts and events of which Reuben had never heard in
+such a manner as to make it impossible for him not to show his
+ignorance.
+
+Reuben never lost a chance of baiting him, he jibed at his squeamishness
+and fine manners, at his polite way of eating and the trouble he took to
+clean his nails; he despised him all the more for occasionally getting
+the better of him, verbally at any rate, in these encounters. One night
+at supper Reuben, having actually succeeded in finding this sneering son
+at fault, abused him roundly for the shocking condition of the ewes'
+fleeces. Richard had the bad sense to quote Shakespeare, whereat Reuben
+told him that if he could not speak English he could leave the room.
+Richard replied that he would be very pleased to do so, as certain
+people's table-manners made supper rather an ordeal. Reuben helped him
+out with a kick most vulgarly placed.
+
+The next day Backfield was due at an auction at Northiam, but before
+leaving he ordered Richard to clean out the pig-sties. It was not,
+properly speaking, his work at all, but Reuben hoped it would make him
+sick, or that he would refuse to obey and thus warrant his father
+knocking him down.
+
+"Certainly," said Richard without a tremor.
+
+"Oh, thank you," said Reuben, bowing in mock politeness, and trying to
+copy his clipped English.
+
+Ten minutes later he rode off, and the family separated to their tasks,
+or to such evasions of them as were possible in the master's absence.
+
+Tilly cleared the table and began to prepare the dinner. She had
+promised the boys a bag pudding, and must start it early. She had not
+been cooking more than half an hour when the door opened, and Richard
+came in, dressed in a neat black suit with a stiff Gladstone collar. His
+hair was nicely brushed, and he carried a pair of gloves and a little
+valise.
+
+"Oh!" cried Tilly.
+
+"I'm off," said Richard shortly, banging down his valise on the table.
+
+"Off!--where?"
+
+"To London."
+
+Tilly gaped at him.
+
+"I'm sick of all this, I'm sick of the old man and his beastliness. Miss
+Bardon is lending me money to go to London University, and perhaps I
+shall read for the Bar."
+
+"The Bar," repeated Tilly vaguely.
+
+"Yes, I've learned a heap of Latin and other things during the last
+five years, and two or three years at the University ought to be all I
+want. Miss Bardon's taught me--I owe everything to her."
+
+"I must say as how you've kept it dark."
+
+She knew of his friendship with Anne Bardon, but had never expected it
+to bear such generous fruit.
+
+"Well, it would never have done if the old man had got to know of it.
+Good heavens, Tilly! How can you live on with that old brute?"
+
+"Maybe I shan't much longer," said Tilly, looking down at her
+rolling-pin.
+
+Richard stared at her for a moment--"I'm glad to hear it. But the
+others--oh, my dear girl, this is damnable!"
+
+Tilly sighed.
+
+"The law ought to suppress such men--it ought to be a criminal offence
+to revert to type--the primordial gorilla."
+
+"But fäather's a clever man--Albert always used to say so."
+
+"Yes, in a cunning, brutish sort of way--like a gorilla when he's set
+his heart on a particular cocoanut. Boarzell's his cocoanut, and he's
+done some smart things to get it--and in one way at least he's above the
+gorilla, for he can enslave other people of superior intelligence to
+sweat under his orders for what they care nothing about."
+
+"We're all very unlucky," said Tilly, "to have been born his children.
+But one by one we're gitting free. There'll soon be only Pete and Jemmy
+and Caro left."
+
+"And I hope to God they'll have the wit to follow the rest of us. I'd
+like to see that old slave-driver left quite alone. Heavens! I could
+have strangled him yesterday--I should have, if I hadn't had this to
+look forward to."
+
+"Where are you going to stay in London?"
+
+"Miss Bardon's taken some rooms for me in Montague Street."
+
+"She's good to you, Richard."
+
+"She's an angel "--he lifted his eyes, and his mouth became almost
+worshipful--"she's an angel, who's raised me out of hell. I shall never
+be able to repay her, but she doesn't expect it. All she wants is my
+success."
+
+"I wish Caro or Jemmy cud meet someone like her. I döan't think as Pete
+minds."
+
+"No, he's quite the young gorilla. Now I must be off, Tilly. I'll write
+to you."
+
+"Oh, wöan't fäather be in a taking!"
+
+"I reckon--I expect he will. But don't you mind him, little sister. He
+isn't worth it."
+
+He stooped and kissed her.
+
+"Good-bye. Say it to the others for me."
+
+"Good-bye--good luck to you."
+
+... And he was gone--walking past the window in a top-hat.
+
+
+§ 14.
+
+It would be mere politeness to describe as a "taking" Reuben's condition
+when he heard Richard had gone. He was in a stamping, bellowing,
+bloodshot rage. He sent for various members of his family, questioned
+them, stormed at them, sent them away, then sent for them again. He
+boxed Caro's ears because she cried--hitherto he had kept his hands off
+the girls. As for Tilly, he would have liked to have whipped her--he
+felt sure that somehow it was all her doing--but the more furious he
+grew, the more he felt himself abashed by her manner, at once so soft
+and so determined, and he dared do no more than throw his boots at her.
+
+After a night of cursings and trampings in his room, he took the
+fermenting dregs of his wrath to Cheat Land. It was queer that he should
+go for sympathy to Alice Jury, who was chief in the enemy's camp. But
+though he knew she would not take his part, she would not be like the
+others, leering and cackling. She would give him something vital, even
+if it was only a vital opposition. That was all the difference between
+her and everyone else--she opposed him not because she was flabby or
+uninterested or enterpriseless, but because she really hated what he
+strove for. She was his one strong candid enemy, so he went to her as
+his only friend.
+
+She was shocked at his white twitching face and bloodshot eyes; for the
+first time since she had known him, Reuben came to her bereft of that
+triumphant manhood which had made him so splendid to watch in his
+struggles.
+
+"The hound!" he cried, striking his fists together, "the miserable,
+cowardy hound!--gone and left me--gone to be a gentleman, the lousy pig.
+Oh, Lard, I wish as I had him in these hands o' mine!--I'd mäake a
+gentleman of him!"
+
+Alice, as he expected, had caustic for him rather than balm.
+
+"Once again," she said slowly, "I ask you--is it worth while?"
+
+"Wot's worth while?"
+
+"You know. I asked you that question the first or second time I saw you.
+No one had ever asked it you before, and you would have liked to beat
+me."
+
+"I shud like to beat you now--talking of wot you know naun about."
+
+"I daresay--but I'm not your son or your daughter or your wife----"
+
+"I never beat my wife."
+
+"Chivalrous, humane man!--well, anyhow I'm not anyone you can beat, so I
+dare ask--is it worth while?"
+
+"And I ask wot d'you mean by 'worth while'?"
+
+"You know that it's Boarzell and your farm which have lost you your
+boys."
+
+"I know nothing of the sort."
+
+"Well, would Robert have stolen money, or Albert disgraced your name,
+to get free, if you and your farm hadn't made them slaves? If you hadn't
+been a heartless slave-driver would George have died the other night
+alone on the Moor?--or would Richard have taken advantage of a
+neighbour's charity to escape from you? Don't you see that your ambition
+has driven you to make slaves of your children?"
+
+"Well, they wöan't wark fur me of their free will. Lard knows I've tried
+to interest 'em...."
+
+"But how can you expect them to be interested? Your ambition means
+nothing to them."
+
+"It ought to--Odiam's their home jest as it's mine."
+
+"But don't you see that you've forced them to give up all the sweet
+things of life for it?--Robert his love, and Albert his poetry, and
+Richard his education."
+
+"Well, I gave up all the sweet things of life, as you call 'em--and why
+shudn't they?"
+
+"Because you gave those things up of your free will--they were made to
+give them up by force. You've no right to starve and deny other people
+as you have to starve and deny yourself."
+
+"I döan't see that. Wot I can do, they can."
+
+"But--as experience has taught you--they won't. You can see now what
+your slave-driving's brought you to--you've lost your slaves."
+
+"Well, and I reckon they wurn't much loss, nuther"--the caustic was
+healing after all--"Robert wur a fool wot didn't know how to steal a
+ten-pound note, Albert wur always mooning and wasting his time, and
+George wur a pore thing not worth his keep. As for Richard--that
+Richard--who wants a stuck-up, dentical, high-nosed, genteel swell about
+the pläace? I reckon as I'm well shut of the whole four of 'em. They
+wurn't worth the food they ate, surelye!"
+
+"That's what strikes me as so pathetic."
+
+"Wot?"
+
+"That you should be able to comfort yourself with the thought that they
+weren't worth much to you as a farmer. What were they worth to you as a
+father?"
+
+"Naun."
+
+"Quite so--and that's what makes me pity you," and suddenly her eyes
+kindled, blazed, as with her spirit itself for fuel--"I pity you, I pity
+you--poor, poor man!"
+
+"Adone do wud that--though you sound more as if you wur in a black
+temper wud me than as if you pitied me."
+
+"I am angry with you just because I pity you. It's a shame that I should
+have to pity you--you're such a splendid man. It ought to be impossible
+to pity you, but I do--I pity you from my soul. Think what you're
+missing. Think what your children might have been to you. How you might
+have loved that dear stupid Robert--how proud you might have been of
+Albert, and of Richard leaving you for a professional career ... and
+poor little George, just because he was weak and unlike the rest, he
+might have been more to you than them all. Then there's your brother
+Harry----"
+
+"Come, come--stick to the truth. I äun't to blame for Harry."
+
+"But can't you see that he's the chief part of the tragedy you're
+bringing on yourself and everyone?--He's the type, he's the chorus, the
+commentary on every act. Reuben, can't you see--oh, why won't you
+see?--he's you, yourself, as you really are!"
+
+"Nonsense!--döan't be a fool, my gal."
+
+"Yes--you--blind, crazy with your ambition, repulsive and alone in it.
+Don't you see?"
+
+He smiled grimly--"I döan't."
+
+"No--you don't see this hideous thing that's pursuing you, that's
+stripping you of all that ought to be yours, that's making you miss a
+hundred beautiful things, that's driving you past all your joys--this
+Boarzell...."
+
+"--äun't driving me, anyhow. I'm fighting it."
+
+"No," said Alice. "It's I who am fighting Boarzell."
+
+
+§ 15.
+
+Early the next year, Tilly married Realf of Grandturzel.
+
+Reuben received the blow in silence--it stunned him. He did not go over
+to Cheat Land--something, he scarcely knew what, kept him away. In the
+long yellow twilights he wandered on Boarzell. The rain-smelling March
+wind scudded over the grass, over the wet furrows of his cornfields,
+over the humming tops of the firs that, with the gorse splashed round
+their trunks, marked the crest of the Moor and of his ambition. Would
+they ever be his, those firs? Would he ever tear up that gorse and fling
+it on the bonfire, as he had torn up the gorse on the lower slopes and
+burned it with roars and cracklings and smoke that streamed over the
+Moor to Totease? Perhaps Realf would have the firs and the gorse, and
+pile that gorgeous bonfire. Tilly would put him up to her father's
+game--Reuben's imagination again failed to conceive the man who did not
+want Boarzell--she would betray Odiam's ambitions, and babble its most
+vital secrets. Tilly, Reuben told Boarzell, was a bitch.
+
+It became now all the more necessary to smash Realf. He could no longer
+be content with keeping just ahead of him; he must establish a sort of
+two-power standard, and crush his rival to the earth. That was not a
+good summer for expansion--a drought baked up the greater part of
+Sussex, and there was an insect plague in the hops--nevertheless, Reuben
+bought thirty-five acres of Boarzell, on the east slope, by the road. He
+was tormented by a fear that Realf would buy the land if he did not,
+and, moreover, during May two boards had appeared advertising it as "an
+eligible building site"; which was possibly bluff, possibly unusual
+cunning on the part of Flightshot, made resourceful by its straits.
+
+He no longer had any direct intercourse with the Bardons. Their latest
+impropriety had put them beyond even the favour of a casual nod. If they
+chose to break up his family they must take the consequences. He only
+wished he could break up their estate, sell their rat-holed old Manor
+over their heads, and leave them unprotected by landed property to the
+sure workings of their own incompetence.
+
+He did not fail to show his neighbours how he despised Flightshot, and
+the more humorously inclined among them were never tired of asking how
+soon it would be before Richard married Anne.
+
+"Your family seems to be in a marrying way jest now, Mus'
+Backfield--there's your daughter made an unaccountable fine match, and
+it's only nat'ral as young Richard shud want to do as well fur himself."
+
+Reuben treated these irreverences with scorn. Nothing would make him
+abate a jot of his dignity. On the contrary, his manner and his presence
+became more and more commanding. He drove a splendid blood mare in his
+gig, smoked cigars instead of pipes, and wore stand-up collars about
+four inches high--when he was not working, for it had not struck him
+that it was undignified to work, and he still worked harder on his farm
+than the worst-paid pig-boy.
+
+He was more stoutly resolved than ever that the mob of small farmers and
+incompetents should not gape at his misfortunes. So he hid under a
+highly repulsive combination of callousness and swagger his grief for
+his sons' defection, his rage and shame at Tilly's marriage, and his
+growing anxiety about Odiam. That summer had been terrible--a long
+drought had been followed too late by thundery rains. His harvest had
+been parched and scrappy, most of the roots shedding their seed before
+reaping; the green-fly had spoiled several acres of hops, which
+otherwise would have been the one bright patch in the season; his apples
+and pears had been eaten by wasps; and then a few untimely showers had
+beaten down two fields of barley yet unreaped and his only decent crop
+of aftermath hay.
+
+If Grandturzel had fared as badly he could have borne it, but
+Grandturzel, though scarred, came out of the summer less battered than
+he. Realf's oats, being in a more sheltered position, did no private
+threshing of their own; his hops for the most part escaped the blight,
+and though he lost a good deal on his plums, his apples were harvested
+at a record, and brought him in nearly ten pounds an acre. On both farms
+the milk had done badly, but as Realf's dairy business was not so
+extensive as Backfield's, he was better able to stand its partial
+collapse.
+
+Reuben felt that Tilly was at the bottom of his rival's success. She was
+practical and saving, the very virtues which Realf lacked and the want
+of which might have wrecked him. She doubtless was responsible for the
+good condition of his orchards and the immunity of his hops; she had
+probably told her husband of that insect-spray of her father's--which
+had failed him that summer, being too much diluted by the fool who mixed
+it, but had proved a miracle of devastation in other years.
+
+He wanted to smash Tilly even more than he wanted to smash Realf. He had
+seen her twice since her marriage--meeting her once in Rye, and once on
+Boarzell--and each sight had worked him into a greater rage. Her little
+figure had strengthened and filled out, her demure self-confidence had
+increased, her prettiness was even more adorable now that the rose had
+deepened on her cheeks and her gowns strained over her breast; she was
+enough to fill any man with wrath at the joke of things. Tilly ought to
+be receiving the wages of her treachery in weariness and anxiety, fading
+colour and withering flesh--and here she was all fat and rosy and happy,
+well-fed and well-beloved. He hated her and called her a harlot--because
+she had betrayed Odiam for hire and trafficked in its shame.
+
+
+§ 16.
+
+He had been forced to engage a woman to help Caro in the house, and also
+a shepherd for Richard's work. His family had been whittled down to
+almost nothing. Only Caro, Pete, and Jemmy were left out of his eight
+splendid boys and girls. Caro, Pete, Jemmy, and hideous, mumbling
+Harry--he surveyed the four of them with contemptuous scowls. Pete was
+the only one who was worth anything--Caro and Jemmy would turn against
+him if they had the slightest chance and forsake him with the rest. As
+for Harry, he was a grotesque, an image, a hideous fum--"Reuben himself
+as he really was." He! He!
+
+The weeks wore on and it dawned on him that he must pull himself
+together for a fresh campaign. He must have more warriors--he could not
+fight Boarzell with only traitors and hirelings. He must marry again.
+
+It was some time since the abstract idea of marriage had begun to please
+him, but lately the abstract of marriage had always led to the concrete
+of Alice Jury, so he had driven it from his thoughts. Now, more and more
+clearly, he saw that he must marry. He wanted a woman and he wanted
+children, so he must marry. But he must not marry Alice.
+
+Of late he had resumed his visits to Cheat Land, discontinued for a
+while at Tilly's marriage. The attraction of Alice Jury was as strong,
+unfathomable, and unaccountable as ever. Since the stormy interview
+after Richard's desertion they had not discussed his ambitions for
+Odiam and Boarzell, but that meeting was none the less stamped on
+Reuben's memory with a gloomy significance. It was not that Alice's
+arguments had affected him at all--she had not penetrated to the springs
+of his enterprise, she had not touched or conjured the hidden part of
+him in which his ambition's roots were twined round all that was vital
+and sacred in the man. But somehow she had expressed her own attitude
+with an almost sinister clearness--"It's I who am fighting Boarzell."
+What should she fight it for?--imagine that she fought it, rather, for a
+woman could not really fight Boarzell. She was fighting it for him. She
+wanted him.
+
+He knew that Alice wanted him, and he knew that he wanted Alice. He did
+not know why he wanted Alice any more than he knew why Alice wanted him.
+"Wot is she?--a liddle stick of a creature. And I like big women."
+
+There was something in the depths of him that cried for her, something
+which had never moved or cried in him before. In spite of her lack of
+beauty and beguilement, in spite of her hostility to all his darling
+schemes, there was something in him to which Alice actually and utterly
+belonged. He did not understand it, he could not analyse it, he scarcely
+indeed realised it--all he felt was the huge upheaval, the conflict that
+it brought, all the shouting and the struggling of the desperate and
+motiveless craving that he felt for her--a hunger in him calling through
+days and nights, in spite of her insignificance, her aloofness, her
+silences, her antagonism.
+
+"I reckon as how I must be in love."
+
+That was the conclusion he came to after much heavy pondering. He had
+never been truly in love before. He had wanted women for various
+reasons, either for their charm and beauty, or because, as in Naomi's
+case, of their practical use to him. Alice had no beauty, and a charm
+too subtle for him to realise, though as a matter of fact the whole man
+was plastic to it--as for practical usefulness, she was poor, delicate,
+unaccustomed to country life, and hostile to all his most vital
+ambitions. She would not bring him wealth or credit, she was not likely
+to bear him healthy children--and yet he loved her.
+
+Sometimes, roaming through murky dusks, he realised in the dim
+occasional flashes which illuminate the non-thinking man, that he was up
+against the turning-point of his fight with Boarzell. If he married
+Alice it would be the token of what had always seemed more unimaginable
+than his defeat--his voluntary surrender. Sometimes he told himself
+fiercely that he could fight Boarzell with Alice hanging, so to speak,
+over his arm; but in his heart he knew that he could not. He could not
+have both Alice and Boarzell.
+
+Yet, in spite of all this, one day at Cheat Land he nearly fell at her
+feet and asked her to be his ruin.
+
+It was a March twilight, cold and rustling, and tart with the scents of
+newly turned furrows. Reuben sat with Alice in the kitchen, and every
+now and then Jury's wretched house-place would shake as the young gale
+swept up rainless from the east and poured itself into cracks and
+chimneys. Alice was sewing as usual--it struck Reuben that she was very
+quick and useful with her fingers, whatever might be her drawbacks in
+other ways. Sometimes she had offered to read poetry to him, and had
+once bored him horribly with In Memoriam, but as he had taken no trouble
+to hide his feelings she had to his great relief announced her intention
+of casting no more pearls before swine.
+
+She was silent, and the firelight playing in her soft, lively eyes gave
+her a kind of mystery which for the first time allowed Reuben a glimpse
+into the sources of her attraction. She was utterly unlike anything
+there was or had been in his life, the only thing he knew that did not
+smell of earth. The pity of it was that he loved that strong-smelling
+earth so much.
+
+"Alice," he said suddenly--"Do you think as how you could ever care
+about Boarzell?"
+
+"No, I'm quite sure I couldn't."
+
+"Not ever?"
+
+"Never."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Because I hate it. It's spoiling your life. It's making a beast and a
+maniac of you. You think of nothing--absolutely nothing--but a miserable
+rubbish-heap that most people would be throwing their old kettles on."
+
+"That's just the point, my gal. Where most föalkses 'ud be throwing old
+kettles, I shall be growing wheat."
+
+"And what good will that do you?"
+
+"Good!--when I've two hundred acres sown with grain!"
+
+"Yes, grain that's fertilised with the rotting remains of all that ought
+to have made your life good and sweet."
+
+"You wöan't understand. There's naun in the world means anything to me
+but my farm. Oh, Alice, if you could only see things wud my eyes and
+stand beside me instead of agäunst me."
+
+"Then there would be no more friendship between us. What unites us is
+the fact that we are fighting each other."
+
+"Döan't talk rubbidge, liddle gal. It's because I see, all the fight
+there is in you that I'd sooner you fought for me than agäunst me.
+Couldn't you try, Alice?"
+
+His voice had sunk very low, almost to sweetness. A soft flurry of pink
+went over her face, and her eyelids drooped. Then suddenly she braced
+herself, pulled herself taut, grew combative again, though her voice
+shook.
+
+"No, Reuben, I could never do anything but fight your schemes. I think
+you are wasting and spoiling your life, and there's no use expecting me
+to stand by you."
+
+He now realised the full extent of his peril, because for the first
+time he saw her position unmasked. She would never beguile him with the
+thought that she could help him in his life's desire; she would not
+alter the essential flavour of their relationship to suit his
+taste--rather she would force him to swallow it, she would subdue by
+strength and not by stealth, and fight him to the end.
+
+He must escape, for if he surrendered now the battle was over, and he
+would have betrayed Boarzell the loved to something he loved less--loved
+less, he knew it, though he wavered.
+
+He rose to his feet. The kitchen was dark, with eddying sweeps of shadow
+in the corners which the firelight caressed--while a single star put
+faint ghostly romance into the window.
+
+"I--I must be gitting back home."
+
+Alice rose too, and for a moment he was surprised that she did not try
+to keep him; instead, she said:
+
+"It's late."
+
+He moved a step or two towards the door, and suddenly she added in a low
+broken voice:
+
+"But not too late."
+
+The floor seemed to rise towards him, and the star in the window to
+dance down into Castweasel woods and up again.
+
+Alice stood in the middle of the room, her face bloomed with dusk and
+firelight, her hands stretched out towards him....
+
+There was silence, in which a coal fell. She still stood with her arms
+outstretched; he knew that she was calling him--as no woman had ever
+called him--with all that of herself which was in his heart, part of his
+own being.
+
+"Reuben."
+
+"Alice."
+
+He came a few steps back into the room....
+
+It was those few steps which lost him to her, for they brought him
+within sight of Boarzell--framed in the window, where Castweasel woods
+had been. It lay in a great hush, a great solitude, a quiet beast of
+power and mystery. It seemed to call to him through the twilight like a
+love forsaken. There it lay, Boarzell--strong, beautiful, desired,
+untamed, still his hope, still his battle. And Alice?... He gave her a
+look, and left her.
+
+
+"I once töald a boy of mine," he said to himself as he crossed the Moor,
+"that the sooner he found he could do wudout love the better.... Well, I
+reckon I'm not going to be any weaker than my words."
+
+
+
+
+BOOK V
+
+ALMOST UNDER
+
+
+§ 1.
+
+Reuben did not go back to Cheat Land for several weeks. Those five
+minutes had been too much for him. He would never again risk putting
+himself in the power of things he did not understand. Besides, he felt
+vaguely that after what had happened Alice would not want to see him.
+She had humiliated herself, or rather he had humiliated her--for she had
+put out in one swift dark minute all the powers of her nature to bind
+him, and she had failed. He remembered her voice when she whispered,
+"But not too late," and her eyes afterwards, smouldering in shadow, and
+her little hands held out to him.... There had been nothing definite,
+obvious, or masterful, yet in those few words and actions her whole self
+had pleaded on its knees--and he had turned away.
+
+But sometimes what kept him from her more than the thought of her
+humiliation was the thought of his own. For sometimes it seemed almost
+as if she had humbled him more than he had humbled her. He could not
+tell whether this sick feeling of shame which occasionally swamped him
+was due to the fact that he had so nearly surrendered to her or to the
+fact that he had not quite done so. Sometimes he thought it was the
+latter. The whole thing was ridiculous and perplexing, a lesson to him
+not to adventure into subtleties but to keep in communion with the broad
+plain things of earth.
+
+Early in May he found a visit to Cheat Land forced upon him. Jury
+wanted to buy a cow of his, but one of the sudden chills to which he was
+liable kept him indoors. Reuben was anxious to sell the animal, and,
+there being one or two weak points about her, would trust nobody but
+himself with the negotiations. However, the visit would be quite safe,
+for he was not likely to see Alice alone, indeed it was probable that he
+might not see her at all.
+
+On reaching the farm he heard several voices in the kitchen, and found
+the invalid in an arm-chair by the fire, talking to an oldish man and a
+rather plump pretty girl of about twenty. Jury was an intellectual,
+incompetent-looking fellow, who seemed elderly, but at the same time
+gave one the impression that this was due to his health. His grey hair
+straggled over temples where the skin was stretched tight and yellow as
+parchment, his cheeks were hollow, his eyes astonishingly like his
+daughter's. He was one of the arguments against the marriage.
+
+Alice had let Reuben in. She looked a little tired, but otherwise quite
+cheerful, and she welcomed him simply and naturally.
+
+"This is Miss Lardner," she said, introducing him to the girl, "and Mr.
+Lardner of Starvecrow."
+
+"I heard as how Starvecrow had been bought at last," said Reuben; "not a
+bad farm, Muster, if you're fur green crops mostly."
+
+"Potatoes," said Lardner, "potatoes--if farmers 'ud only grow potatoes
+and not think so much of grain and rootses, we shudn't hear of so many
+of 'em going bust."
+
+The conversation became agricultural, but in spite of the interest such
+a topic always had for him, Reuben could not help watching the two
+girls. Miss Lardner, whom Alice called Rose, was a fine creature, so
+different from the other as to make the contrast almost laughable. She
+was tall and strapping--in later life she might become over stout, but
+at present her figure was splendid, superbly moulded and erect. She
+looked like a young goddess as she sat there, one leg crossed over the
+other, showing her white stocking almost to the knee. There was
+something arrogant in her attitude, as if she was aware of the splendour
+of her body, and gloried in it. Her face too was beautiful--though less
+classically so--rather broad, with high flat cheek-bones, and a wide
+full-lipped mouth which would have given it almost a Creole look, if it
+had not been for her short delicate nose and her fair ruddiness. Her
+hair seemed to hesitate between gold and brown--her eyes between
+boldness and languor.
+
+Reuben found himself glancing at her continually, and though she seldom
+met his eyes, he knew that she was aware of his scrutiny. He sometimes
+felt that Alice was aware of it too.
+
+As the conversation wore on, and became more general, Lardner said
+something about going over to Snailham and taking Rose home on the way.
+
+"Oh, no, Uncle--I don't want to go. Alice has asked me to stay to
+supper."
+
+"But you can't go home alone, and I can't wait wud you, surelye."
+
+"I'll take Miss Lardner home," said Reuben.
+
+Directly he had said the words, he looked over at Rose to see how she
+would receive them. Her eyelashes lay black and curly against her cheek,
+then they lifted slowly, and her eyes looked out from under the
+half-raised lids with a kind of demure roguishness. At the same time her
+lower lip seemed to quiver and plump out, while the corners of her mouth
+rose and curled. He suddenly felt a desire to plant a kiss fairly on
+that wet red mouth, which from away across the room seemed to pout
+towards him.
+
+
+§ 2.
+
+Supper was a quiet meal. Old Jury and his invalid wife sat at each end
+of the table, while Alice did most of the helping and waiting. They
+seemed a sorry three to Reuben, pale, washed out, and weakly, their eyes
+bright as birds' with the factitious light of their enthusiasms for
+things that did not matter. They ate without much appetite, picking
+daintily at their food, their knives never in their mouths. Reuben found
+himself despising them as he despised the Bardons.
+
+Rose did not talk much, but she ate heartily--she must be as healthy as
+she looked. Once or twice during the meal Reuben caught himself staring
+at her lips--they were extraordinarily red, and at the end of the meal
+the juice of her pudding had stained them purple.
+
+She said that she must leave directly after supper. Alice fetched her
+hat, which was not the kind that Reuben had ever seen on country girls,
+being of the fashionable pork-pie shape. All her clothes were obviously
+town-made; she wore a blue stuff dress, tight-fitting round her bust and
+shoulders, full and flounced in the skirt--afterwards he heard that Rose
+had spent some years with relations in London before coming to live at
+Starvecrow.
+
+He gave her his arm, said good-bye to Alice in the doorway, and went
+through the little garden where flowers crowded out vegetables in a very
+unbusiness-like way, into the lane which wound past Cheat Land and round
+the hanger of Boarzell, to the farms of the Brede Valley.
+
+Rose, a little to his surprise, began to chatter volubly. She talked
+very much like a child, with naïve comments, about simple things. She
+asked trivial questions, and screamed with delight when some
+dusk-blinded bird flew against her breast and dashed down heavily into
+the ruts. She exclaimed at the crimson moon which rose behind the hedge
+like a hot penny--she laughed at the slightest provocation; and yet all
+the while he was conscious of an underlayer of shrewdness, he had an
+extraordinary conviction of experience.
+
+Besides, while she laughed and babbled like a child, her eyes
+continually rose towards his with a woman's calculated boldness. They
+spoke something quite different from her lips--the combination was
+maddening; and those lips, too, in their rare silences, were so unlike
+the words they uttered that he scarcely knew whether he wanted most to
+silence them completely or never let them be silent.
+
+"I don't like Alice Jury," she prattled, "she says just the opposite of
+what you say. She never lets herself agree with anyone. She's a
+contradictious female."
+
+Then suddenly she was silent--and Reuben kissed her.
+
+He crooked his arm round her and held her close to him, standing there
+in the lane. Her lips slowly parted under his, then suddenly she threw
+her head back in a kind of ecstasy, giving him the white expanse of her
+neck, which he kissed, giddy with a soft fragrance that rose from her
+clothes, reminding him a little of clover.
+
+She was so obviously and naïvely delighted, that when he drew himself
+up, his idea of her was again one of extreme childishness. And yet it
+was evident that she was used to kisses, and that he had kissed her at
+her own unspoken invitation.
+
+They walked on down the lane. Rose's chatter had ceased, and a complete
+silence dropped between the hedges. The moon had risen higher, and the
+western hazels were bloomed with light. The moon was no longer crimson
+in the dark sky, but had burnt down to copper, casting a copper glow
+into the mists, staining all the blues that melted into one another
+along the hills. Only the middle of the lane was black--like a well.
+Reuben and Rose could see each other's faces in a kind of rusty
+glimmer, but their feet stumbled in the darkness, and her hand lay
+clutching and heavy on his arm.
+
+At last they came to Castweasel--three old cottages and a ruined one,
+leaning together in a hollow like mushrooms. Beside the ruined cottage a
+tree-trunk was lying, and Rose suddenly stretched herself with a little
+sigh.
+
+"I'm tired--let's sit down and rest a bit."
+
+They sat down on the log, and she immediately crept close to him like a
+child. He put his arm round her, and once again she thrilled him with
+her own delight--she stole her arms round his neck, holding his head in
+the crook of her elbows, and laughed with her mouth against his. Then
+her hands crept into his hair, and rumpled it, while she whispered like
+a child finding some new virtue in its toy--"How thick! how thick!" At
+last she drew his head down to her breast, holding it there with both
+hands while she dipped her kisses on his eyes....
+
+Reuben was in ecstasy by this time. It was years since he had caressed a
+woman, except casually, for he considered that women interfered with his
+work. Rose's eagerness could not cheapen her, for it was so childlike,
+and she continued to give him that sense of deep experience which robbed
+her attitude of insipidity. Her delight in his kisses was somehow made
+sweeter to him by the conviction that she could compare them with other
+men's.
+
+She began to laugh--she became gay and mettlesome. Her whole nature
+seemed changed, and he found it hard to think of her as the beautiful
+yet rather lumpish girl who had sat in the silence of a good appetite at
+the Cheat Land supper-table. Behind them the ruin of the old cottage
+sent out bitter-sweet scents of decay--its crumbling plaster and rotting
+lath perfumed the night. Fragrances strove in the air--the scent of
+Rose's clothes, and of her big curls tumbling on his shoulder, the
+scent of still water, of dew-drenched leaves, and damp, teeming
+soil--sweet vagabond scents of bluebells, puffed on sudden breezes....
+
+Reuben was growing drunken with it all--he strained Rose to him; she was
+part of the night. Just as her scents mingled with its scents, so he and
+she both mingled with the hush of the lightless, sorrowless fields, the
+blots of trees, the woods that whispered voicelessly.... Above the
+hedges, stars winked and flashed, dancing in the crystalline air. Right
+overhead the Sign of Cancer jigged to its image in Castweasel Pool.
+Reuben looked up, and through a gate he saw Boarzell rearing like a
+shaggy beast towards him. He suddenly became more aware of Boarzell than
+of anything in the night, than of the flowers or the water or the stars,
+or even Rose, drowsing against his shoulder with parted lips. Boarzell
+filled the night. The breeze became suddenly laden with scents of
+it--the faint bitterness of its dew-drenched turf where the
+bracken-crosiers were beginning to uncurl, of its noon-smelling gorse,
+of its heather-tangle, half budding, half dead, of its fir-needles and
+its fir-cones, rotting and sprouting. All seemed to blend together into
+a strong, heady, ammoniacal smell ... the great beast of Boarzell
+dominated the night, pawed Reuben, roared over him, made him suddenly
+mad, clutching Rose till she cried out with pain, kissing her till she
+broke free, and stood before him pale and dishevelled, with anger in her
+eyes.
+
+He sprang to his feet, the mood had passed--the beast of Boarzell had
+ceased to worry him.
+
+"I'm sorry," he said sheepishly.
+
+"And well you may be," said Rose, "you've torn my gown."
+
+They walked on down the lane; she pouted and swung her hat. Reuben,
+anxious to propitiate, picked primroses under the hedge and gave them to
+her.
+
+She looked pleased at once, and began to eat them.
+
+"Wot," said Reuben, "you eat flowers?"
+
+"Yes," she answered, "I love eating primroses--pick me some more."
+
+So for the rest of the walk to Starvecrow, he picked primroses, and she
+nibbled them with her white teeth, which were small and even, except for
+the two canines, which were pointed like a little animal's.
+
+
+§ 3.
+
+During the next day or two Reuben thought a great deal about Rose
+Lardner. He made covert enquiries about her in the neighbourhood. He
+found out that she was an orphan and old Lardner's only surviving
+relative. He was an extremely prosperous man, and at his death Rose
+would have all his money. Moreover, rumour gave him a cancer which would
+carry him off before very long.
+
+Reuben turned over these facts in his mind. He realised what a fine
+thing it would be for Odiam if he married Rose. Here was the very wife
+he wanted--of good standing in the neighbourhood, and something of an
+heiress, young and healthy, and likely to give him stout boys, and also
+exceedingly attractive in herself.
+
+Under the circumstances he hardly knew what held him back, what made the
+whole idea vaguely repugnant to him. Surely it could not be his feeling
+for Alice Jury. The terrible thought suggested itself that his love for
+Alice would survive all the outward signs of its demolition, that though
+beaten and killed and destroyed it would haunt him disembodied. That was
+the secret of its power--its utter lack of corporiety, its independence
+of the material things a strong man could bend to his will, so that, as
+it were, one could never lay hands on it, but chased it for ever like a
+ghost.
+
+Nevertheless, he called at Starvecrow and renewed his impressions of
+Rose. They did not want much adjustment; he found her as he had found
+her that first evening--childlike in all things save love, indolent,
+languorous, and yet with gay bursts of spirit which made her charming.
+He noticed too how well dressed she was--he admired her stuff gown and
+neat buttoned boots, so different from what he was accustomed to see on
+the feet of his womenfolk; he admired the crinkle and gloss of her hair,
+so beautifully waved and brushed, and scented with some lotion--her
+hands, too, well kept and white with shining pink nails, her trim muslin
+collar, the clover scent of her garments ... it was all new, and gave
+him somehow a vague feeling of self-respect.
+
+When they were alone she was as eager as ever for his love. He had a
+precious ten minutes with her in the parlour at Starvecrow, at the end
+of which in came old Lardner, with talk of crops and beasts. Reuben
+considered that he had some knowledge of farming--which was a long way
+for him to go--and took him into confidence about some of Odiam's
+affairs. The farm was still causing him anxiety, and he felt in need of
+ready money. He wanted to establish a milk round, with a dairy shop in
+Rye, but he could not spare the capital.
+
+That visit was the first of several others. Starvecrow took the place of
+Cheat Land--indeed, he seldom went near Cheat Land now. Rose gave him
+all the refuge he wanted from the vexings and thwartings of his daily
+life. She was not, like Alice, a counter-irritant, but a sweet drowse of
+tenderness and beauty in which he forgot his disappointment, thinking of
+nothing but the lovely woman he caressed.
+
+She gave him sympathy, too, in a childlike way. She did not like it if
+he interrupted his love-making to tell her about his plans for Boarzell,
+but at other moments she seemed to enjoy hearing him talk of his
+ambition; and often, when the jar and failure of things depressed him,
+she would take him in her arms, and soothe him like a baby with--"Of
+course you'll have Boarzell, my Reuben; of course it will be
+yours--you're so strong and masterful, you're bound to get all you
+want."
+
+Her delight in him never seemed to fail. Sometimes it seemed to him
+strange that the difference in their ages did not affect her more. She
+never gave him a hint that she thought him too old for her. He once told
+her that he was nearly fifty, but she had answered with a happy laugh
+that she did not like boys.
+
+As a matter of fact, Reuben at fifty was a lover of whom any girl might
+still be proud. If a little grey had come into his hair, it had merely
+been to give it the gleam of polished iron, and contrast it more
+effectively with the swarthiness of his skin. His teeth were as white
+and even as when he was twenty, for he had never risked spoiling them by
+too much tobacco--his eyes, dark and bright, were like a boy's; his
+broad back was straight, and his powerful arms could lift even the plump
+Rose to his shoulder. He once carried her on his shoulder all the way
+from Tide Barn to the beginning of Starvecrow lane.
+
+
+§ 4.
+
+Towards the end of August, Reuben asked Rose to marry him.
+
+The request was not so much the outcome of passion as might have been
+imagined from the form it took. It was true that he was deeply enamoured
+of her, but it was also true that for three months he had endured the
+intoxication of her presence without definitely, or even indefinitely,
+claiming her for his own. He had held himself back till he had
+thoroughly weighed and pondered her in relation to his schemes--he was
+not going to renounce Alice for a wife who would be herself a drawback
+in another way.
+
+However, though he had never deceived himself that Rose's sympathetic
+tendernesses meant any real sharing of his ambition, he was soon
+convinced that to marry her would be materially to help himself in the
+battle which was now dragging a little on his side. He wanted ready
+money--her settlements would provide that; and her heirship of Lardner
+held out dazzling hopes for the future. He wanted children--where could
+he find a healthier mother? He wanted to raise the dignity of Odiam, and
+could hardly have thought of a better means than marriage with the niece
+of one of the wealthiest and most important farmers in the parish. To
+crown all, he gave himself an adorable woman, young, lovely, tender, and
+gay. This consideration could not have dragged him contrary to his
+ambition, but combined with it, it could give to an otherwise very
+practical and material plan all the heats of passion and the glories of
+romance.
+
+The only disappointment was Rose's reception of his offer. At first she
+was unaffectedly surprised. She had looked upon the whole affair as a
+flirtation, of which she had had several, and had never expected it to
+take such a serious turn.
+
+Even when she had recovered from her surprise, she refused to give him
+an answer. He became suddenly alarmed lest she thought him too old, and
+pressing her for her reasons, found that the real matter was that she
+did not want to sacrifice her freedom.
+
+"Wot do you mean, sweetheart? Döan't you love me?"
+
+"Of course I love you--but it doesn't follow I want to belong to you.
+Can't we go on as we are?"
+
+"You queer me, Rose. How can we go on as we are?--it's like walking on a
+road that never leads nowhere."
+
+"Well, that's very nice--I don't always want to go somewhere every time
+I take a walk, I much prefer just wandering."
+
+"I döan't."
+
+"Because you're so practical and business-like, and I'm afraid you'd try
+and make me practical and business-like too. That's why I said I wanted
+to be free."
+
+"You shall be free, Rose--I promise you. You shall do wotsumdever you
+please."
+
+"Absolutely 'wotsumdever'?"
+
+"Yes--wudin reason, of course."
+
+"Ah, that's it. Your reason mightn't be my reason."
+
+"You wudn't find me unreasonable, dear."
+
+"Well, I shall have to think it over."
+
+She thought it over for two months, during which Reuben suffered all the
+torments of his lot. She soon came to realise and appreciate her powers;
+she dangled hopes and fears with equal zest before his eyes, she used
+his anxieties to stoke the furnaces of his passion, till she had
+betrayed him into blazes and explosions which he looked on afterwards
+with uneasy shame.
+
+Once in sick amazement at himself he took refuge at Cheat Land, and sat
+for an hour in Alice Jury's kitchen, watching her sew. But the springs
+of his confidence were dried, he could not tell Alice what he felt about
+Rose. She knew, of course. All the neighbourhood knew he was in love
+with Rose Lardner, and watched the progress of his courtship with covert
+smiles.
+
+Rose used often to come to Odiam, where she was at first rather shy of
+Reuben's children, all of whom were older than herself. In time,
+however, she outgrew her shyness, and became of an exceedingly mad and
+romping disposition. She ran about the house like a wild thing, she
+dropped blackberries into Caro's cream, she tickled Pete's neck with
+wisps of hay, she danced in the yard with Jemmy. Reuben grew
+desperate--he felt the hopelessness of capturing this baby who played
+games with his children; and yet Rose was in some ways so much older
+than they--she loved to say risky things in front of the innocent Caro,
+and howled with laughter when she could not understand--she loved to
+prod and baffle the two boys, who in this respect were nearly as
+inexperienced as their sister. Then, on the walk home with Reuben, over
+Boarzell, she would retail these feats of hers with gusto, she would
+invite his kisses, sting up his passion--she tormented him with her
+extraordinary combinations of childishness and experience, shyness and
+abandonment, innocence and corruption.
+
+In time the state of his own mind reduced Reuben to silence about his
+longings. He somehow lost the power of picturing himself married to this
+turbulent, bewildering creature, half-woman, half-child. He clung to her
+in silent kisses; leading her home over Boarzell, he would suddenly turn
+and smother her in his arms, while his breast heaved with griefs and
+sighings he had not known in the earlier weeks of his courtship.
+
+Rose noticed this difference, and it piqued her. She began to miss his
+continual protestations. Sometimes she tried to stir them up again, but
+her bafflings had reacted on herself; she handled him clumsily, he was
+too mazed to respond to her flicks. Then she became sulky, irritable,
+slightly tyrannous--even stinting her kisses.
+
+One night early in October he was taking her home. They had crossed
+Boarzell, and were walking through the lanes that tangle the valley
+north of Udimore. She walked with her arm conventionally resting on his,
+her profile demure in the starlight. He felt tired, not in his body, but
+in his mind--somehow life seemed very aimless and gloomy; he despised
+himself because he craved for her arms, for her light thoughtless
+sympathy.
+
+"Why döan't you speak to me, Rose?"
+
+"I was thinking."
+
+"Wot about?"
+
+"Oh, clothes and things."
+
+He stopped suddenly in their walk, as he had often done, and seized her
+in his arms, swinging her off her feet, burying his face in her wraps to
+kiss her neck. She kicked and fought him like a wild cat, and at last he
+dropped her.
+
+"Why wöan't you let me kiss you?"
+
+"Because I won't."
+
+She walked quickly, almost running, and he had to stride to keep up with
+her.
+
+"You're justabout cruel," he said furiously.
+
+"And so are you."
+
+"Wot have I done?"
+
+"You've changed your mind about wanting to marry me."
+
+He stared at her with his mouth open.
+
+"Rose...."
+
+"Well, don't gape at me. You know you have."
+
+"I justabout haven't. It's you----"
+
+"It isn't me. I only asked for a little time to think it over, and then
+you go and cool off."
+
+"I--cool off! My dear, I dudn't ever. I never understood--you're such a
+tedious liddle wild thing."
+
+"Well, do you want to marry me?"
+
+"Rose!"
+
+"And you'll let me do as I like?"
+
+"Rose, marry me."
+
+"Very well--I will. But it's funny I should want to."
+
+Then suddenly her expression changed. Her eyes half closed, her lips
+parted, and she held out her arms to him with a laugh like a sob.
+
+
+§ 5.
+
+Reuben and Rose were married in the January of '70. It was the earliest
+date compatible with the stocking of her wardrobe, a business which
+immediately absorbed her to the exclusion of everything else.
+
+Meantime Reuben, having repapered the parlour and given a new coat of
+whitewash to the best bedroom ceiling, discussed settlements with old
+Lardner. These did not turn out as large as he had hoped--the old man
+was close, and attempts on his generosity only resulted in embarrassing
+doubts as to the disinterestedness of his son-in-law's affections.
+Reuben comforted himself with the thought that Lardner most certainly
+had a cancer.
+
+At the wedding Rose fairly dazed the onlookers. She wore a dress of
+heavy white satin, with a white lace veil--and a bustle. It was the
+first bustle that had ever been seen in Peasmarsh, or even in Rye. In
+itself it was devastating enough, but it soon acquired a prophetic and
+metaphorical significance which made it even more impressive. Spectators
+saw in it the forecast of Odiam's downfall--"He can't stand that," said
+Brazier, the new man at Totease, "she's a Jezebubble."--"Only it äun't
+her head as she's tired this time," said Ticehurst.--"She shud have worn
+it in front of her, and then we shud have bin interested," said Cooper
+of Kitchenhour.
+
+Alice Jury and her father were in church. Reuben saw them as he marched
+up the aisle with an enormous flower in his buttonhole, accompanied by
+Ginner of Socknersh as his best man. It struck him that she looked more
+pretty and animated than usual, in a woolly red dress and a little fur
+cap under which her eyes were bright as a robin's. Even then he felt a
+little offended and perplexed by her behaviour--she should have
+drooped--it would have been more becoming if she had drooped.
+
+The remnants of his family were in a front pew--Pete with an elaborately
+curled forelock, Jemmy casting the scent of cheap hair oil into the
+prevalent miasma of camphor and moth-killer, and between the two boys,
+Caro in an unbecoming hat which she wore at a wrong angle, while her
+dark restless eyes devoured Rose's creamy smartness, from her satin
+shoes to the wave of curling-irons in her hair. Harry had been left at
+home--he was in an impossible mood, tormented by some dark current of
+memory, wandering from room to room as he muttered--"Another
+wedding--another wedding--we're always having weddings in this house."
+
+After the ceremony nearly a hundred guests were fed at Starvecrow. All
+the most important farmers of the neighbourhood were there, except of
+course Realf of Grandturzel. Rose was like her name-flower, flushed and
+scented. Very different from his earlier bride, she sat beside Reuben
+with head erect and smiling lips--she drank with everyone, and the wine
+deepened the colour of her cheeks and made her eyes like stars. She
+talked, she laughed, she ate, she was so happy that her glances, full of
+bold languor, swept round the table, resting on all present as well as
+the chosen man--she was a gay wife.
+
+Dancing at weddings was dying out as a local fashion, so when the
+breakfast was over the guests melted away, having eaten and drunk
+themselves into a desire for sleep. Reuben's family went home. He and
+Rose lingered a little with her uncle, then as the January night came
+crisping into the sky and fields, he drove her to Odiam in his gig, as
+long ago he had driven Naomi. She leaned against his shoulder, for he
+wanted both hands for his horse, and her hair tickled his neck. She was
+silent for about the first time that day, and as eager for the kisses he
+could give her while he drove as Naomi had been shy of them. Above in
+the cold black sky a hundred pricks of fire shuddered like sparks--the
+lump of Boarzell was blocked against a powder of stars.
+
+At Odiam Rose shook off her seriousness. Supper was ready, and undaunted
+by the huge meal she had already eaten, she sat down to it with a hearty
+appetite. Her step-children stared at her curiously--Rose had a gust of
+affection for them. Poor things!--their lives had been so crude and dull
+and innocent. She must give them a little brightness now, soften the
+yoke of Reuben's tyranny--that girl Caro, for instance, she must give
+her some pretty clothes and show her how to arrange her hair becomingly.
+
+Supper was a very gay meal--the gayest there had ever been at Odiam.
+Rose laughed and talked, as at Starvecrow, and soon her husband and the
+boys were laughing with her. Some of the things she said were rather
+daring, and Caro had only a dim idea of what she meant, but Rose's eyes
+rolling mischievously under the long lashes, and the tip of her tongue
+showing between her lips, gave her words a devilish bite even if only
+half understood. Somehow the whole atmosphere of the Odiam kitchen was
+changed--it was like the lifting of a curtain, the glimpsing of a life
+where all was gay, where love and ambition and all solemn things were
+the stuff of laughter.
+
+The boys beat the handles of their knives on the table and rolled in
+their chairs with wide-open mouths as if they would burst; Reuben leaned
+back with a great pride and softening in his eyes, round which many hard
+lines had traced themselves of late; Caro's lips were parted and she
+seemed half enchanted, half bewildered by the other woman's careless
+merriment. Only Harry took no interest and looked dissatisfied--"Another
+wedding," he mumbled as he dribbled his food unnoticed over the
+cloth--"we're always having weddings in this house."
+
+It was strange that during this gay meal the strongest link was forged
+between Rose and Caro. Two natures more utterly unlike it would be hard
+to find--Caro's starved ignorance of love and aged familiarity with
+dustier matters made her the antithesis of Rose, a child in all things
+save those of the affections; but the two women's hearts met in their
+laughter. It was Rose who invited, Caro who responded, for Rose in spite
+of her years and inexperience had the one advantage which made her the
+older of the two. She was drawn to Caro partly from essential kindness,
+partly because she appreciated the luxury of pitying her--Caro
+responded with all the shy devotion of a warped nature going out towards
+one who enjoys that for which it unconsciously pines. Rose's beauty,
+jollity, and happiness made her a goddess to the less fortunate girl.
+
+After supper Rose turned towards her.
+
+"Will you come up and help me unpack?"
+
+Caro flushed with pleasure--a light had kindled in her grey life, and
+she found herself looking forward to days of basking.
+
+They went up together to the huge low-raftered bedroom, which struck
+horribly cold.
+
+"Ugh!" said Rose--"no fire!"
+
+"But it's a bedroom."
+
+"That's no reason for not having a fire. I shall freeze. Let's have the
+servant up to light one."
+
+"Oh, no. I'll light it; Mary's busy clearing the table. But I reckon as
+fäather wöan't be pleased."
+
+"I'll make him pleased. You leave father to me for the future."
+
+Caro fetched some wood and turf and laid the fire, to which Rose applied
+a match, feeling that by this she had done her share of the work. Then
+they began to unpack. There were two trunks full of clothes, and Rose
+complicated matters by refusing to take things out as they came but
+diving after various articles she particularly wanted.
+
+"I want my blue negleegy--I must show you my blue negleegy," she panted,
+up to her elbows in underlinen.
+
+"Oh, here it is! what do you think of it?"
+
+"It's silk!" said Caro in a hoarse whisper.
+
+"Of course it is--and the very best silk too. I'll put it on. Please
+undo my dress."
+
+Caro helped her off with her wedding-dress, and after having recovered
+her breath, which she lost completely at the sight of the lace on her
+chemise, she helped her arrange the "negleegy," and watched her
+open-mouthed as she posed in it before the fragment of looking-glass.
+
+"Isn't it chick?" said Rose, "I got it in Hastings--they say it is
+copied from a Paris model. Now let's go on with the unpacking."
+
+They went on--that is to say Rose leaned back in her chair and directed
+Caro as she took the things out of the trunks. The girl was fairly
+bewildered by what she saw--the laced chemises, the flounced petticoats,
+the dainty nightgowns with transparent necks. "But you'll show through,"
+she said in tones of horror as she displayed one of these, and could not
+understand why Rose rolled in her chair with laughter.
+
+There were little pots of cream and bottles of hair-lotion, there were
+ebony-backed brushes, patent leather shoes, kid gloves, all sorts of
+marvels which Caro had seen nowhere but in shops. As she unpacked she
+felt a kind of soreness in her heart. Why should Rose have all these
+beautiful things, these laces, these perfumes, these silks and ribbons,
+while Caro wore nothing but stuff and calico or smelt of anything
+sweeter than milk? As she glanced at Rose, leaning back in the most
+comfortable chair to be found in that uncomfortable room--the firelight
+dancing on the silken ripples of her gown, her neck and arms gleaming
+through clouds of lace--the soreness woke into a pain. Rose had
+something more even than silks and laces. She had love. It was love that
+made her hold her chin so proudly, it was love that made her cheeks
+flush and her eyes glow. And no one had ever loved Caro--she had never
+heard a man's voice in tenderness, or felt even so much as a man's hand
+fondle hers....
+
+"Caro, would you mind brushing my hair?"
+
+Rose was taking out the pins, and curls and tendrils of hair began to
+fall on her shoulders. Caro took the brush, and swept it over the soft
+mass, gleaming like spun glass. A subtle perfume rose from it, the rub
+of it on her hand was like silk. Rose's eyes closed as the brush
+stroked her, and her lips parted slowly into a smile.
+
+Then suddenly, without warning, all this love and happiness and
+possession became too much for Caro--she dropped the brush and the
+scented hair, and burst into passionate tears.
+
+
+§ 6.
+
+Reuben at once laid out his wife's money to the best advantage. He
+bought twenty cows, good milkers, and started a dairy business in Rye. A
+shop was opened near the Landgate, which sold milk, butter, cream, and
+eggs from Odiam. He also tried to establish a milk-round in Rye, sending
+circulars to inns and private houses. He engaged a young woman to serve
+in the shop, and boys to drive his milk-carts. This meant a big
+expenditure, and almost all Rose's money was swallowed up by it.
+
+Reuben was surprised at Lardner's attitude. The old man refused to look
+upon this spending of his niece's dowry as an excellent investment,
+which would soon bring in returns a hundredfold--he would have preferred
+to see her money lying safe and useless in Lewes Old Bank, and accused
+Backfield of greed and recklessness. Reuben in his turn was disgusted
+with Lardner's parsimony, and would have quarrelled with him had he not
+been afraid of an estrangement. The farmer of Starvecrow could not speak
+without all sorts of dreadful roars and clearings in his throat, and
+Reuben hopefully observed the progress of the cancer.
+
+Rose herself did not much care how her money was spent as long as she
+had the things she wanted. First of these at present was Reuben's love,
+and that she had in plenty. She was a perpetual source of delight to
+him; her beauty, her astounding mixture of fire and innocence, her good
+humour, and her gaiety were even more intoxicating than before marriage.
+He felt that he had found the ideal wife. As a woman she was perfect,
+so perfect that in her arms he could forget her short comings as a
+comrade. After all, what did it matter if she failed to plumb the depths
+of his desire for things outside herself, as long as she herself was an
+undying source of enchantment?--smoothing away the wrinkles of his day
+with her caresses, giving him love where she could not give him
+understanding, her heart where she could not give her brain. During the
+hours of work and fret he would long for her, for the quiet warm
+evenings, and the comfort which the wordless contact of her brought. She
+made him forget his heaviness, and gather strength to meet his
+difficulties, giving him draughts of refreshment for to-morrow's journey
+in the desert.
+
+His times were still anxious. Even if the milk-round turned out a
+success, it was bound to be a loss to him during the first year. A
+multiplication of servants also meant for a man like Reuben a
+multiplication of trials. He would have liked to do all the work
+himself, and could trust no one to do it properly for him. His
+underlings, with their detached attitude towards the farm, were a
+perpetual source of anxiety and contempt. His heart sickened for those
+stalwart sons he had dreamed of in the days of his first marriage--a
+dream which mocked him daily with its pitiful materialisation in the
+shred of family that still worked for Odiam. Reuben longed for Rose to
+have a child, but the months passed, and she had no favourable answer to
+his repeated questionings, which struck her at first as amusing, later
+as irritating, and at last--at the suggestion of one or two female
+friends--as indelicate.
+
+She herself had no wish for motherhood, and expressed this so openly
+that in time Reuben began to entertain dark doubts of her, and to feel
+that she would avoid it if she could. Yet she in herself was so utterly
+sweet that he could not find it in his heart to be angry, or use
+anything but tender remonstrance when she vexed him with her attitude
+towards life in general and marriage in particular.
+
+She gulped at pleasure, and she gave him so much that he could not deny
+her what she craved for, though the mere decorativeness of her tastes
+amazed and sometimes appalled him. She coaxed him to buy her new
+curtains and chair-covers for the parlour, and to turn it into a room
+which could be used, where she could lounge in her pretty frocks, and
+entertain her women-friends--of whom she had a startling number--to
+afternoon tea, with cream, and little cakes that cost an amount of money
+altogether disproportionate to the space that they filled in one's
+inside. She demanded other entertainments too--visits to Rye, and even
+to Hastings, and jaunts to fairs other than the sanctioned one on
+Boarzell.
+
+Reuben was delighted with her fashionable clothes, the dainty things
+with which she managed to surround herself, her fastidious care for her
+person, her pomadings, her soapings, her scentings--but he sometimes had
+vague doubts of this beautiful, extravagant, irresponsible creature. He
+was like a man stirring in a happy dream, realising in the midst of it
+that he dreams, and must some day awake.
+
+
+§ 7.
+
+The year '71 was on the whole a bad one. The summer was parched, the
+autumn sodden, and the winter frozen. Reuben's oats after some excellent
+promises failed him abruptly, as was the way with crops on Boarzell. His
+wheat was better in quality but poor in quantity, his mangolds had the
+rot, and his hops, except for the old field by the lane, were brown and
+ragged with blight.
+
+This would have been bad enough in any year, but in times when he bore
+the burden of his yet profitless milk-round it was only a little short
+of catastrophe. Making every allowance for a first year, that milk-round
+had disappointed him. He found private custom hard to win, and even the
+ceasing of French dairy supplies, owing to the Franco-Prussian war, did
+not bring him the relief he had hoped. One or two small farms on the
+borders of Rye catered in dairy stuff for its inhabitants, and he found
+them hard to outbid or outwit. Also, owing to the scarcity of grass
+feed, it was a bad milk year, and poor supplies were put down by
+consumers to the new milkman, and in more than one case custom was
+withdrawn.
+
+Reuben faced his adversity with set teeth and a dogged countenance. He
+had not been farming thirty odd years to be beaten casually by the
+weather. Scorching heat and blighting cold, the still blanker doom of
+the trickling, pouring rain--the wind that seeded his corn, and beat
+down his hay, and flung his hop-bines together in muddled heaps--the
+pests that Nature breeds by the ten million out of her own putrefyings
+and misbegettings--all things in life from the lowest maggot to the
+fiercest storm--he was out to fight them. In challenging Boarzell he had
+challenged them all.
+
+In time his struggle began to modify his relations with Rose. At first
+he had told himself that her uselessness was only apparent. Though she
+herself did no fighting, she gave such rest and refreshment to the
+soldier that he went forth strengthened to the war. He had almost begun
+to attribute to her his daily renewed courage, and had once or twice
+been moved to show his gratitude by acts of expensive indulgence.
+
+Now slowly he began to see that this gratitude was misleading--better
+receive no comfort from Rose than pay for it too dear. He must make her
+understand that he could not afford to keep a useless and extravagant
+wife, however charming she might be. Rose must do her share, as Naomi
+had done, as his mother had done, as his children had done.
+
+Sometimes he would expostulate with her, and when she met his
+expostulations with blandishments, he would feel himself yielding, and
+grow so furious that he would turn upon her in rage and indignation.
+Rose was not like Naomi; in her own words "she gave as good as she got,"
+and once or twice, for the first time in his life, Reuben found himself
+in loud and vulgar altercation with a female. He had never before had a
+woman stand up to him, and the experience was humiliating.
+
+He had used to turn from Boarzell to her for rest, and now he found
+himself turning from her to Boarzell. It was part of the baffling
+paradox that the thing he fought should also be the thing he loved, and
+the battlefield his refuge. Out on the Moor, with the south-west wind
+rolling over him like the waves of some huge earth-scented sea, he drank
+in the spirit of conflict, he was swept back into the cleanness and
+singleness of his warfare. It was then that Boarzell nerved him for its
+own subduing, stripped his heart of softness, cleansed it of domestic
+fret. Rose and her love and sweetness were all very well, but he was out
+for something greater than Rose--he must keep in mind that she was only
+a part of things. Why, he himself was only a part of things, and in his
+cravings and softenings must be conquered and brushed aside even as
+Rose. In challenging Boarzell he had challenged the secret forces of his
+own body, all the riot of hope and weakness and desire that go to make a
+man. The battle was not to be won except over the heaped bodies of the
+slain, and on the summit of the heap would lie his own.
+
+
+§ 8.
+
+The last piece of land had been exceptionally tough even for Boarzell.
+It was a high strip, running right across the Moor from the edge of the
+twenty-acre piece acquired in '67, over the high-road, to the borders of
+Doozes. The soil was amazingly various--it started in the low grounds
+almost as clay, with runnels of red water in the irrigation ditches,
+then passing through a stratum of marl it became limish, grey and
+brittle, powdering under the spade. Reuben's ploughs tore over it,
+turning up earth of almost every consistency and colour, till the new
+ground looked like a smeared palette. Towards Doozes it became clay
+again, and here oats would grow, sedge-leaved and tulip-rooted, with
+puffy awns. On the crest was rubble, poor stuff where even the heather
+seemed to fight for existence.
+
+Reuben struggled untiringly--he tried manure as in his first
+enterprising days, and a horrible stink of guano told traffic on the
+road it was passing through Odiam territory. Spades and ploughshares and
+harrows scored and pulped the earth. Sometimes with breaking back and
+aching head, the sweat streaming over his skin, he would lift himself
+stiffly from the plough-handles, and shake his fist at the desert round
+him. He had never had such a tussle before, and put it down to the fact
+that he was now for the first time on the high ground, on the hard and
+sterile scab of the marl, where it seemed as if only gorse would grow.
+He felt as if now for the first time he was fighting against odds, his
+earlier struggles were tame compared with this.
+
+Often in the evenings, when the exhausting work of the day was done, he
+would wander out on the Moor, seeking as usual rest on the field of his
+labours. The tuft of firs would grow black and featureless against the
+dimming sky, and stars would hang pale lamps above the fog, which smoked
+round Boarzell, veiling the fields, till it seemed as if he stood alone
+on some desert island, in the midst of a shoreless sea. All sounds would
+be muffled, lights and shadows would blur, and he would be alone with
+the fir-clump and the stars and the strong smells of his land.
+
+He would wait there till the dew hung in pearls on his clothes and hair,
+and the damp chills of the night were in his bones. Then he would creep
+down from the Moor, and go back into the warmth and love of the
+house--yet with this difference now, that he never quite forgot.
+
+He would wake during the night after cruel dreams of Boarzell stripped
+of its tilth, relapsed into wildness; for a few agonised moments he
+would wonder if the dream were true, and if he had not indeed failed.
+Sometimes he had to get out of bed and steal to the window, to reassure
+himself with the sight of his diggings and fencings. Then a horrible
+thought would attack him, that though he had not yet actually failed, he
+was bound to fail soon, that his task was too much for him, and only one
+end possible. He would creep back into bed, and lie awake till dawn and
+the restarting of the wheel.
+
+One comfort was that these evil summers had blighted Grandturzel too.
+Realf's fruit and grain had both done badly, and he had been unfortunate
+with his cows, two of which had died of garget. It was now that the
+characters of the two rivals were contrasted. Realf submitted at once to
+adversity, cut down his expenses, and practically withdrew from the
+fight. Ambitious and enterprising when times were good, he was not the
+man to be still ambitious and enterprising when they were bad. The
+greatness of his farm was not so much to him as the comfort of his
+family. He now had a little son, and was anxious that neither he nor
+Tilly should suffer from bad speculations. He despised Reuben for
+putting Odiam before his wife and children, and defying adversity at the
+expense of his household.
+
+"He'll do fur himself," he said to Tilly, as he watched her bath the
+baby before the fire, "and where'll his old farm be then?"
+
+"He's more likely to do fur someone else," said Tilly, who knew her
+father.
+
+"Wot about this gal he's married?"
+
+"I'm sorry fur her."
+
+"But she döan't look as if she wanted it, surelye. I never see anything
+so smart and well-set-up as she wur in church last Sunday."
+
+"Still, I'm sorry fur her--I'm sorry fur any woman as he takes up with.
+Now, Henry, you can't kiss baby while I'm bathing him."
+
+It sometimes grieved Tilly that she could not do more for her brothers
+and sister. Pete did not want her help, being quite happy in his work on
+the farm. But Jemmy and Caro hated their bondage, and she wished she
+could set them free. Reuben had sternly forbidden his children to have
+anything to do with the recreant sister, but they occasionally met on
+the road, or on the footpath across Boarzell. Once Caro had stolen a
+visit to Grandturzel, and held the baby in her arms, and watched her
+sister put him to bed; but she was far too frightened of Reuben to come
+again.
+
+On Reuben's marriage Tilly had hoped that Rose might do something for
+Caro, and indeed the girl had lately seemed to have a few more treats
+and pleasures in her life; but from what she had heard and from what she
+saw, the younger sister was afraid that Rose's good offices were not
+likely to make for Caro's ultimate happiness. Then comfortable little
+Tilly would sigh in the midst of her own, and wish that everyone could
+have what she had been given.
+
+Benjamin occasionally stole afternoons in Rye--if he was discovered
+there would be furious scenes with Reuben, but he had learned cunning,
+and also, being of a sporting nature, was willing to take risks. Some
+friends of his were building a ship down at the Camber. Week by week he
+watched her grow, watched the good timber fill in her ribs, watched her
+decks spread themselves, watched her masts rise, and at last smelt the
+good smell of her tarring. She was a three-masted schooner, and her
+first voyage was to be to the Canaries. Her builders drank many a toast
+with Backfield's truant son, who gladly risked his father's blows to be
+with them in their work and hearty boozing. He forgot the farmyard
+smells he hated in the shipyard smells he loved, and his slavery in
+oaths and rum--with buckets of tar and coils of rope, and rousing
+chanties and stories of strange ships.
+
+Next spring the news came to Odiam that Benjamin had run away to sea.
+
+
+§ 9.
+
+It was Rose who had to tell Reuben.
+
+Benjamin had given no one the faintest hint of his plans; indeed for the
+last two or three weeks his behaviour had been unusually good. Then one
+morning, when Reuben was at Robertsbridge market, he
+disappeared--Handshut could not find him to take his place in the
+lambing shed. Rose was angry, for she had wanted young Handshut to hang
+some curtains for her--one cause of disagreement between her and Reuben
+was her habit of coaxing the farm-hands to do odd jobs about the house.
+
+That same evening, before her husband was back, a letter came for Rose.
+It was from Benjamin at Rye, announcing that he was sailing that night
+in the _Rother Lady_ for Las Palmas. He was sick of the farm, and could
+not stand it any longer. Would Rose tell his father?
+
+Rose was not sorry to see the last of Benjamin, whom she had always
+despised as a coarse lumpkinish youth, whose clothes smelt strongly
+either of pitch or manure. But she dreaded breaking the news to Reuben.
+She disliked her husband's rages, and now she would have to let one
+loose. Then suddenly she thought of something, and a little smile
+dimpled the corners of her mouth.
+
+Reuben came in tired after a day's prodding and bargaining in
+Robertsbridge market-place. Rose, like a wise woman, gave him his
+supper, and then, still wise, came and sat on his knee.
+
+"Ben ..."
+
+"Well, liddle Rose."
+
+"I've some bad news for you."
+
+"Wot?"
+
+"Jemmy's gone for a sailor."
+
+He suddenly thrust her from him, and the lines which had begun to soften
+on his face as he held her, reappeared in their old harshness and
+weariness.
+
+"Gone!"
+
+"Yes. I had a letter from him this evening. He couldn't stand Odiam any
+longer, so he ran away. He's sailed for a place called Palma."
+
+Reuben did not speak. His hands were clenched on the arms of his chair,
+and for the first time Rose noticed that he looked old. A faint feeling
+of disgust came over her. She shivered, and took a step backwards as if
+she would leave him. Then her warm good nature and her gratitude to the
+man who had made her so happy, drove away the unnatural mood. She came
+close, and slipped her soft arms round his neck, pressing her lips to
+his.
+
+He groaned.
+
+"You mustn't fret, Reuben."
+
+"How can I help it?--they're all gone now save one ... my boys...."
+
+"Perhaps there'll be others."
+
+She had slid back to his knee, and the weight and warmth of her
+comforted him a little. He lifted his head quickly at her words.
+
+"Others?"
+
+"Yes, why not?"
+
+Her bold sweet eyes were looking into his and her mouth was curved like
+a heart.
+
+"Rose, Rose--my dear, my liddle dear--you döan't mean----"
+
+"Of course I mean. You needn't look so surprised. Such a thing has been
+known to happen."
+
+"Döan't go laughing at me, but tell me--when?"
+
+"In October."
+
+"Oh, God! oh, God!"
+
+His rapture and excitement alarmed her. His eyes blazed--he threw back
+his head and laughed in ecstasy. Then he seized her, and crumpled her to
+him, covering her face, her neck, her hair, her ears, with kisses,
+murmuring broken phrases of adoration and gratitude.
+
+Rose was definitely frightened, and broke free with some violence.
+
+"Oh, stop it, Ben! can't you see you're spoiling my dress? Why should
+you get in such a taking? You've had children before, and they've all
+been failures--I expect this one will only be like the rest."
+
+
+§ 10.
+
+Rose's child was born towards the end of October. Once more Reuben had a
+son, and as he looked down on the little red hairless thing all his
+hopes and dreams were built anew. He had always lived too near the earth
+to let experience thump him into cynicism. He raised as glorious dreams
+over this baby as he had raised over the others, and seen crumble into
+ashes. Indeed, the fact that his earlier hopes had failed made him warm
+himself more gratefully at this rekindling. He saw himself at last
+raised out of the pit of difficulty--he would not lose this boy as he
+had lost the others, he would perhaps be softer and more indulgent, he
+would at all events be wiser, and the child should indeed be a son to
+him and to Odiam. "Unto Us--Reuben and Odiam--a child is born; unto Us a
+son is given."
+
+He was soon confirmed in his idea that the birth had brought him luck.
+Before little David was a week old, the welcome news came that Lardner
+had died. For some time he had been able to swallow only milk food, and
+his speech had been reduced to a confused roaring, but his death at this
+juncture seemed to Reuben a happy coincidence, an omen of good fortune
+for himself and his son.
+
+He was so pleased that he forgot to veil his pleasure before Rose, whose
+grief reminded him of the fact that Lardner was a near and dear
+relation, whose death must be looked upon as a chastisement from heaven.
+In a fit of compunction for his behaviour, he ordered a complete suit of
+mourning, in which he attended the funeral. He was soft and benign to
+all men now, and soothed Rose's ruffled spirit by showing himself to her
+in all the glory of a top-hat with crape weepers before setting out for
+Starvecrow.
+
+He himself had helped plan the obsequies, which were carried out with
+all possible pomp by a Rye undertaker. After the ceremony there was a
+funeral meal at Starvecrow, where sedate joints and solemn whiskies were
+partaken of in the right spirit by the dozen or so men and women who
+were privileged to hear old Lardner's will. This was read by the
+deceased's lawyer, and one or two pleased malicious glances were darted
+at Reuben from under decorously lowered lids. He sat with his fists
+doubled upon his knees, hearing as if in a nightmare:
+
+
+     "I bequeath the farm of Starvecrow, with all lands, stock, and
+     tools pertaining thereto, also the house and fixtures, together
+     with seven thousand pounds to Henry Robert Crick of Lone Mills,
+     Ontario, Canada, my dear son by Marion Crick.... My household
+     furniture and fifty pounds free of legacy duty I bequeath to my
+     niece, Rose Backfield, wife of Reuben Backfield of Odiam."
+
+
+Reuben felt dazed and sick, the solemn faces of the mourners seemed to
+leer at him, he was seized by a contemptuous hatred of his kind. There
+was some confused buzzing talk, but he did not join in it. He shook
+hands deliriously with the lawyer, muttered something about having to
+get back, and elbowed his way out of the room. Pete had driven over to
+fetch him in his gig, as befitted the dignity of a yeoman farmer and
+nephew-by-marriage of the deceased, but Reuben angrily bade him go home
+alone. He could not sit still, he must walk, stride off his fury, the
+frenzy of rage and disgust and disappointment that consumed him.
+
+What business had old Lardner to have a natural son? Never had the laws
+of morality seemed to Reuben so august and necessary as then, or their
+infringement more contemptible. He was filled with a righteous loathing
+of this crapulous libertine who perpetuated the vileness of some low
+intrigue by bequeathing his worldly goods to his bastard. Meantime his
+virtuously married niece was put off with fifty pounds and some trashy
+furniture. Reuben fairly grovelled before the seventh commandment that
+afternoon.
+
+He staggered blindly along the road. His head swam with rage, and also,
+it must be confessed, with something else--for he was not used to
+drinking whisky, which some obscure local tradition considered the only
+decent beverage at funerals. His face was flushed, and every now and
+then something would be whirled round by the wind and whip his cheeks
+and blind him momentarily in a black cloud. At first he was too confused
+to grapple with it, but when two long black arms suddenly wound
+themselves about his neck, nearly choking him, he remembered his hat
+with the crape weepers, and his rage from red-hot became white-hot and
+cinerating. He tore off the hat with its long black tails, and flung it
+into the ditch with a volley of those emasculate oaths which are all the
+swearing of a Sussex man.
+
+Afterwards he felt better, but he was still fuming when he came to
+Odiam, and dashed up straight to Rose's bedroom, where she lay with the
+ten-days-old David and a female friend from Rye, who had come in to hear
+details about her confinement. Both, not to say all three, were startled
+by Reuben's sudden entrance, crimson and hatless, his collar flying, the
+dust all over him.
+
+"Here! Wot d'you think?" he shouted; "if that old man äun't left all his
+money to a bastard."
+
+"Don't be so excited, Ben," said Rose; "you've no business to come
+bursting in here like this."
+
+"Remember your wife's delicate," said the lady friend.
+
+"Well, wot I want to know is why you dudn't tell me all this afore."
+
+"How could I? I didn't know how uncle was going to leave his money."
+
+"You might have found out, and not let me in fur all this. Here I've bin
+and gone and spent all your settlements on a milk-round, which I'd never
+have done if I hadn't thought summat more 'ud be coming in later."
+
+"Well, I can't help it. I expect that as uncle knew I was well provided
+for, married and settled and all that, he thought he'd rather leave his
+stuff to someone who wasn't."
+
+"I like that--and you the most expensive woman to keep as ever was.
+
+"Hold your tongue, Ben. I'm surprised at you."
+
+"I justabout will speak. A purty mess you've got me into. You ought to
+have told me before we married as he had a son out in Canada."
+
+"I didn't know. This is the first I've heard of it. Anyhow, you surely
+don't mean to say you married me for my money."
+
+"Well, I wouldn't have married you if you hadn't got none."
+
+"For Shame!" said the lady friend.
+
+Rose burst into tears, and young David, interrupted in the midst of an
+excellent meal, sent up a piercing wail.
+
+"You'd better go downstairs till you know how to speak to your wife
+properly," said the female from Rye.
+
+"My wife's deceived me!" shouted Reuben. "I made sure as she'd come in
+fur thousands of pounds when old Lardner died, and all she's got out of
+him is fifty pounds and his lousy furniture."
+
+"Furniture?" said Rose, brisking up; "why from what you said I thought
+there was nothing. I could do with some furniture. I want a bedstead
+with brass knobs."
+
+"Well, you shan't have it. I'll justabout sell the whole lot. You can't
+prevent me."
+
+Rose's sobs burst forth afresh. Her friend ran up to her and took her in
+her arms, badly squeezing poor David, who became purple and entirely
+animal in his remonstrances.
+
+Then the two women fairly stormed at Reuben. They told him he was a
+money-grubber, an unnatural father, that he had been drinking, that he
+ought to be ashamed of himself, that he had only got what he deserved.
+Reuben tried to stand up to them, but Rose had an amazing power of
+invective, and her friend, who was a spinster, but sometimes forgot it,
+filled in the few available pauses so effectively that in the end the
+wretched husband was driven from the room, feeling that the world held
+even worse things than wealthy and perfidious libertines.
+
+
+§ 11.
+
+Of course there was a reconciliation. Such things had begun to loom
+rather large in Reuben's married life. He had never had reconciliations
+with Naomi--the storms had not been fierce enough to warrant a special
+celebration of the calms. But he and Rose were always being reconciled.
+At first he had looked upon these episodes as sweets of matrimony, more
+blessed than any amount of honeymoon, but now he had gone a stage
+further and saw them merely as part of the domestic ritual--that very
+evening when he held Rose and the baby together in his big embrace he
+knew that in a day or two he would be staling the ceremony by another
+repetition.
+
+He now began to crave for her active interest in his concerns. Hitherto
+he had not much missed it, it had been enough for him if when he came in
+tired and dispirited from his day's work, she had kissed him and rumpled
+back the hair from his forehead and called him her "poor old man." Her
+caresses and sympathy had filled the gap left by her help and
+understanding. But now he began to want something more. He saw the
+hollowness of her endearments, for she did nothing to make his burden
+lighter. She refused to realise the seriousness of his position--left
+stranded with an under taking which he would never have started if he
+had not been certain of increased capital in the near future. She was
+still extravagant and fond of pleasure, she either could not or would
+not master the principles of economy; she saw the fat lands of Odiam
+round her, and laughed at her husband when he told her that he was
+crippled with expenses, and in spite of crops and beasts and barns must
+live as if he were a poor man.
+
+Of course, he had been rash--he saw now that he had been a fool to
+speculate with the future. But who could have foretold that heir of
+Lardner's?--no one had ever heard of him in Peasmarsh, and most people
+were as astonished as Reuben though not so disgusted. Sometimes he had
+an uneasy feeling that Lardner himself had not thought much about his
+distant son till a year or two ago. He remembered how the old man had
+disapproved of the way Rose's settlements were spent, and horrible
+conjectures would assail him that some earlier will had been revoked,
+and Rose disinherited because her uncle did not wish to put more money
+into her husband's pocket.
+
+After all, fifty pounds and some furniture was very little to leave his
+only niece, who had lived with him, and had been married from his house.
+It was nonsense to plead the excuse that she was comfortably settled and
+provided for--the old man knew that Backfield had made a desperate
+plunge and could not recoup himself properly without ready money. He
+must have drawn up his will in the spirit of malice--Reuben could
+imagine him grinning away in his grave. "Well, Ben Backfield, I've
+justabout sold you nicely, haven't I?--next to no capital, tedious heavy
+expenses, and a wife who döan't know the difference between a shilling
+and a soverun. You thought you'd done yourself unaccountable well, old
+feller, I reckon. Now you've found out your mistake. And you can't git
+even wud me where I am. He! He!"
+
+Reuben would imagine the corpse saying all sorts of insulting things to
+him, and he had horrible nightmares of its gibes and mockery. One night
+Rose woke in the dubious comfort of the new brass bed--which she had
+wheedled Reuben into sparing from the auction--to find her husband
+kneeling on his pillow and pinning some imaginary object against the
+wall while he shouted--"I've got you, you old grinning ghosty--now we'll
+see who's sold!"
+
+She thought this immensely funny, and retailed it with glee to her
+female friends who continued to invade the place. The multitude of these
+increased as time went by, for Rose had the knack of attaching women to
+herself by easy bonds. She was extremely confidential on intimate
+subjects, and she was interested in clothes--indeed in that matter she
+was even practical, and a vast amount of dressmaking was done on the
+kitchen table, much to the disorganisation of Caro's cooking.
+
+Sometimes there would be males too, and Reuben found that he could be
+jealous on occasion. It annoyed him to see a young counter-jumper from
+Rye sitting in the parlour with an unmanly tea-cup, and he would glare
+on such aristocracy as a bank-clerk or embryo civil servant, whose
+visits Rose considered lent a glamour to Odiam. Like a wise woman she
+used her husband's jealousy to her own advantage. She soon grew
+extremely skilful in manipulating it, and by its means wrung a good deal
+out of him which would not otherwise have been hers.
+
+It was true that her young men were not always on the spot when she
+wanted them most, but on these occasions she used the drover Handshut, a
+comely, well-set-up young fellow, of independent manners. Reuben more
+than once had to drive him out of the kitchen.
+
+"I wöan't have my lads fooling it in the house," he said to his wife,
+when he found her winding a skein of wool off Handshut's huge brown
+paws--"they've work enough to do outside wudout spannelling after you
+women."
+
+Rose smiled to herself, and when she next had occasion to punish Reuben,
+invited his drover to a cup of tea.
+
+Then there was an angry scene, stormings and tears, regrets, taunts, and
+abuse--and another reconciliation.
+
+
+§ 12.
+
+In time, as these battles became more usual, the family were forced to
+take sides. Peter supported Reuben, Caro supported Rose. There had been
+an odd kind of friendship between the downtrodden daughter and the gay
+wife ever since they had unpacked the latter's trunks together on her
+wedding night and Caro had cried because Rose had what she might never
+have.
+
+Rose approved of this attitude--she liked to be envied; also Caro was
+useful to her in many ways, helping her in the house, taking the burden
+of many irksome duties off her shoulders, leaving her free to entertain
+her friends or mix complexion washes. Moreover, there was something in
+Caro which appealed in itself, a certain heavy innocence which tickled
+the humour of the younger, more-experienced woman. Once her stepdaughter
+had asked her what it felt like to be kissed, which had sent Rose into
+rockings of laughter and a carnival of reminiscence. She liked to dazzle
+this elderly child with her "affairs," she liked to shock her a little
+too. She soon discovered that Caro was deeply scandalised at the thought
+of a married woman having men friends to visit her, so she encouraged
+the counter-jumpers and the clerks for Caro's benefit as well as
+Reuben's.
+
+It never occurred to her to throw these young people together, and give
+the girl a chance of fighting her father and satisfying the vague
+longings for adventure and romance which had begun to put torment into
+her late twenties. She often told her it was a scandal that she had
+never been allowed to know men, but her own were too few and useful to
+be sacrificed to the forlorn. Besides, Caro had an odd shy way with men
+which sometimes made them laugh at her. She had little charm, and though
+not bad-looking in a heavy black-browed style, she had no feminine arts,
+and always appeared to the very worst advantage.
+
+Those were not very good times for Caro. She envied Rose, and at the
+same time she loved her, as women will so often love those they envy.
+Rose's attitude was one of occasional enthusiasm and occasional neglect.
+Sometimes she would give her unexpected treats, make her presents of
+clothes, or take her to a fair or to see the shops; at others she would
+seem to forget all about her. She thought Caro a poor thing for not
+standing up to Reuben, and despised her for her lack of feminine wiles.
+At the same time she would often be extremely confidential, she would
+pour out stories of love and kisses by moonlight, of ardent words, of
+worship, of ecstasy, and send Caro wandering over strange paths, asking
+strange questions of herself and fate, and sometimes--to the other's
+delight--of Rose.
+
+"Wot do you do to make a man kiss you?"
+
+"Oh, I dunno. I just look at him like this with my eyes half shut. Then
+if that isn't enough I part my lips--so."
+
+The two women had been bathing. It was one of Rose's complaints that
+Odiam did not make enough provision for personal cleanliness in the way
+of baths and tubs. Reuben objected if she made the servant run up and
+downstairs ten times or so with jugs of hot water to fill a wash-tub in
+her bedroom--they had once had a battle royal about it, during which
+Rose had said some humorous things about her man's washing--so in summer
+she relieved the tension by bathing in the Glotten brook, where it ran
+temporarily limpid and reclused at the foot of the old hop-garden. She
+had persuaded Caro to join her in this adventure--according to her ideas
+it was not becoming for a woman to bathe alone; so Caro had conquered
+her objections to undressing behind a bush, and tasted for the first
+time the luxury of a daily, or all but daily, bath.
+
+Now they were dry and dressed once more, all except their stockings, for
+Rose loved to splash her bare feet in the water--she adored the caress
+of water on her skin. It was a hot day, the sun blinked through the
+heavy green of the sallows, dabbling the stream with spots and ripples
+of light. June had come, with a thick swarthiness in the fields, and the
+scent of hayseed scorching into ripeness.
+
+Rose leaned back against a trunk, a froth of fine linen round her knees.
+She splashed and kicked her feet in the stream.
+
+"Yes--I've only to look at a man like this ... and he always does it."
+
+"But not now!" cried Caro.
+
+"What do you mean by 'not now'?"
+
+"Now you're married."
+
+"Oh, no--I'm talking of before. All the same...."
+
+"Wot!"
+
+"Nothing. You'd be shocked."
+
+Caro looked gloomily at the water. She did not like being told she would
+be shocked, though she knew she would be.
+
+At that moment there was a sound of "git back" and "woa" beyond the
+hedge. The next minute two horses stepped into the Glotten just by the
+bend.
+
+"That must be Handshut," said Rose.
+
+It was. He came knee-deep into the water with the horses, and, not
+seeing the women, plunged his head into the cool reed-sweetened stickle.
+
+"Take care--he'll see us!"--and Caro sharply gathered up her legs under
+her blue and red striped petticoat. Rose continued to dabble hers in the
+water, even after Handshut had lifted his head and looked in her
+direction.
+
+"Rose!" cried Caro.
+
+"Well, why shouldn't he see my legs? They're unaccountable nice ones."
+
+"All the more reason----"
+
+"Not at all, Miss Prude."
+
+Caro went crimson to the roots of her hair, and began pulling on her
+stockings. Rose continued to splash her feet in the water, glancing
+sidelong at Handshut.
+
+"He's a nice lad, ain't he?"
+
+Caro vouchsafed no reply.
+
+"Reuben knows he's a nice lad, and he knows I know he's a nice lad.
+Hasn't he got a lovely brown skin?"
+
+"Hush."
+
+But Rose was in a devilish mood.
+
+"Look here," she said suddenly, "I'm going to prove the truth of what I
+told you just now. I'm going to make that boy kiss me."
+
+"Indeed you äun't."
+
+"Yes I am. I'll go down and talk to him at the bend, and you can creep
+along and watch us through the hedge; and I'll shut my eyes and maybe
+part my lips, and he'll kiss me, you see if he don't."
+
+"I won't see anything of the kind. I'm ashamed of you."
+
+"Nonsense--it's only fun--we'll make a bet on it. If I fail, I'll give
+you my new white petticoat with the lace edging. And I'll allow myself
+ten minutes to do it in; that's quite fair, for it usually takes me
+longer."
+
+"And what am I to give you if you succeed?"
+
+"Nothing--the kiss'll be enough for me. I've been wanting to know what
+he was like to kiss for many a long day."
+
+"Well, I'm justabout ashamed of you, and I wöan't have anything to do
+with it."
+
+"You can keep out then."
+
+"Wot if I tell fäather?"
+
+"You wouldn't tell him--you wouldn't be such a sneak. After all, what's
+a man for, if it isn't to have a bit of fun with? I don't mean anything
+serious--it's just a joke."
+
+"What'll Handshut think it?"
+
+"Just a joke too. You're so glum, Caro--you take everything so
+seriously. There's nothing really serious in a kiss."
+
+"Oh, äun't there!"
+
+"No--it's just something one enjoys, same as cakes and bull's-eyes. I've
+kissed dozens of people in my time and meant nothing by it, nor they
+either. It's because you've no experience of these things that you think
+such a lot of 'em. They're quite unimportant really, and it's silly to
+make a fuss."
+
+For some obscure reason Caro did not like to see herself credited with
+the harshness of inexperience. She did her best to assume an air of
+worldly toleration.
+
+"Well, of course if it's only fun.... But fäather wudn't think it that."
+
+"No, and I shouldn't like him to. You _are_ funny, Caro. Don't watch me
+if you're shocked--you can know nothing about it, and then you won't be
+to blame. But I'm going to have my lark in spite of you."
+
+"Put on your stockings first," said Caro sternly.
+
+Rose made a face at her, but pulled on a pair of gauzy stockings,
+securing them with garters of pale blue ribbon. Then she scrambled to
+her feet and edged her way through the reeds and bushes to where young
+Handshut stood at the bend.
+
+He was not visible from where Caro sat, for he had come out of the
+water, and for a minute or two she vowed that she would have nothing to
+do with Rose's disgraceful spree. But after a time her curiosity got the
+better of her. Would Rose be able to do as she said--persuade her
+husband's drover to kiss her, simply by looking at him through
+half-closed eyes? Of course Handshut was very forward, Caro told
+herself, she had often disliked his attitude towards his mistress--he
+would not want much encouragement. All the same she wanted to see if
+Rose succeeded, and if she succeeded--how. She craned her neck, but
+could see nothing till she had crept a few yards through the reeds. Then
+she saw Rose and Handshut sitting just beyond the hedge, by the water's
+rim.
+
+The horses were drowsing in the stream, flicking at the flies with their
+tails. Rose's dress made a brave blue splash against the green, and the
+gold-flecked chestnut of her hair was very close to Handshut's brown
+curls. Caro could dimly hear their voices, though she could not
+distinguish what they said. Five minutes had passed, and still, though
+close, there was a decent space between them. Then there was a little
+lull in the flow of talk. They were looking at each other. Caro crept
+nearer, something like a hot cinder in her heart.
+
+They were still looking at each other. Then Handshut began to speak in a
+lower voice than usual; he stopped--and suddenly their heads stooped
+together, the gold and the brown touched, mingled, lingered, then drew
+slowly apart.
+
+Caro sprang to her feet. The couple in the field had risen too, but they
+did not see her through the hedge. Her heart beat fiercely with an
+uncontrollable anger. She could have shouted, screamed at them--at her
+rather, this gay, comfortable, plump, spoilt wife, who had so many
+kisses that she could look upon one more or less as fun.
+
+Rose's merry, rather strident laugh rang out on the hushed noon.
+Handshut stood facing her with his head held down; then she turned away
+from him and laughed again. Her laugh rose, fluttered--then suddenly
+broke.
+
+It snapped like a broken knife. She turned back towards Handshut, and
+they faced each other once more. Then Caro saw a strange and rather
+terrible thing. She saw those two who had kissed for fun stumble
+together in an embrace which was not for fun at all, and kiss with
+kisses that were closer to tears than laughter.
+
+
+§ 13.
+
+There was a convention of silence between Caro and Rose. From that day
+forward neither made any allusion to the escapade which had ended so
+unexpectedly. At the same time it was from the other's silence that each
+learned most; for Caro knew that if her eyes had deceived her and that
+last kiss been like the first, for fun, Rose would have spoken of
+it--while Rose knew that Caro had seen the transmutation of her joke
+into earnest, because if she had not she would have been full of
+comments, questions, and scoldings.
+
+Sometimes Caro in her innocence would think that she ought to speak to
+Rose, warn her, and plead with her to go carefully. But a vague fright
+sealed her lips, and she was held at a distance by the reserve in which
+the merry communicative Rose had suddenly wrapped herself. Those few
+minutes by the brookside had changed her, though it would be hard to say
+exactly in what the change lay. Caro was both repelled and baffled by
+it. A more skilled observer would say that Rose had become suddenly
+adult in her outlook as well as her emotions. For the first time she had
+seen in its sorrowful reality the force which she had played with for so
+many years. The shock disorganised her, drove her into a strange
+silence. Love and she had always been hail-fellow-well-met, they had
+romped and rollicked together through life; she had never thought that
+her good comrade could change, or rather--more unimaginable still--that
+she should suddenly discover that she had never really known him.
+
+She was sobered. Her attitude towards things insensibly altered--to her
+husband, her child, her servants she was different, and yet in such a
+manner that none could possibly lay hands on the difference. Reuben's
+jealousies and suspicions were increased. She avoided Handshut, and she
+flourished the shopmen and clerks but feebly, yet he mistrusted her in a
+way he had never done when her enthusiasms were flagrant. This was not
+due to any psychological deduction, rather to a vague kind of guess, an
+intuition, an uneasiness that communicated itself from her to him.
+
+Rose had begun to question her attitude towards her husband. She had
+hitherto never doubted for a moment that she loved him--of course she
+loved him! But now she asked herself--"If I love him, how is it that our
+most tender moments have never meant so much to me as that second kiss
+of Handshut's?" None of Reuben's kisses stood out in her memory as that
+kiss, he had never made the thrill of life go through her, he had never
+filled her heart to bursting with joy so infinite that it was sorrow,
+and sorrow so exquisite that it was joy. She would observe Reuben, and
+she would see him--old. He was fifty-four, and his hair was grey; there
+were crow's-feet at the corners of his eyes, and straight lines between
+his brows, where he had furrowed them as the pitiless sun beat down upon
+his face. There were other lines too, seamed and scored by hard
+struggles. He was strong as an ox, but she told herself he was beginning
+to move a bit stiffly. He had exposed himself so ruthlessly to the wet
+and cold that his joints had become rheumatic. It was nothing very much,
+but he liked to have her rub them occasionally, and up till then she had
+liked it too. Now she suddenly saw something dreary and preposterous in
+it--here she was married to a man thirty years older than herself, his
+chattel, his slave. She did not really love him--how could she, with all
+those years between them? She was fond of him, that was all--and he was
+getting older, and horribly cantankerous; and she was young--oh, God!
+she had never known till then how young.
+
+Then suddenly it all changed. One day she found herself alone with
+Handshut--and nothing happened. His manner was quite that of the
+respectful servant towards his mistress, he made no allusion to the
+scene by the brook, spoke entirely of indifferent things. And she, she
+herself--that was the biggest, best surprise of all--did not feel the
+slightest embarrassment, or the slightest pang. On the contrary, all the
+passion which had scorched and withered her heart since the day of the
+kiss, seemed to die away, leaving her the old Rose, gay, confident, and
+at peace with all men.
+
+She had been a fool--she had brooded over a little trivial incident till
+it had assumed unwarranted proportions and frightened her. Nothing
+whatever had happened to her and Handshut--they had shared a joke, that
+was all. She did not love him, she loved her husband, and she was a fool
+to have thought anything else. Love was not a drama or a tragedy, but a
+game and a lark, or at times a comfortable emotion towards one's lawful
+husband, who was the best and finest man in the world.
+
+The joy of this discovery quite restored Rose, and she flirted with
+Handshut so outrageously in front of Reuben, that afterwards they had
+one of the biggest quarrels of their lives.
+
+
+§ 14.
+
+'Seventy-four was another bad year for Odiam, and it was more hopeless
+than its predecessors, for Reuben had now no expectations to sustain
+him. His position was really becoming serious. In '68 he had bought more
+land than he could afford, for fear that Grandturzel would buy it if he
+did not, and in '71 he had started his accursed milk-round, which had
+proved nothing but an expense and a failure. He still clung to it, for
+the shop by the Landgate gave him prestige, and he had always hoped that
+affairs would mend, but he was gradually coming to realise that prestige
+can be bought too dear, and that his affairs were too heavily clogged to
+improve of their own accord.
+
+He must take steps, he must make some sacrifice. He resolved to sell the
+milk-round. It was either that or a mortgage, and a mortgage was far the
+greater ignominy. After all he had not had the round more than two or
+three years, it had never flourished, and the parting wrench would not
+be a bad one. Of course his reputation would suffer, but hard cash was
+at the present moment more valuable than reputation.
+
+Unfortunately it was also more difficult to get. Those years had been
+bad for everybody, and none of the surrounding farmers seemed disposed
+to add to his burdens by so uncertain a deal. If the thing had not
+thriven with Backfield it was not likely to thrive with anyone else. For
+the first time Reuben cursed his own renown.
+
+However, he hoped better things from the next spring. If lambing was
+good and the season promising, farmers would not be so cautious.
+Meantime he would keep Odiam in chains, he would save every penny, skim,
+pare, retrench, and learn the lesson of his lean years.
+
+Unfortunately he had reckoned without Rose--Rose saw no need for such
+drastic measures. Because her man had been venturesome and stupid, made
+rash speculations, and counted on a quite unwarranted legacy, that was
+no reason for her to go without her new spring gown or new covers for
+her parlour chairs. She was once more expecting motherhood, and
+considered that as a reward for such self-sacrifice the most expensive
+luxuries were inadequate.
+
+At the same time, feeling quite at ease about herself and Handshut, she
+led Reuben a freakish dance of jealousy, going to extravagant lengths in
+the hope of breaking down his resistance and goading him into
+compliance. But she did not find jealousy such a good weapon as it had
+used to be. Reuben would grow furious, thundery and abusive, but she
+never caught him, as formerly, in the softness of reaction, nor did the
+fear of a rival stimulate any more profitable emotion than rage.
+
+The truth was that Reuben had now become desperate. He could not give in
+to Rose. If he sacrificed his farm to her in the smallest degree he ran
+the risk of ruin. He was torn in two by the most powerful forces of his
+life. On one side stood Odiam, trembling on the verge of catastrophe,
+needing every effort, every sacrifice of his, every drop of his sweat,
+every drop of his blood. On the other stood Rose, the dearest human
+thing, who demanded that for her sake he should forget his farm and the
+hopes bound up in it. He would not do so--and at the same time he would
+not lose Rose. Though her love no longer gave him the gift of peace, he
+still clung to it; her presence, her voice, her touch, still fired and
+exalted him. He would not let her go--and he would not let Odiam go.
+
+The struggle was terrible; it wore him out. He fought it desperately--to
+neither side would he surrender an inch. Sometimes with Rose's arms
+about him, her soft cheek against his and her perfidy forgotten, he
+would be on the brink of giving her the pretty costly thing, whatever it
+was, that she wanted at the expense of Odiam. At others, out in his
+fields, or on the slope of Boarzell--half wild, half tamed--with all
+those unconquered regions swelling above him, he would feel that he
+could almost gladly lose Rose altogether, if to keep her meant the
+sacrifice of one jot of his ambition, one tittle of his hope. Then he
+would go home, and find her ogling Handshut through the window, or
+giving tea in her most seductive manner to some young idiot with clean
+hands--and round would go the wheel again--round and round....
+
+As a matter of fact he had never been so secure of Rose as then; the
+very shamelessness of her flirtations was a proof of it--a whoop of joy,
+so to speak, at finding herself free of what she had feared would be a
+devastating passion. But who could expect Reuben to guess that? He saw
+only the freak of a treacherous nature, turning from him to men younger
+and more compliant than himself. Jealousy, from a fit, became a habit.
+He grew restless and miserable--he would run in suddenly from his work
+to see what his wife was doing, he would cross-examine Caro, he would
+even ask Pete to keep an eye on her. Sometimes he thought of dismissing
+Handshut, but the lad was an excellent drover, and Reuben had bursts of
+sanity in which he saw the foolishness of such a sacrifice. Rose flirted
+nowadays with every man she met--she was, he told himself furiously, a
+thoroughly light and good-for-nothing girl--she was not worth the loss
+of a fellow like Handshut.
+
+Thus the days dragged on wretchedly for everyone except Rose, and in
+time they grew wretched for her too. She began to tire of the cracklings
+of the flame she had kindled, of Reuben's continued distrust and
+suspicion, of Caro's goggle-eyed disapproval, of Peter's spying
+contempt. The time of her lying-in drew nearer, she had to give up her
+gay doings, and felt frightened and alone. Everyone was against her,
+everyone disapproved of her. She began to wish that she had not found
+her love for Handshut to be an illusion, to wish that the kiss beside
+the Glotten brook had been in reality what she had dreamed it.... After
+all, is it not better to embrace the god and die than to go through the
+unhappy days in darkness?
+
+
+§ 15.
+
+One evening when Reuben was out inspecting a sick cow, Rose lay on the
+sofa languidly shelling peas. Once more it was June, and a rusty heat
+was outside blurring the orchard. Her fingers often lay idle in the bowl
+of peas, for though her task relieved the sweltering boredom which had
+weighed on her all day, every now and then a great lassitude would sweep
+over her, slacking her muscles, slacking her thoughts, till she drooped
+into a vague stagnation of sorrow.
+
+She felt horribly, uselessly tired, her gay spirits had trickled from
+her in sheer physical discomfort, and in her heart an insistent question
+writhed like a little flame.
+
+Two tears formed slowly in the corners of her eyes, welled at last over
+the silky, spidery lashes, and rolled down her cheeks. In themselves
+they were portents--for Rose hardly ever cried. More wonderful still,
+she did not know that she was crying, she merely became stupidly
+conscious of a smudging of those motionless trees beyond the garden, and
+a washing of the hard, copper-coloured sky.
+
+She feebly put up her hand and brushed the veil away--already something
+strange had loomed through it, whipping her curiosity. A man was at the
+window, his head and shoulders dark against the sunset.
+
+"Handshut!"
+
+"Yes, ma'am."
+
+She frowned, for she seemed to catch a ring of mockery in the respectful
+words. She wondered if it had always been there.
+
+"Where's master?"
+
+"In the shed with Brindle."
+
+"And how is she?"
+
+"I dunno--we've sent for the veterinary."
+
+There was silence. Outside the flowers rustled in the slow hot breeze.
+The background of trees was growing dim, a web of shadow at the foot of
+the garden.
+
+Handshut still leaned on the sill, and she realised that if his words
+were decorous, his attitude was not. Surely he had something better to
+do than hang in at her window. Half his face was in shadow, half was
+reddened by the smouldering sky--it was the face of a young gipsy,
+brown, sullen, and mocking. She suddenly pulled herself into a sitting
+posture.
+
+"What are you staying for?--I reckon the master wants you."
+
+"No--it's you that wants me, surelye."
+
+The blood ebbed from her lips. She felt afraid, and yet glad. Then
+suddenly she realised what was happening and dragged herself back into
+dignity and anger.
+
+"I don't want you."
+
+"Yes you do."
+
+"Kindly go at once, or I shall call someone."
+
+"Rose!"
+
+Once more she fell back into her state of terror and delight. His
+coolness seemed to paralyse her--she could not act. She could only lie
+and watch him, trembling. Why had he changed so?--he, who had never
+faltered in his attitude of stiff respect under her most outrageous and
+flirtatious digs.
+
+"Rose," he said again, and his voice quivered as he said it, "you do
+want me a liddle bit now."
+
+"What--what makes you think so?"
+
+He shrugged his shoulders--there must have been some foreign streak in
+his yokel's blood.
+
+"I döan't think it--I know. A year agone you dudn't want me, so I kipt
+back, I wurn't a-going to mäake you suffer. You wur frightened of that
+kiss...."
+
+He had spoken it--her terror. "Don't!" she cried.
+
+"You wur frightened, so I saw you wurn't ready, and I tried to mäake you
+feel as naun had happened."
+
+"Yes, I thought you were a gentleman," she said with a sudden rap of
+anger.
+
+"I äun't that. I'm just a poor labouring man, wot loves you, and wot you
+love."
+
+She tried to speak, but the words burnt up in her mouth.
+
+"And a labouring man you love's worth more than a mäaster you döan't
+love, I reckon."
+
+She shrank back on the sofa, folding her arms over her breast and
+gripping her shoulders.
+
+"You needn't look so frightened. I'm only saying it. It wöan't mäake no
+difference--unless you want it to."
+
+"How dare you speak to me like this?"
+
+"Because I see you're justabout miserable, and I thought I'd say as how
+I'm beside you--only that."
+
+"How--how d'you know I'm miserable?"
+
+"Plain enough."
+
+The sky had faded behind him and a crimson moon looked over his
+shoulder.
+
+"Plain enough," he repeated, "but you needn't be scared. I'll do naun
+you döan't want; I'll come no nearer you than I am now--unless you call
+me."
+
+She burst into tears.
+
+He did not move. His head and shoulders were now nothing but a dark
+block against the purple and blue of the sky. The moon hung just above
+him like a copper dish.
+
+"Döan't cry," he said slowly--"I'm only looking in at the window."
+
+She struggled to her feet, sobs shaking and tearing her, and stumbled
+through the darkness to the door. Still sobbing she dragged herself
+upstairs, clinging to the rail, and every now and then stopping and
+bending double. Her loud sobs rang through the house, and soon the
+womenfolk were about her, questioning her, soothing her, and in the end
+putting her, still weeping, to bed. While outside in the barn Reuben
+watched in agony beside a sick cow.
+
+
+§ 16.
+
+When late the next morning a woman ran out of the house into the
+cow-stable, and told Reuben that his wife had given him a fine boy, he
+merely groaned and shook his head.
+
+He sat on a stool at the foot of Brindle's stall, and watched her as she
+lay there, slobbering her straw. His face was grim and furrowed, lines
+scored it from nose to mouth and across the forehead; his hair was damp
+and rough on his temples, his eyes were dull with sleeplessness.
+
+"Wöan't yer have summat t'eat, mäaster?" asked Beatup, looking in.
+
+All Reuben said was:
+
+"Has the Inspector come?"
+
+"No, mäaster--I'll bring him räound soon as he does. Wöan't you have a
+bite o' cheese if I fetch it?"
+
+Reuben shook his head.
+
+"Mäaster----" continued the man after a pause.
+
+"Well?"
+
+"I hear as how it's a liddle son...."
+
+Reuben mumbled something inarticulate, and Beatup took himself off. His
+master's head fell between his clenched hands, and as the cow gave a
+sudden slavering cough in the straw, a shudder passed over his skin, and
+he hunched himself more despairingly.
+
+Odiam had triumphed at last. Just when Reuben's unsettled allegiance
+should have been given entirely to the wife who had borne him a son, his
+farm had suddenly snatched from him all his thought, all his care, his
+love, and his anxiety, all that should have been hers. It seemed almost
+as if some malignant spirit had controlled events, and for Rose's stroke
+prepared a counter-stroke that should effectually drive her off the
+field. The same evening that Rose had gone weeping and shuddering
+upstairs, Reuben had interviewed the vet. from Rye and heard him say
+"excema epizootica." This had not conveyed much, so the vet. had
+translated brutally:
+
+"Foot-and-mouth disease."
+
+The most awful of a farmer's dooms had fallen on Reuben. The new
+Contagious Diseases of Animals Act made it more than probable that all
+his herd would have to be slaughtered. Of course, there would be a
+certain amount of compensation, but government compensation was never
+adequate, and with the multitudinous expenses of disinfecting and
+cleansing he was likely to sustain some crippling losses, just when
+every penny was vital to Odiam. He knew of a man who had been ruined by
+an outbreak of pleuro-pneumonia, of another who had been forced by
+swine-fever to sell half his farm. Besides, any hope of a deal over his
+milk-round was now at an end. His dairy business, whether in town or
+country, was destroyed, and his reputation would be probably as
+unjustly damaged, so that he would not be able to adventure on that road
+for years--perhaps never again.
+
+Small wonder, then, that the birth of a son brought no joy. The child
+was born to an inheritance of shame, the heir of disaster. Reuben's head
+bowed nearly to his knees. He felt old and broken. He began to see that
+it was indeed dreadfully possible that he had thriven all these years,
+conquered waste lands, and enriched fat lands, only to be overthrown at
+last by a mere arbitrary piece of ill-luck. How the disease had broken
+out he could not tell--he had bought no foreign cattle, indeed recently
+he had bought no cattle at all. He could not blame himself in the
+smallest degree; it was just a malignant capricious thrust--as if fate
+had wanted to show him that what had taken him years of labour and
+battle and sacrifice to build up, could be destroyed in as many days.
+
+A little hope sustained him till the Inspector's visit--the vet. might
+have been mistaken, the Inspector might not order a wholesale
+destruction. But these faint sparks were soon extinguished. The loathed
+epidemic had undoubtedly lifted up its head at Odiam, and Reuben's
+entire herd of Jersey, Welsh, and Sussex cattle was doomed to slaughter.
+
+The next few days were like a horrible jumbled nightmare, something
+malignant, preposterous, outside experience. Three men came over from
+the slaughterhouse at Rye, and plied their dreadful work till evening.
+The grey and dun-coloured Jerseys with their mild, protruding eyes, the
+sturdy Welsh with their little lumpy horns, the Sussex all coloured like
+a home-county landscape in reds and greys and browns--bowed their meek
+heads under the ox-killer, and became mere masses of meat and horn and
+hide. Profitless masses, too, for all the carcases were ordered to be
+burned.
+
+The nightmare had its appropriate ending. Sixty dead beasts were burned
+in lime. Boarzell became Hinnom--it was the most convenient open space,
+so Reuben's herd was burned on it. From a dozen different pyres
+streamers of white smoke flew along the wind, and a strange terrible
+smell and tickling of the nostrils troubled the labourer on the westward
+lands by Flightshot or Moor's Cottage.
+
+The neighbourhood sat up in thrilled dismay, and watched Odiam pass
+through its hour. The farm was shut off from civilisation by a barrier
+of lime--along every road that flanked it, outside every gate that
+opened on it, the stuff of fiery purification was spread. The fields
+with their ripening oats and delicately browned wheat, the orchards
+where apples trailed the boughs into the grass, the snug red house, and
+red and brown barns, the black, turrets of the oasts, all cried
+"Unclean! Unclean!"
+
+Odiam was a leper. None might leave it without rubbing his boots in
+lime, no beasts could be driven beyond its hedges. More, the curse
+afflicted the guiltless--the markets at Rye and Battle were forbidden,
+the movements of cattle were restricted, and Coalbran once indignantly
+showed Reuben a certificate which he found he must have ready to produce
+every time he moved his single cow across the lane from the hedge
+pasture to the stream fallow.
+
+Public opinion was against Backfield, and blamed him surlily for the
+local inconvenience.
+
+"Döan't tell me," said Coalbran in the bar, "as it wurn't his fault.
+Foot-and-mouth can't just drop from heaven. He must have bought some
+furriners, and they've carried it wud 'em, surelye."
+
+"Serve un right," said Ticehurst.
+
+"Still, I'm sorry for him," said Realf of Grandturzel--"he's the only
+man hereabouts wot's really made a serious business of farming, and it's
+a shame he should get busted."
+
+"He äun't busted yet," said Coalbran.
+
+"But you mark my words, he will be," said Ticehurst; "anyways I shud lik
+him to be, fur he's a high-stomached man, and only deserves to be put
+down."
+
+"He's down enough now, surelye! I saw him only yesterday by the Glotten
+meadows, and there was a look in his eye as I'll never forget."
+
+"And yit he's as proud as the Old Un himself. I met him on Thursday, and
+I told him how unaccountable sorry we all wur fur him, and he jest
+spat."
+
+"I offered to help him wud his burning," said Realf, "and he said as
+he'd see me and my lousy farm burnt first."
+
+"He's a tedious contradictious old feller--he desarves all he's got.
+Let's git up a subscription fur him--that ud cut him to the heart, and
+he wudn't täake it, so it ud cost us naun, nuther."
+
+The rest of the bar seemed to think, however, that Reuben might take the
+money out of spite, so Coalbran's charitable suggestion collapsed for
+lack of support.
+
+Meantime, so fast bound in the iron of his misery that he scarcely felt
+the prick of tongues, Reuben lived through the final stages of his
+nightmare--those final stages of shock and upheaval when the fiery
+torment of the dream dies down into the ashes of waking. He wandered
+over his land in his lime-caked boots, scarcely talking to those at work
+on it, directing with mere mechanical activity the labour which now
+seemed to him nothing but the writhings of a crushed beetle. Everyone
+felt a little afraid of him, everyone avoided him as much as
+possible--he was alone.
+
+His nostrils were always full of the smart of lime, and the stench of
+those horrible furnaces belching away on the slopes of the Moor. Would
+that burning never be done? For days the yellowy white pennons of
+destruction had flown on Boarzell, and that acrid reek polluted the
+harvest wind. Boarzell was nothing but a huge funeral pyre, a smoking
+hell.... "And the smoke of her went up for ever and ever."
+
+
+§ 17.
+
+An atmosphere of gloom lay over Odiam; Reuben brought it with him
+wherever he went, and fogged the house with it as well as the barns.
+Even Rose felt an aching pity for her strong man, something quite
+different from the easy gushes of condolence which had used to be all
+she could muster in the way of sympathy.
+
+But Reuben did not take much notice of Rose, nor even of his little son.
+Now and then he would look at them together, sigh impatiently, then go
+out of the room.
+
+Sometimes he would be more interested, and, in a fit of reaction from
+his proud loneliness, turn to her as of old for comfort. But those were
+the bitterest hours of all, for in them he would glimpse a difference,
+an aloofness. She had been much quieter since the birth of the second
+boy, she had not recovered her health so rapidly, and her eyes were big
+in the midst of bistred rings. She had given up flirting with Handshut,
+or with the young men from Rye, but she did not turn from them to her
+husband. Though he could see she was sorry for him, he felt--vaguely,
+uncertainly, yet tormentingly--that she was not all his, as she had been
+in brighter months. Sometimes he did not much care--sometimes a dreadful
+passion would consume him, and once he caught her to his breast and
+bruised her in his arms, crying--"I wöan't lose you--I wöan't lose you
+too."
+
+Rose could not read his mood; one day she would feel her husband had
+been alienated from her by his sorrow, another that his need of her was
+greater than ever. She herself carried a heavy heart, and in her mind a
+picture of the man who was "only looking in at the window." She seemed
+to see him standing there, with the moon rising over his shoulder,
+while from behind him something in the garden, in the night, called ...
+and called.
+
+She could still hear that call, muted, tender, wild--the voice of her
+youth and of her love, calling to her out of the velvet night, bidding
+her leave the house where the hearth was piled with ashes, and feel the
+rain and the south wind on her lips. There was no escape in sleep, for
+her dreams showed her that window framing a sky soft and dark as a
+grape, with the blackness of her lover's bulk against it, while the moon
+rose over his shoulder, red, like a fiery pan....
+
+She felt afraid, and did not know where to turn. She avoided Handshut,
+who stood remote; and though her husband sometimes overwhelmed her with
+miserable hungry love, he often scarcely seemed to notice her or her
+children, and she knew that she counted far less than his farm. He was
+terribly harsh with her now, frowning by the hour over her
+account-books, forbidding this or that, and in his gloom scarcely
+noticing her submission.
+
+July passed. Odiam was no longer cut off from the rest of the world by
+lime. Reuben with the courage of despair began to organise his shattered
+strength. He discharged Piper--now that his cows were gone he could
+easily do with a hand less. He sometimes wondered why he had not
+discharged Handshut, but the answer was always ready--Handshut was far
+the better workman, and Odiam now came easily before Rose. Not that
+Reuben's jealousies had left him--they still persisted, though in a
+different form. The difference lay in the fact that now he would not
+sacrifice to them the smallest scrap of Odiam's welfare.
+
+He sometimes asked himself why he was still jealous. Rose no longer gave
+him provocation, she was much quieter than she had used to be, and
+seemed busy with her children and straitened house-keeping. It was once
+more a case of instinct, of a certain vague sensing of her aloofness.
+Often he did not trouble about it, but sometimes it seared through him
+like a hot bar.
+
+One evening he came home particularly depressed. He had just finished
+the most degrading transaction of his life--the raising of a mortgage on
+the Flightshot side of his land. It was horrible, but it was
+unavoidable. He could not now sell his milk-round, and yet he absolutely
+must have ready money if he was to stand up against circumstances. The
+mortgagee was a wealthy Rye butcher, and Reuben had hopes that the
+disgraceful affair might be kept secret, but also an uneasy suspicion
+that it was at that moment being discussed in every public-house.
+
+He went straight to find Rose, for that mood was upon him. The due of
+loneliness which his shame demanded had been paid during the drive home
+from Rye, and now he quite simply and childishly wanted his wife. She
+was in the kitchen, stooping over some child's garment, the little
+frills of which she was pleating in her fingers. She lifted her head
+with a start as he came in, and he saw that her face was patched with
+tearstains.
+
+"Wot've you bin crying for?" he asked as he slid a chair close to hers.
+He wondered if the humiliation of Odiam had at last come to mean to her
+a little of what it meant to him.
+
+"I haven't been crying."
+
+"But your face ..."
+
+"That's the heat."
+
+He drew back from her a little. Why should she lie to him about her
+tears?
+
+"Oh, well, if you döan't choose to tell me ... But I've eyes in my
+head."
+
+She seemed anxious to propitiate him.
+
+"How did it go off? Have you settled with Apps?"
+
+He nodded.
+
+"It's all over now--I've touched bottom."
+
+"Nonsense, Ben. You mustn't say that. After all there's nothing
+extraordinary about a mortgage--uncle had one for years on a bit of his
+farm at Rowfant. Besides, think of all you've got left."
+
+He laughed bitterly. "I äun't got much left."
+
+Then suddenly he turned towards her as she sat there by him, her head
+bowed over her work--her delicate, rather impertinent nose outlined
+against the firelight, her cheek and neck bewitched with running
+shadows.
+
+"But I've got you."
+
+A great tenderness transported him, a great melting. He put his arm
+round her waist, and made as if to pull her close.
+
+She drew back from him with a shudder.
+
+It was only for a moment--the next she yielded. But he had seen her
+reluctance, felt the shiver of repulsion go through her limbs. He rose,
+and pushed back his chair.
+
+"I'm sorry," he said in a low thick voice--"I'm sorry I interrupted
+your--crying."
+
+Then he went out, and gave Handshut a week's notice.
+
+
+§ 18.
+
+Rose was intensely relieved. She felt that at last and for ever the
+tormenting mystery would have gone from her life. Once Handshut was
+away, she told herself, she would slip back into the old groove--a
+little soberer and softer perhaps, but definitely free of that Reality
+which had been so terribly different from its toy-counterfeit.
+
+Once Handshut was gone, her heart would not pursue him. It was his
+continual presence that tormented. True, he never sought her out, or
+persecuted her, or even spoke to her without her speaking first--he only
+looked in at the window.... But a woman soon learns what it means to
+have a man's face between her and the simplicities of life in her
+garden, between her and the divinities of the stars and moon.
+
+Rose did not find in her love a sweetness to justify the bitterness of
+its circumstances. The fact that it had been awakened by a man who was
+her inferior in the social-agricultural scale, who could give her
+nothing of the material prosperity she so greatly prized, instead of
+inspiring her with its beauty, merely convinced her of its folly. She
+saw herself a woman crazed, obsessed, bewitched, and she looked eagerly
+forward to the day when the spell should be removed and she should go
+back chastened to the common, comfortable things of life.
+
+But meantime a strange restlessness consumed her, tinctured by a
+horrible boldness. There were moments when she no longer was afraid of
+Handshut, when she felt herself impelled to seek him out, and make the
+most of the short time they had together. There could be no danger, for
+he was going so soon ... so few more words, so few more glances.... Thus
+her mind worked.
+
+She was generally able to control these impulses, but as the days
+slipped by they grew too strong for her untrained resistance. She felt
+that she must make the most of her chances because they were so
+limited--before he went for ever she must have one more memory of his
+voice, his look--his touch ... oh, no! her thoughts had carried her
+further than she had intended.
+
+She found herself beginning to haunt the places where she would be
+likely to meet him--the edge of the horse-pond or the Glotten brook, the
+door of the huge, desolate cow-stable, where six cheap Suffolks
+emphasised the empty stalls. Reuben did not seem to take any notice of
+her, he had relieved his feelings by dismissing Handshut, and his farm
+had swallowed him up again. Rose felt defiant and forlorn. Both her
+husband and her lover seemed to avoid her. She would lean against the
+great wooden posts of the door, in the listless weary attitude of a
+woman's despair.
+
+Then two days before the end he came. As she was standing by the barn
+door he appeared at the horse-pond, and crossed over to her at once. He
+had seen that she was waiting for him--perhaps he had seen it on half a
+dozen other occasions when she had not seen him.
+
+Rose could calm the silly jumps of her heart only by telling herself
+that this was quite an accidental meeting. She made an effort to be
+commonplace.
+
+"How's Topsy's foal?"
+
+"Doing valiant. Will you come out wud me to-morrow evenun to see the
+toll-burning?"
+
+She flushed at his audacity.
+
+"No!--how can I?"
+
+"You can quite easy, surelye. Mäaster's going to Cranbrook Fair, and
+wöan't be home till läate. It's the last night, remember."
+
+She made a gallant effort to be the old Rose.
+
+"What's that to me?--you've got some cheek!"
+
+"I'm only not pretending as much as you are. Why shud you pretend?
+Pretending 'ull give you naun sweet to remember when I'm gone."
+
+"What tolls are they going to burn?"
+
+"The gëates up at Leasan and Mockbeggar, and then over the marsh to
+Thornsdale. It 'ud be a shame fur you to miss it, and mäaster can't
+täake you, since he's going to Cranbrook."
+
+"It would never do if people saw us."
+
+"Why? Since your husband can't go, wot's more likely than he shud send
+his man to täake you?"
+
+Rose shuddered. "I'm not coming."
+
+Handshut turned on his heel.
+
+
+§ 19.
+
+Already the turnpike gates had disappeared from the greater part of
+Sussex, but they still lingered in the Rye district, for various
+reasons, not always bearing close inspection. There had been an
+anti-toll party both before and after the famous Scott's Float gate had
+catastrophically ended Reuben's political career--and at last this had
+carried the day. All the gates were to come down except those on the
+Military Road, and the neighbourhood was to celebrate their abolition by
+burning them in tar.
+
+Reuben, still proud and sore, stood aloof from local jollities--besides,
+he had heard that there were to be some cheap milkers for sale at
+Cranbrook Fair, and he was anxious to add a little to his dairy stock.
+Though a large milk-round was out of the question, the compensation
+money he had received from Government would allow him to carry on a
+small dairy business, as in humbler days. Of course, the fact that he
+had lost over sixty cows from foot-and-mouth disease would materially
+damage his prospects even in a limited sphere, but a farm which let its
+dairy rot was doomed to failure, and Reuben was still untamed by
+experience, and hoped much from small beginnings.
+
+So early that morning he drove off in his gig, accompanied by Pete, who
+had a good eye for cattle, and had moreover challenged the Canterbury
+Kid for a purse of five guineas. Rose watched them go, and waved
+good-bye unnoticed to her man, as he leaned forward over the reins,
+thinking only of how much he could spare for a yearling. She went back
+into the house, and stoned plums. After dinner she mended the children's
+clothes, with a little grimace for the faded ribbons and tattered frills
+which Reuben would not allow her to renew. Then she took the baby and
+little David for an airing in the orchard--Handshut, raking
+unromantically in the midden, saw her sitting, a splash of faded violet
+under an apple tree--then she bathed them and put them to bed.
+
+All this was a propitiatory offering to the god of the hearth, who,
+however, did not take the slightest notice, or stay as he so easily
+might (so the scripture saith) that hunger for her beloved which was
+gnawing at the young wife's heart. Instead, it seemed to grow in its
+devouring pain--her domesticity stimulated rather than deadened it, and
+by the time her day's tasks were over it had eaten up her poor heart
+like a dainty, and she was its unresisting prey.
+
+After the children were in bed she changed her dress, putting on the
+best she had--a washing silk with pansies sewn over it, one of her
+wedding gowns. She frowned at it as she had frowned at the babies'
+dresses--it was so old-fashioned, and worn in places. She suddenly found
+herself wishing that she loved Reuben so much as not to mind wearing old
+clothes for his sake. For the first time she could visualise such a
+state of affairs, for she had met the man for whom she would have worn
+rags. If only that man had been Reuben, her lawful husband, instead of
+another! "But I'll be true to him! I'll be true to him!" she murmured,
+and found comfort in the words till she realised that it was the first
+time that she had ever glimpsed the possibility of not being true.
+
+She went down into the kitchen, where Caro was baking suet.
+
+"Caro, I'm going out to see the gates burned. I expect I'll be back
+before Ben is, but if I'm not, tell him where I'm gone."
+
+"You can't go by yourself--he wudn't like it."
+
+"I'm not going by myself--Handshut's taking me."
+
+Caro's suety hands fell to her sides.
+
+"Rose--you know--how can you?--that's worse than alone, surelye!"
+
+"Nonsense! What's more natural that one of my servants should come with
+me, since my husband can't?"
+
+"Your servant...."
+
+"Yes, my servant."
+
+Caro, regardless of the suet on her hands, hid her face in them.
+
+"Oh, Rose, I can't tell him--I daren't. Why, he turned away Handshut
+because of you."
+
+"He did not, miss--you're impudent!"
+
+"Well, why shud fäather git shut of the best drover he ever had on his
+farm, if it äun't----"
+
+"Be quiet! I won't hear such stuff. I'm not going to be a prisoner, and
+miss my fun just because you and Ben are jealous fools."
+
+"But I daren't tell him where you've agone."
+
+"I dare say you won't have to--I'm not staying out all night."
+
+She laughed one of her coarse screaming laughs, with the additional
+drawback of mirthlessness; then she went out of the room, leaving Caro
+sobbing into suety palms.
+
+Outside in the yard, Handshut stood by the pump, apparently absorbed in
+studying the first lights of Triangulum as they kindled one by one in
+the darkening sky.
+
+Rose pattered up to him in the shabby white kid shoes that had been so
+trim and smart five years ago.
+
+"I've changed my mind."
+
+"Then you äun't coming."
+
+"Yes, I am."
+
+"Then you haven't changed it."
+
+
+§ 20.
+
+The roads outside Rye were dark with people. A procession was forming up
+at Rye Foreign, and another at the foot of Cadborough Hill. Outside the
+railway station a massed band played something rather like the
+Marseillaise, while the grass-grown, brine-smelling streets were spotted
+with stragglers, hurrying up from all quarters, some carrying torches
+that flung shifting gleams on windows and gable-ends.
+
+Immense barrels of tar had been loaded on four waggons, to which four of
+the most prosperous farmers of the district had harnessed teams. Odiam
+was of course not represented, nor was Grandturzel, but three
+bell-ringing sorrels had come all the way from Kitchenhour, while the
+marsh farms of Leasan, the Loose, and Becket's House, accounted for the
+rest.
+
+The crowd surged round the waggons, cheered, joked, sang. The whole of
+Rye was there--prosperous tradesmen from the High Street or Station
+Road, innkeepers, farmers, shop-assistants, chains of fishermen in high
+boots, jerseys, and gold ear-rings, coast-guards from the Camber, and
+one or two scared-looking women clinging to stalwart arms.
+
+Rose shrank close to Handshut, though she did not take his arm.
+Sometimes the crowd would fling them together, so that they were close
+as in an embrace, at others they would stand almost apart, linked only
+by sidelong glances. The flare of a torch would suddenly slide over
+Handshut's face, showing her its dark gipsy profile, and she would turn
+away her eyes as from something too bright to bear.
+
+Every now and then the crowd would start singing inanely:
+
+
+     "Soles, plaice, and dabs,
+     Rate, skate, and crabs.
+            God save the Queen!"
+
+
+It was like a muddled dream--people seemed to have no reason for what
+they did or shouted; they just ebbed and flowed, jostled and jambed, ran
+hither and thither, sang and laughed and swore. Rose looked round her to
+see if she could recognise anyone; now and then a face glowed on her in
+the torch-light, then died away, once she thought she saw the back of a
+tradesman's daughter whom she knew--but her chief feeling was of an
+utter isolation with her loved one, as if he and she stood alone on some
+sea-pounded island against which the tides of the world roared in vain.
+
+At last the crowd began to move. The band had crushed through to the
+front of it, and was braying Rule Britannia up Playden Hill; then came
+the waggons, then the stout champions of freedom, singing at the pitch
+of their lungs:
+
+
+     "Soles, plaice, and dabs,
+     Rate, skate, and crabs.
+            God save the Queen!"
+
+
+The stars winked on the black zenith, while troubled winds sped and
+throbbed over the fields that huddled in mystery and silence on either
+side of the road--where noise and skirmish and darting lights, with the
+odours of warm human bodies, and the thudding and scrabbling of a
+thousand feet, proclaimed the People's holiday.
+
+They flowed through Playden like a torrent through an open sluice,
+sweeping up and carrying on all sorts of flotsam--villagers from cottage
+doors, ploughboys from the farms down by the Military Canal, gipsies
+from Iden Wood ... a mixed multitude, which the central mass absorbed,
+till all was one steaming and shouting blackness.
+
+The first gate was at Mockbeggar, where the road to Iden joins that
+which crosses the Marsh by Corkwood and Baron's Grange. In a minute it
+was off its hinges, and swealing in tar, while lusty arms pulled twigs,
+branches, even whole bushes out of the hedges to build its pyre.
+
+Rose shrank close to Handshut, so close that the clover scents of her
+laces were drowned in the smell of the cowhouse that came from his
+clothes. She found herself liking it, drinking in that soft, mixed,
+milky odour ... till a cloud of stifling tar-smoke swept suddenly over
+them, and she reeled against him suffocating, while all round them
+people choked and gasped and sneezed.
+
+The fire was lighted, a great crimson tongue screamed up in front of
+two motionless poplars, leaped as high as their tops, then spread
+fan-shaped, roaring. Men and women joined hands and danced round the
+blaze--in the distance, above the surging pack of heads, Rose could see
+them jumping and capering, with snatches of song that became screams
+every minute.
+
+The fire roared like a storm, and the wood crackled with sudden yelping
+reports. The dancing girls' hats flew off, their hair streamed wide,
+their skirts belled and swirled ... there was laughter and obscene
+remarks from the onlookers. Many from the rear pressed forward to join
+the dance, and those who were trampled on screamed or cursed, while one
+or two women fainted. Rose felt as if she would faint in the heat and
+reek of it all. She leaned heavily against Handshut and closed her eyes
+... then she realised that his arm was round her. He held her against
+him, supporting her, while either she heard or thought she heard him
+say--"Döan't be scared, liddle Rose--I'm wud you. I wöan't let you
+fall."
+
+She opened her eyes. The people were moving. The Mockbeggar gate had
+been accounted for, and they rolled on towards Thornsdale. The jamb was
+not so alarming, for a good many revellers had been left behind, dancing
+round the remains of the bonfire, crowding into the public-house, or
+scattering in couples over the fields.
+
+But though the jostling was no longer dangerous, Handshut still kept his
+arm about Rose, and held her close to his side. Now and then she made a
+feeble effort as if to free herself, but he held her fast, and she never
+put out her full strength. They walked as if in a dream, they two
+together, not speaking to anyone, not speaking to each other. Rose saw
+as if in a dream the Sign of Virgo hanging above Stone. The dipping of
+the lane showed the Kentish marshes down in the valley, with the hills
+of Kent beyond them, twinkling with lights. The band lifted the strains
+of Hearts of Oak and Cheer, Boys, Cheer above the thud of marching feet,
+or occasionally drifted into sentiment with Love's Pilgrim--while every
+now and then, regardless of what was being played, two hundred throats
+would bray:
+
+
+     "Soles, plaice, and dabs,
+     Rate, skate, and crabs.
+            God save the Queen!"
+
+
+It was about nine o'clock when they came to Thornsdale, down on the
+Rother levels; the moon had risen and the marsh was smeethed in white.
+The air was thick with a strong-scented miasma, and beside the dykes
+long lines of willows faded into the mist. Here another orgy was
+started, in grotesque contrast with the pallid sleep of water. The gate
+that barred the Kent road was torn down, the bonfire prepared, the dance
+begun.
+
+The mists became patched with leaping shadows, and a dull crimson wove
+itself into the prevailing whiteness. Flaming twigs and sparks hissed
+into the dykes, rolls of acrid tar-smoke spread like a pall over the
+river and the Highnock Sewer, under which their waters were spotted with
+fire. The ground was soon pulped and poached with the jigging feet, and
+mud and water spurted into the dancers' faces.
+
+It was all rather ugly and ridiculous, and as before at Mockbeggar, the
+crowd began to straggle. This time there was no public-house to swallow
+up strays, but the marsh spread far and wide, a Land of Promise for
+lovers, who began to slink off two by two into the mists. Some who were
+not lovers formed themselves into noisy groups, and bumped about the
+lanes--waking the farmers' wives from Bosney to Marsh Quarter.
+
+Rose felt Handshut's arm clinging more tenderly about her, and she knew
+that he wanted to lead her away from the noise and glare, to the
+coolness and loneliness of the waterside. She wanted to go--her head
+ached, her nostrils tingled, and her eyes were sore with the fumes of
+tar, her ears wearied with the din.
+
+"Let's go home," she said faintly--"it's getting late."
+
+"We can go back by Corkwood across the marshes. It'll be quicker, and we
+shan't have no crowd spanneling round."
+
+They elbowed their way into the open, and soon the noise had died into a
+subdued roar, not so loud as the sigh of the reeds, while the bonfire
+showed only as a crimson stain on the eastward piling fogs.
+
+In time the contrast of silence grew quite painful. It ached. Only the
+sough of the wind in the reeds troubled it--the feet of Rose and
+Handshut were noiseless on the grass, they breathed inaudibly, only the
+breath of the watching night was heard.
+
+They skirted the Corkwood dyke, from which rose the stupefying, sodden,
+almost flavorous, smell of dying reeds--a waterfowl suddenly croaked
+among them, and another answered her with a wail from beyond Ethnam. The
+willows were shimmering silver dreams, bathed in the light of the moon
+which hung above the Fivewatering and had washed nearly all the stars
+out of the sky--only Sirius hung like a dim lamp over Great Knell, while
+Lyra was faint above Reedbed in the north.
+
+Rose walked half leaning against Handshut. She felt a very little feeble
+thing in the power of that great amorous night. The warm breath of the
+wind in her hair, the caress of moonlight on her eyes, the throbbing,
+miasmic, night-sweet scents of water and grass, the hush, the great
+sleep ... all tore at her heart, all weakened her with their huge soft
+strength, all crushed with their languors the poor resistance of her
+will.
+
+The tears began to roll down her cheeks, they shone on her face in the
+moonlight--they fell quite fast as she walked on gripped against her
+lover's heart. She was leaning more and more heavily against him, for
+her strength was ebbing fast--oh, if he would only speak!--she could not
+walk much further, and yet she dared not rest beside him on that haunted
+ground.
+
+At last they came to where the high land rose out of the levels like a
+shore out of the sea, with a lick of road on it, winding up to
+Peasmarsh. It was here that Rose's uncertain strength failed her, she
+lurched against Handshut, and still encircled by his arms slid to the
+grass.
+
+They were in a huge meadow, sloping upwards to mysterious, night-wrapped
+hedges. The moonlight still trembled over the marsh, kindling sudden
+streaks of water, steeping fogs, silvering pollards and reeds. One could
+distinctly see the little houses on the Kent side of the Rother, Ethnam,
+and Lossenham, and Lambstand, some with lights blinking from them,
+others just black patches on the moon-grey country. Rose looked out
+towards them, and tried to picture in each a hearth beside which a
+husband and wife sat united ... then suddenly they were blotted out, as
+Handshut's face loomed dark between her and them, and his lips slowly
+fastened on her own.
+
+For a moment she yielded to the kiss, then suddenly tore herself away.
+
+"Rose ..."
+
+"Let me go--I can't."
+
+"Rose, why shud you pretend? You döan't love the mäaster, and you do
+love me. Why shudn't we be happy together?"
+
+"We--I can't."
+
+"Why?--I love you, and you love me. Come away wud me--you shan't have a
+hard life----"
+
+"--It's not that."
+
+"Wot is it then?"
+
+"It's--oh, I can't--I'm his wife."
+
+She pushed him from her as he tried to take her in his arms again, and
+stumbled to her feet.
+
+"It's late--I--I must go home."
+
+"Rose, you queer me."
+
+He had risen too, and stood before her in mingled pain and surprise. He
+thought her resistance mere coyness, and suddenly flung his arms round
+her as she stood.
+
+She began to cry.
+
+"No, no--don't be so cruel! Let me go!--I'm his wife."
+
+
+§ 21.
+
+The walk home was dreary, for Rose and Handshut misunderstood each
+other, and yet loved each other too. She was silent, almost shamefaced,
+and he was a little disgusted with her--he felt that she had misled him,
+and in his soreness added "willingly."
+
+They scarcely spoke, and the night spread round them its web of
+pondering silence. Aldebaran guttered above Kent, and the blurred patch
+of the Pleiades hung over the curded fogs that hid the Rother. There was
+no wind, but every now and then the grass rippled and the leaves
+fluttered, while a low hissing sound went through the trees. Sometimes
+from the distance came the shouts of some revellers still at large,
+echoing weirdly over the moon-steeped fields, and divinely purged by
+space and night.
+
+Sobs were still thick in Rose's throat, when they came to Handshut's
+cottage, a little tumble-down place, shaped like a rabbit's head. She
+stopped.
+
+"Don't come any further."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"It would be better if I wasn't seen with you."
+
+He looked at her white face.
+
+"You're frighted."
+
+"No."
+
+"Yes--and I'm coming wud you, surelye."
+
+"I should be frightened if you came."
+
+She managed to persuade him to go his different way--though the actual
+moment of their parting was always a blur in her memory. Afterwards she
+could not remember if they had kissed, touched hands, or parted without
+a word. Her throat was still full of sobs when she came to Odiam; she
+was panting, too, for she had run all the way--she did not know why.
+
+The house was swimming in the light of the western moon. Its strange
+curves and bulges, its kiln-shaped ends, and great waving sprawl of roof
+all shone in a white glassy brilliance, which was somehow akin to peace.
+There was a soft flutter of wind in the orchard and in the sentinel
+poplars, while now and then came that distant night-purged scrap of
+song:
+
+
+     "Soles, plaice, and dabs,
+     Rate, skate, and crabs.
+            God save the Queen!"
+
+
+Rose wondered uneasily what time it was. Surely it could not be very
+late, and yet the house was shut up and the windows dark.
+
+She gently rattled the door-handle. There was no denying it--the house
+was locked up. It must be later than she thought--that walk on the
+Rother levels must have been longer than it had seemed to her thirsty
+love. A thrill of fear went through her. She hoped Reuben would not be
+angry. She was his dutiful wife.
+
+She stood hesitating on the doorstep. Should she knock? Then a terrible
+thought struck her. Reuben must have meant to lock her out. Otherwise he
+would have sat up for her, however late she had been. She started
+trembling all over, and felt her skin grow damp.
+
+She began to knock, first softly, then more desperately. She must get
+in. Nothing was to be heard except her own despairing din--the house
+seemed plunged in sleep. Rose's fear grew, spread black bat's wings,
+and darkened all her thoughts--for she knew that someone must have heard
+her, she could not make all this racket quite unheard.
+
+What could she do? Caro slept at the back of the house, and it struck
+her that she had better go round, and throw up some earth at her window.
+Perhaps Caro would let her in. She stepped back from the door, and was
+just turning the corner of the house when a window suddenly shot open
+above her, and Reuben's tousled head looked out.
+
+"There's no use your trying to git in."
+
+Rose gave a faint scream. In the moonlight her husband's face looked
+distorted, while his voice came thick and unnatural.
+
+"Ben!"
+
+"Go away. Go away to where you've come from. I shan't let you in."
+
+"You can't keep me out here. It isn't my fault I'm late--and I'm not so
+very late, either."
+
+"It's one o'clock o' the marnun."
+
+She felt her heart grow sick. If she had been happy for four hours, why,
+in God's name, had they not passed like four hours instead of like four
+minutes?
+
+"Ben, I swear I didn't know. I was up to no harm, I promise you. Please,
+please--oh please let me in!"
+
+"Not I--at one o'clock o' the marnun--after you've bin all night wud
+a----"
+
+"Ben, I swear I'm your true wife."
+
+She fell against the wall, and her hair, disordered by embraces,
+suddenly streamed over her shoulders. The sight of it made Reuben wild.
+
+"Git off--before I täake my gun and shoot you."
+
+"Oh, Ben!..."
+
+"Höald your false tongue. You're no wife o' mine from this day forrard.
+I wöan't be cuckolded in my own house."
+
+His face was swollen, his eyes rolled--he looked almost as if he had
+been drinking.
+
+"Ben, don't drive me away. I've been true to you, indeed I have, and
+Handshut's going to-morrow. Let me in--please let me in. I swear I've
+been true."
+
+"I want none o' your lying swears--at one o'clock o' the marnun. Go back
+to the man you've come from--he'll believe you easier nor I."
+
+"Ben, I'm your wife."
+
+"I tell you, you're no wife of mine. I'm shut of you--you false, fair,
+lying, scarlet woman. You needn't cry and weep, nuther--none 'ull say as
+Ben Backfield wur a soft man fur woman's tears."
+
+He shut the window with a slam. For some moments Rose stood leaning
+against the wall, her sobs shaking her. Then, still sobbing, she turned
+and walked away.
+
+She walked slowly down the drive till she came to the little path that
+led across the fields to Handshut's cottage. A light gleamed from the
+window, and she crept towards it through tall moon-smudged grass--while
+from the distance came for the last time:
+
+
+     "Soles, plaice, and dabs,
+     Rate, skate, and crabs.
+            God save the Queen!"
+
+
+§ 22.
+
+A glassy yellow broke into the sky like a curse. It shone on Reuben's
+eyes, and he opened them. They were pink and puffed round the rims, and
+the whites were shot with little blood-vessels. His cheeks were yellow,
+and round his mouth was an odd greyish tinge. He had lain dressed on his
+bed, and was surprised to find that he had slept. But the sleep had
+brought no refreshment--there was a bad taste in his mouth, and his
+tongue felt rough and thick.
+
+He sat up on the tumbled bed and looked round him. Rose's nightgown was
+folded on her pillow, and over a chair lay a pair of the thin useless
+stockings he had often scolded her for wearing. A drawer was open, and
+from it came the soft perfume that adhered to everything she put on. He
+suddenly sprang out of bed and shut it with a kick.
+
+"Durn her!" he said, and then two sobs tore their way painfully up his
+throat, shaking his whole body.
+
+An hour later he went down. He had washed and tidied himself, none the
+less he disconcerted the household. Caro had lain awake all night,
+partly from misery, partly because of the baby, which she had been
+obliged to take charge of in the mother's absence. She had brought it
+down into the kitchen with her, and it had lain kicking in its cradle
+while she prepared the breakfast. She was worn out already after her
+sleepless night, and could not prevent the tears from trickling down her
+face as she cut bread for the meal.
+
+"Stop that!" said Reuben roughly.
+
+Except for this, he did not speak--nor after a few attempts on the
+former's part did Pete and Caro. They sat and gulped down their food in
+silence. Even Harry seemed to realise the general unrest. He would not
+sit at table, but wandered aimlessly up and down the room, murmuring, as
+was now his habit in times of domestic upheaval, "Another wedding--deary
+me! We're always having weddings in this house."
+
+Then the baby began to howl because it was hungry. Rose had nursed it
+herself, and its wants had not occurred to the unhappy Caro or her
+father. There was delay and confusion while a bottle was fetched and
+milk prepared, and then--to crown all--cow's milk upset it, and it was
+sick. But Reuben escaped this final tragedy--he had left the room after
+a few mouthfuls, and gone to Handshut's cottage.
+
+He could not restrain himself any longer. He must see Rose, and vent on
+her all the miserable rage with which his heart was seething. He longed
+to strike her--he longed to beat her, for the wanton that she was. And
+he longed to clasp her in his arms and weep on her breast and caress
+her, for the woman that she was.
+
+But the cottage was shut. With its red-rotting roof between two tall
+chimneys it looked exactly like a rabbit's head between its ears; the
+windows were blind, though it was past seven o'clock, and though Reuben
+knocked at the door loudly, there was no one to be seen. He prowled once
+or twice round the house, fumbling handles and window-latches, but there
+was no way of getting in. He listened, but he could not hear a sound. He
+pictured Rose and Handshut in each other's arms, laughing at him in his
+wretchedness and their bliss--and all the time he wanted the woman's
+blood more than the man's.
+
+At last he wandered desperately away, treading the furrows of his new
+ground on Boarzell, reckless that he trod the young seed harrowed into
+them. In that black moment even his winter crops were nothing to him. He
+saw, thought of, realised only one thing--and that was Rose, the false,
+the gay, the wanton, and the beautiful--oh the beautiful!--laughing at
+him from another man's arms. He could see her laughing, see just how her
+lips parted, just how her teeth shone--those little teeth, so regular
+except for the pointed canines--just how the dimples came at the corners
+of her mouth, those dear little hollows which he had dug with his
+kisses....
+
+He ground his heel into the soft harrowed earth, and it cast up its
+smell into his nostrils unheeded. But the day of Boarzell was
+coming--its rival had been cleared out of the field, and the great hump
+with its knob of firs seemed to be lying in wait, till the man had
+pulled himself out of the pit of a false woman's love and given himself
+back to it, the strong, the faithful enemy.
+
+About an hour later Reuben was down again at Handshut's cottage, but
+this time a change had worked itself. The door hung wide open--and the
+place was empty. He went through the two miserable little rooms, but
+there was no one, and nowhere for anybody to hide. The remains of a meal
+of bread and tea were on the table, and a fire of sticks was dying on
+the hearth. The lovers had flown--to laugh at him from a safe distance.
+
+All the rest of the day he prowled aimlessly about his land. His men
+were afraid, for it was the first time they had seen him spend a day
+without work. He touched neither spade nor pitchfork, he gave no orders,
+just wandered restlessly about the fields and barns. He ate no supper,
+but locked himself into his room, while the baby's thin wail rose
+through the beams of the kitchen ceiling, and little David cried
+fractiously for "mother."
+
+The next day Caro, haggard after another night made sleepless by her
+charges, knocked at his door. He had not come down to breakfast, and at
+eight o'clock the postman had brought a letter.
+
+"It's from Rose," said Caro timidly.
+
+"To me?"
+
+"No, to me."
+
+"Read it."
+
+Caro read it. Rose was in London, but left that day for Liverpool.
+Handshut had saved a little money, and they were going to Canada. "I
+don't ask Ben to forgive me, for I know he never will."
+
+"She's right there," said Reuben grimly.
+
+Caro stood before him, creasing the letter nervously. Her father's wrath
+broke upon her, for want of his proper victim.
+
+"Git out, can't yer--wot are you dawdling here for? You women are all
+the same--you'd be as bad as her if you cud only git a man."
+
+Caro shrank from the jibe as if from a blow, and Reuben laughed
+brutally. He had made one woman suffer anyway.
+
+
+§ 23.
+
+Of course the neighbourhood gloated; and the rustic convention was set
+aside in Rose's favour, and all the shame of her elopement heaped on
+Reuben.
+
+"No wäonder as she cudn't stick to him--hard, queer chap as he be."
+
+"And thirty year older nor she, besides."
+
+"Young Handshut wur a präaper lad, and valiant. I äun't surprised as
+she'd rather have un wudout a penny than old Ben wud all his gold."
+
+"And he äun't got much o' that now, nuther. They say as he'll be bust by
+next fall."
+
+Heads were shaken in triumphant commiseration, and the stones which
+according to all decent tradition should have been flung at Rose,
+hurtled round her husband instead.
+
+Far away at Cheat Land, Alice Jury watched them fall--Alice Jury five
+years older than when she had struggled with Boarzell for Reuben before
+he married Rose. Her parents thought he had treated her badly, even
+though they did not know of the evening when she had humbled herself to
+plead for her happiness and his. She remembered that moment uneasily--it
+hurt her pride. But she could not regret having used her most desperate
+effort to win him, and she felt sure that he had understood her motive
+and realised that it was for him as well as for her that she had spoken.
+
+Now, when she heard of his catastrophe, she wondered if he would come
+back. Did men come back?--and if they did, was she the type of woman
+they came back to? Perhaps she was too quick, too antagonistic. She told
+herself miserably that a softer woman could have saved Reuben, and yet,
+paradoxically, a softer woman would not have wished to do so.
+
+She had seen very little of him or of Rose since their marriage. Rose
+and she had never been friends, and Reuben she knew was shy of her. He
+had been angry with her too, because she had not carried her aching
+heart on her sleeve. Outwardly she had worn no badge of sorrow--she was
+just as quick, just as combative, just as vivaciously intellectual as
+she had always been. Though she knew that she had lost him through these
+very characteristics, with which she had also attracted him, she made no
+effort to force herself into a different mould. She refused to regret
+anything, to be ashamed of anything, to change anything. If he came back
+he should find the same woman as he had left.
+
+She felt that he would come--he would return to her in the reaction that
+swung him from Rose. But would she be able to keep him? She did not feel
+so sure of that--for that did not depend on her or on him, but on that
+mysterious force outside themselves with which they had both already
+struggled in vain.
+
+
+§ 24.
+
+Reuben scarcely knew what brought him to Cheat Land. It was about a week
+after the blow fell that he found himself treading the once familiar
+lane, lifting the latch of the garden gate, and knocking at the green
+house-door. Nothing had changed, except to fade a little and show some
+signs of wear and tear. Alice herself had not changed, nor had she
+faded, though her cheeks might have fallen in a trifle and a few lines
+traced themselves round her mouth.
+
+"Welcome," she said, and laughed.
+
+He took her hand, and forgot to be angry because she had laughed.
+
+"Come in, and we'll have a talk. Father's out, and mother's upstairs."
+
+She led the way into the queer little kitchen, which was also unchanged
+except for the fading of the curtains, and the introduction of one or
+two new books on the shelves. Alice pulled forward his old chair, and
+sat down opposite him on the settle. She wore one of her long
+wrapper-pinafores, this time of a warm clay-colour, which seemed to put
+a glow into her cheeks.
+
+"Well, Alice," he said huskily.
+
+"Well, Reuben, I'm glad to see you."
+
+"You've heard?"
+
+She nodded. Then she said gently:
+
+"Poor Rose."
+
+Reuben flushed.
+
+"One o' my victims, eh?"
+
+"Well, I knew you'd rather I said that than 'poor Reuben.'"
+
+"Reckon I would. I remember as how you wur always trying to make out as
+my lazy good-fur-naun sons wur my victims, and as how I'd sacrificed
+them all to my farm; now I reckon you're trying to do the same wud
+Rose."
+
+"Where is she?"
+
+"I dunno. Somewheres between here and Canada. May she rot there lik a
+sheep on its back, and her man too. Now say 'poor Rose.'"
+
+He turned on her almost fiercely, his lips curled back from his teeth in
+a sneer.
+
+"If you speak like that I'll say 'poor Reuben.'"
+
+"Well, say it--you wöan't be far wrong. Wot sort o' chap am I to have
+pride? My farm's ruined, my wife's run away, my children have left
+me--wot right have I to be proud?"
+
+"Because, though all those things have happened, you're holding your
+head up still."
+
+"But I äun't--yesterday I wur fair crying and sobbing in front of all
+the children. In the kitchen, it wur--after supper--I put down my head
+on the table, and----"
+
+"Hush, I don't want to hear any more. I can guess what you must have
+suffered. I expect you miss Rose."
+
+"I do--justabout."
+
+"So should I in your place."
+
+"She wur a beautiful woman, Alice."
+
+Alice nodded.
+
+"Oh, and her liddle dentical ways!"
+
+Alice nodded again.
+
+"You döan't mind me talking to you of her?"
+
+"No, of course not."
+
+"She wur the beautifullest I've known, and gay, and sweet, and a woman
+to love. But she deceived me. I married her expecting money, and there
+wur none--I married her fur her body, and she's given it to another."
+
+"Well, you're not a hypocrite, anyway. You don't pretend you married her
+for any but the lowest motives."
+
+"Wot should I have married her fur, then?"
+
+"Some people marry for love."
+
+"Love I--no. I've loved but one woman."
+
+"Me!"
+
+They had both said more than they intended, and suddenly realised it.
+Though the self-betrayal meant most to Alice, she was the first to
+recover a steady voice.
+
+"But that does not matter now," she said calmly.
+
+He leaned suddenly forward and took her hand.
+
+"Alice."
+
+Her hand lay in his, a very small thing, and her head bent towards it.
+She did not want him to see her cheeks flush and her eyes fill at this
+his first caress.
+
+"Alice--how did you know?"
+
+"I'm not a fool."
+
+"I guessed too."
+
+"Of course you did. I--I gave myself away. I pleaded with you."
+
+He raised her hand slowly to his lips.
+
+"I forgot you all the time I wur wud Rose," he remarked naively.
+
+"You needn't tell me that."
+
+"But now I--well, it's too late anyhow. I'm a married man, no matter
+that my wife's in Canada. Of course, I could git a divorce--but I
+wöan't."
+
+"No--it would cost money."
+
+"More than I could spare."
+
+Alice laughed.
+
+"I never looked upon Rose as my rival--I always knew my real rival was
+your farm, and though now Rose is out of the way, that still stands
+between us."
+
+Reuben was silent. He sat leaning forward in his chair, holding Alice's
+hand. Then he abruptly rose to his feet.
+
+"Well, I must be going. It's done me good, our talk. Not that you've
+said anything particular comforting, but then you never did. It's good
+anyway to sit wud a woman wot's not lik a fat stroked cat--not a thin
+kicked one, nuther," he added viciously, remembering Caro. "You're lik a
+liddle tit-bird, Alice. I love you. But I'm not sorry I didn't marry
+you, for you'd have busted me same as Rose, only in a different way."
+
+"Most likely."
+
+She laughed again. He stooped forward and kissed her forehead, and the
+laugh died on her lips.
+
+
+§ 25.
+
+The rest of that day Reuben was a little happier. He felt comforted and
+stimulated, life was not so leaden. In the evening he worked a little in
+the hop-gardens. They were almost cleared now, and the smoke of the
+drying furnaces was streaming through the cowls of the oasts, shedding
+into the dusk a drowsy, malt-sweetened perfume. When the moon hung like
+a yellow splinter above Iden Wood, the pickers went home, and Reuben
+turned in to his supper, which for the first time since Rose's flight he
+ate with hearty pleasure.
+
+He could not tell exactly what it was that had invigorated him, and
+jerked him out of his despair. It would seem as if Alice's presence
+alone had tonic qualities. Perhaps the secret lay in her
+unchangeableness. He had gone back to her after an absence of five
+years, and found her just the same, still loving him, still fighting
+him, the old Alice. Everything else had changed--his farm which in the
+former days had been the thriving envy of the countryside was now little
+better than a ruin, his home life had been turned inside out, but in the
+woman over at Cheat Land nothing had altered, love and strength and
+faithfulness still flourished in her. It was as if a man stumbling in
+darkness should suddenly hear a loved, familiar voice say "Here I am."
+The situation summed itself up in three words--She was there; and his
+heart added--"for me to take if I choose."
+
+In spite of his revived spirits he could not sleep, but he went up early
+to his room, for he wanted to think. During the evening the idea had
+gained on him that he could still have Alice if he wanted her, and with
+the idea had grown the sensation that he wanted her with all his heart.
+
+His return had been complete. All that she had ever had and lost of
+empire had re-established itself during that hour at Cheat Land. He
+wanted her as he had wanted her before he met Rose, but with a renewed
+intensity, for he was no longer mystified by his desire. He no longer
+asked himself how he could possibly love "a liddle stick of a woman like
+her," for he saw how utterly love-worthy she was and had always been.
+For the first time he saw as his, if only he would take it, a great
+woman's faithful love. This love of Alice Jury's had nothing akin to
+Naomi's poor little fluttering passion, or to Rose's fascination, half
+appetite, half game. Someone loved him truly, strongly, purely, deeply,
+with a fire that could be extinguished only by death or--he realised in
+a dim way--her own will. The question was, should he pay the price this
+love demanded, take it to himself at the cost of the ambitions that had
+fed his life for forty years?
+
+He sat down by the open window, leaning his elbow on the sill. The night
+was as soft as honey, and dark as a bowl of wine. The stars were
+scattered and dim, the moon had dipped into a belt of fogs, the fields
+were bloomed with darkness and sleep. The ridge of Boarzell was just
+visible under the Dog Star--the lump of firs stood motionless, for the
+wind had dropped, and not even a whisper from the orchard proclaimed its
+sleeping place.
+
+Reuben's eyes swept the dim outlines of his farm--the yard, the barns,
+the oasts, the fields beyond, up to where his boundaries scarred the
+waste. It was all blurred and blanketed in the darkness, but his mind
+could see it in every detail. He saw the cow-stable empty except for the
+six cheap Suffolks which just supplied his household and one or two
+gentry with milk; he saw doors split and unhinged that he could not
+afford to mend, gaping roofs that he could not afford to retile, while
+the martins stole his thatch for their autumn broods; he saw his
+oat-harvest mostly straw, his hop-harvest gathered at a loss, his hay
+spoiled with sorrel; he saw himself short of labour, one man turned off,
+another run away; and he saw all the flints and shards and lime of
+Boarzell breaking his plough, choking his winter wheat, while on the
+lower ground runnels of clay made his corn sedgy, and everywhere the
+tough, wiry fibres of the gorse drank all the little there was of
+goodness out of the ground and scattered it from its blossoms in useless
+fragrance.
+
+This was what his forty years of struggle had brought him to. He saw
+himself in the midst of a huge ambitious ruin. He had failed, his hopes
+were blighted--what could he expect to pull out of this wreck. It would
+be far better and wiser if he gave up the dreary uncertain battle, and
+took the sure rest at hand. If he sold some of the more fruitful part of
+his land he would be able to divorce Rose, then he could marry Alice and
+live with her a quiet, shorn, unambitious life. No one would buy the new
+ground on Boarzell, but he could easily sell the low fields by the
+Glotten brook; that would leave him with twenty or thirty acres of
+fairly good land round the farm, and all his useless encroachments on
+Boarzell which he would allow to relapse into their former state. He
+would have enough to live upon, to support his children and his delicate
+wife--he would be able to take no risks and make no ventures, but he
+would be comfortable.
+
+His old father's words came back to him--"I've no ambitions, so I'm a
+happy man. I döan't want nothing I haven't got, so I haven't got nothing
+I döan't want." Perhaps his father had been right. After all, what had
+he, Reuben, got by being ambitious? Comfort, peace, home-life, wife,
+children, were all so many bitter words to him, and his great plans
+themselves had crumbled into failure--he had lost everything to gain
+nothing.
+
+Far better give up the struggle while there was the chance of an
+honourable retreat. He realised that he was at the turning point--a step
+further along his old course and he would lose Alice, a step along the
+road she pointed, and he would lose Boarzell. After all he had not won
+Boarzell, most likely never would win it--if he persisted on his old
+ways they would probably only lead him to ruin, and later there might be
+no Alice to turn to. If he renounced her now, he would be definitely
+pledging himself to Boarzell and all his soaring, tottering schemes--he
+would not be able to "come back" a second time.
+
+If he lost Alice now he might be losing her for a dream, a bubble, a
+will-o'-the-wisp. Surely he would be wise to pull what he could out of
+the wreck, take her, and forget all else. Only a fool would turn away
+from her now, and press forward. In the old days it had been different,
+he had been successful then--now he was a failure, and saw his chance to
+fail honourably. Better take it before it was too late.
+
+His mind painted him a picture it had never dared paint before--the
+comfortable red house basking in sunshine, with a garden full of
+flowers, a cow or two at pasture in the meadow, the little hop-field his
+only tilth--his dear frail wife sitting in the porch, his children
+playing at her feet or reading at her knee--perhaps they were hers too,
+perhaps they were not. He saw himself contented, growing stout, wanting
+nothing he hadn't got, so having nothing he didn't want ... he was
+leaning over her chair, and gazing away into the southern distance where
+Boarzell lay against the sky, all patched with heather and thorns, all
+golden with gorse, unirrigated, uncultivated, without furrow or
+fence....
+
+... A shudder passed through Reuben, a long shudder of his flesh, for in
+at the open window had drifted the scent of the gorse on Boarzell. It
+came on no wind, the night was windless as before. It just seemed to
+creep to him over the fields, to hang on the air like a reproach. It was
+the scent of peaches and apricots, of sunshine caught and distilled. He
+leaned forward out of the window, and thought he could see the glimmer
+of the gorse-clumps under the stars.
+
+The edge of Boarzell was outlined black against the faintly paler
+sky--he traced it from the woods in which it rose, up to its crest of
+firs, then down into the woods again. Once more it lay between him and
+the soft desires of his weakness; as long ago at Cheat Land, it called
+him back to his allegiance like a love forsaken. In the black quiet it
+lay hullish like some beast--but it was more than a beast to-night. It
+was like the gorse on its heights, delicate perfume as well as
+murderous fibre, sweetness as well as ferocity. The scent, impregnating
+the motionless air, seemed to remind him that Boarzell was his love as
+well as his enemy--more, far more to him than Alice.
+
+His ambition flared up like a damped furnace, and he suddenly saw
+himself a coward ever to have thought of rest. Boarzell was more to him
+than any woman in the world. For the sake of one weak woman he was not
+going to sacrifice all his hopes and dreams and enterprises, the great
+love of his life.
+
+Boarzell, not Alice, should be his. He muttered the words aloud as he
+strained his eyes into the darkness, tracing the beloved outline. He
+despised himself for having wavered even in thought. Through blood and
+tears--others' and his own--he would wade to Boarzell, and conquer it at
+last. From that night all would be changed, the past should be thrust
+behind him, he would pull himself together, make himself a man. Alice
+must go where everything else had gone--mother, wife, children, friends,
+and love. Thank God! Boarzell was worth more to him than all these.
+
+Leaning out of the window, he breathed in the scent of his slumbering
+land. His lips parted, his eyes brightened, the lines of care and age
+grew softer on his face. With his darling ambition, he seemed to recover
+his youth--once more he felt the blood glowing in his veins, while zeal
+and adventure throbbed together in his heart. He had conquered the
+softer mood, and banished the sweet unworthy, dreams for ever.
+Alice--who had nearly vanquished him--should go the way of all enemies.
+
+_And the last enemy to be destroyed is Love._
+
+
+
+
+BOOK VI
+
+STRUGGLING UP
+
+
+§ 1.
+
+That night was a purging. From thenceforward Reuben was to press on
+straight to his goal, with no more slackenings or diversions.
+
+He had learned one sound lesson, which was the superfluousness of women
+in the scheme of life. From henceforward he was "shut of" them. Long ago
+he had denied himself women in their more casual aspect, using them
+entirely for practical purposes, but now he realised that women no
+longer had any practical purpose as far as he was concerned. The
+usefulness of woman was grossly overrated. It is true that she produced
+offspring, but he thought irritably that Providence might have found
+some more satisfactory way of perpetuating the human race. Everything a
+woman did was bound to go wrong somehow. She was nothing but a parasite
+and an incubus, a blood-sucking triviality, an expense and a snare. So
+he tore woman out of his life as he tore up the gorse on Boarzell.
+
+It was wonderful how soon he adapted himself to his new conditions. At
+first he missed Rose, but by the time he had got rid of her clothes and
+swept the perfume of her out of his room, he had ceased to hunger. He
+never heard of her again--he never knew what life she led in the new
+land, whether the reality of love brought her as much happiness as the
+game, or whether her old taste for luxury and pleasure reasserted
+itself and ruined both love and lover.
+
+As for Alice, he found to his surprise that she was not so dangerous
+even as Rose, for an ideal is never so enslaving as a habit. He avoided
+Cheat Land, and there was nothing to bring her across his path as long
+as he did not seek her. So the yoke of woman dropped from Reuben's neck,
+leaving him a free man.
+
+He formed a plan of campaign. The large unreclaimed tracts of Boarzell
+must be left for a time, while he devoted his attention to the land
+already cultivated. He must economise in labour, so he hired no one in
+Handshut's place, but divided his work among the other men. His
+rekindled zeal was hot enough to ignite even the dry sticks of their
+enterprise, and Odiam toiled as it had never toiled before. Even Harry
+was pressed for service, and helped feed the pigs and calves, besides
+proving himself a most efficient scarecrow.
+
+Early the next spring Reuben had a stroke of luck, for he was able to
+sell the remainder of his lease of the Landgate shop to a greengrocer.
+With the proceeds he bought half a dozen more cows, and grounded his
+dairy business more firmly. In spite of his increased herd he still had
+several acres of superfluous pasture, and pocketing his pride,
+advertised "keep" for stock, which resulted in his pocketing also some
+much-needed cash. His most immediate ambition was to pay off the
+mortgage he had raised a year ago, and restore to Odiam its honourable
+freedom.
+
+It seemed almost as if his luck had turned, for the harvests that year
+were exceedingly good. In most of his fields there were two hay-crops,
+while the oats and wheat yielded generously, even on Boarzell. As for
+the hops, he reaped a double triumph, for not only did his hop-gardens
+bring in more than the average to the acre, but almost everyone else in
+the neighbourhood did badly, so prices rose in a gratifying way.
+
+Under this encouragement, part of the old adventurous spirit revived,
+and Reuben bought a Highly Commended bull at Lewes Fair, and advertised
+him for service. In spite of catastrophe, he still believed
+cattle-rearing to be the most profitable part of a farmer's business,
+and resolved to build up his own concern on its old lines. With regard
+to the dairy, Caro was an excellent dairy woman, besides looking after
+the two little children, and Odiam had a fair custom for its dairy
+produce, also for fruit and vegetables.
+
+Thus, in a very small way, and with continual hard work and anxiety, the
+farm was beginning to revive. Reuben felt that he was recapturing his
+prestige in the neighbourhood, and, when his labours allowed him,
+assisted the good work by drinking slow glasses of sherry in the bar of
+the Cocks, and making patronising remarks about his neighbours'
+concerns.
+
+He was glad from the bottom of his heart that he had not been wooed from
+his ambition, in a moment of weakness, by softer dreams which he now
+looked upon as so much dust.
+
+
+§ 2.
+
+In the course of the following year Reuben had news of all his absent
+sons, except Benjamin, who was never heard of again.
+
+One day Caro came home from Rye, where she had gone with the vegetables
+to market, and said that she had met Bessie Lamb. Bessie was on her way
+to the station, where she would take the train for Southampton. Robert
+had written that he was now able to have her with him in Australia, and
+she had at once packed up her few belongings and set out to join him in
+the unknown.
+
+Bessie was now thirty, and looked older, for she had lost a front tooth
+and her pretty hair had faded: but she was as confident of Robert's love
+as ever. He had written to her by every mail, she told Caro, and they
+had both saved and scraped and waited and counted the days till they
+could consummate the love born in those fields eternally fixed in
+twilight by their memory. There had been no intercourse between Odiam
+and Eggs Hole, so, as Robert had never written to his family, Caro heard
+for the first time of the sheep-farm in Queensland and its success. He
+had done badly at first, Bessie said, what with the drought and many
+other things against him, but now he was well established, and she would
+be far better off and more comfortable as the felon's wife than she had
+ever been as the daughter of honest parents.
+
+She left Caro with a restless aching in her heart. In spite of the lost
+front tooth and the faded hair, she had impressed her in much the same
+way as Rose on her wedding night. Here was another woman sure of love
+looking confidently into a happy future, wooed and sought after, a man's
+bride.... Jolting home in the empty vegetable cart beside Peter, one or
+two tears found their way down Caro's cheek. Oh, if only some man, no
+matter whom, tyrant, criminal, no matter what, would love her, give her
+for one moment those divine sensations which she had seen other women
+enjoy! Why must she alone, of all the women she knew, be loveless?
+
+It was her father's fault, he had kept her to work for him, he had
+starved her purposely of men's society--and now her youth was departing,
+she was twenty-nine, and she had never heard a man speak words of love,
+or felt his arms about her, or the sweetness of his lips on hers.
+
+When they came to Odiam, she told Reuben what she had heard about
+Robert.
+
+"Would you believe it, he has a hundred sheep--and a man working under
+him--and money coming in quite easy now. It wur hard at first, Bessie
+says, and he wur in tedious heart over it all, but he pulled through
+his bad times, and now he's doing valiant."
+
+"And who has he got to thank fur it, I'd lik to know? Who taught him how
+to run a farm, and work, and never spare himself and pull things
+through? There he wur, wud no sperrit in him, grudging every ströake he
+did fur Odiam. If I hadn't kept him to it, where 'ud he be now?"
+
+News of Richard came a few months later. He was heard of as a barrister
+on the Southern Circuit, and defended a gipsy on trial for
+turnip-stealing at Lewes. Rumours of him began to spread in the
+neighbourhood--he was doing well, Anne Bardon was working for him, and
+he was likely to be a credit to her. At the Cocks he was the subject of
+much respectful comment, and for the first time Reuben found himself
+bathed in glory reflected from one of his children. He could not help
+feeling proud of him, but wished he did not owe anything to the Bardons.
+
+"Tedious argumentatious liddle varmint he wur--I'm not surprised as he's
+turned a lawyer. And he had good training fur it, too. There's naun to
+sharpen the wits lik a farmer's life, and I kept him at it, tough and
+rough, though he'd have got away if he cud. Many's the time I've wopped
+him near a jelly fur being a lazy-bones, and particular, which you can't
+be and a lawyer too. But I reckon he thinks it's all that Bardon woman's
+doing."
+
+A few weeks later Richard wrote himself, breaking the silence of years.
+Success had made him feel more kindly towards his father. He forgave the
+frustrations and humiliations of his youth, and enquired after his
+brothers and sisters and the progress of the old farm. Anne Bardon had
+kept him fairly well posted in Backfield history, but though he knew of
+Reuben's unlucky marriage and of the foot-and-mouth catastrophe, he had
+evidently lost count of absconding sons, for he seemed to think Pete
+had run away too, which Reuben considered an unjustifiable aspersion on
+his domestic order. However, the general tone of his letter was
+conciliatory, and his remarks on the cattle-plague "most präaper."
+
+As for himself, his life had been full of hard work and the happiness of
+endeavour crowned at last by success. Anne Bardon he referred to as an
+angel, which made Reuben chuckle grimly. He had already had a brief,
+though he was called to the bar only two years ago--which struck his
+father as very slow business.
+
+He also gave news of Albert, but not good news. He had kept more or less
+in touch with his brother, and had done what he could to help him, yet
+Albert had made a mess of his literary life, partly through incapacity,
+partly through dissipation. He had wasted his money and neglected his
+chances, and his friends could do little for him. Richard had come more
+than once to the rescue, but it was impossible to give real help to one
+of his weak nature--also Richard was still poor, and anxious to pay off
+his debts to Anne Bardon.
+
+"I reckon," said Reuben, "as how they'd all have been better off if
+they'd stayed at home."
+
+
+§ 3.
+
+Soon afterwards a letter came from Albert, asking for money, but again
+Reuben forbade any notice to be taken of it. For one thing he could not
+afford to help anyone, for another he would not even in years of plenty
+have helped a renegade like Albert. His blood still boiled when he
+remembered the boy's share in his political humiliation. He had shamed
+his father and his father's farm. Let him rot!
+
+So Albert's letter remained unanswered--Caro felt that Reuben was
+unjust. She had grown very critical of him lately, and a smarting
+dislike coloured her judgments. After all, it was he who had driven
+everybody to whatever it was that had disgraced him. He was to blame for
+Robert's theft, for Albert's treachery, for Richard's base dependence on
+the Bardons, for George's death, for Benjamin's disappearance, for
+Tilly's marriage, for Rose's elopement--it was a heavy load, but Caro
+put the whole of it on Reuben's shoulders, and added, moreover, the
+tragedy of her own warped life. He was a tyrant, who sucked his
+children's blood, and cursed them when they succeeded in breaking free.
+
+Caro had been much unhappier since Rose's flight. She had loved her in
+an erratic envious way, and Rose's gaiety and flutters of generosity had
+done much to brighten her humdrum life. Now she was left to her
+brooding. She felt lonely and friendless. Once or twice she went over to
+Grandturzel, but the visits were always difficult to manage, and somehow
+the sight of her sister's happiness made her sore without enlivening
+her.
+
+It was only lately that her longing for love and freedom had become a
+torment. Up till a year or two ago her desires had been merely wistful.
+Now a restless hunger gnawed at her heart, setting her continually
+searching after change and brightness. She had come to hate her
+household duties and the care of the little boys. She wanted to
+dance--dance--dance--to dance at fairs and balls, to wear pretty
+clothes, and be admired and courted. Why should she not have these
+things? She was not so ugly as many girls who had them. It was cruel
+that she should never have been allowed to know a man, never allowed to
+enjoy herself or have her fling. Even the sons of the neighbouring
+farmers had been kept away from her--by her father, greedy for her work.
+Tilly, by a lucky chance, had found a man, but lucky chances never came
+to Caro. She saw herself living out her life as a household drudge,
+dying an old maid, all coarsened by uncongenial work, all starved of
+love, all sick of, yet still hungry for, life.
+
+Sometimes she would be overwhelmed by self-pity, and would weep
+bitterly over whatever task she was doing at the time, so that her tears
+were quite a usual sauce to pies and puddings if only Reuben had known
+it.
+
+The year passed, and the new year came, showing the farm still on the
+upward struggle, with everyone hard at work, and no one, except Reuben,
+enjoying it particularly. Luck again favoured Odiam--the lambing of that
+spring was the best for years, and as the days grew longer the furrows
+bloomed with tender green sproutings, and hopes of another good harvest
+ran high.
+
+Caro watched the year bud and flower--May came and creamed the hedges
+with blossom and rusted the grass with the first heats. Then June
+whitened the fields with big moon-daisies and frothed the banks with
+chervil and fennel. The evenings were tender, languorous, steeped in the
+scent of hay. They hurt Caro with their sweetness, so that she scarcely
+dared lift her eyes to the purpling twilight sky, or breathe the wind
+that swept up heavy with hay and roses from the fields. July did nothing
+to heal her--its yellow, heat-throbbing dawns smote her with
+despair--its noons were a long-drawn ache, and when in the evening hay
+and dust and drooping chervil troubled the air with shreds and ghosts of
+scent, something almost akin to madness would twist her heart.
+
+She felt as one whose memory calls and yet has nothing to remember,
+whose thoughts run to and fro and yet has nothing to think of, whose
+hopes pile themselves, and yet is hopeless, whose love cries out from
+the depths, and yet is loveless.
+
+One evening at the beginning of August she wandered out of the kitchen
+for a breath of fresh air in the garden before going up to bed. Her head
+ached, and her cheeks burned from the fire. She did not know it, but the
+flush and fever made her nearly beautiful. She was not a bad-looking
+woman, though a trifle too dark and heavy-featured, and now the glow on
+her cheeks and the restless brilliancy of her eyes had kindled her
+almost into loveliness.
+
+She picked one or two roses that drooped untended against the fence, she
+held them to her breast, and the tears came into her eyes. It was nearly
+dark, and the lustreless cobalt sky held only one star--Aldebaran, red
+above Boarzell's firs. A puff of wind came from the west, and with it a
+snatch of song. Someone was singing on the Moor, and the far-away voice
+wove itself into the web of trouble and yearning that dimmed her heart.
+
+She moved down to the gate and leaned over it, while her eyes roved the
+twilight unseeing. The voice on the Moor swelled clearer. It was a man's
+voice, low-pitched and musical:
+
+
+     "Farewell, farewell, you jolly young girls!
+       We're off to Rio Bay!"
+
+
+She remembered that there had been a wedding at Gablehook. One of the
+farmer's girls had married a Rye fisherman, and this was probably a
+guest on his way home, a little the worse for drink.
+
+
+     "At Vera Cruz the days are fine--
+     Farewell to Jane and Caroline!"
+
+
+The song with its hearty callousness broke strangely into the dusk and
+Caro's palpitating dreams. Something about it enticed and troubled her;
+the singer was coming nearer.
+
+
+     "At Nombre de Dios the skies are blue--
+     Farewell to Moll, farewell to Sue!"
+
+
+She stood at the gate and could see him as a blot on the Moor. He was
+coming towards Odiam, and she watched him as he plunged through the
+heather, singing at the pitch of his lungs:
+
+
+     "At Santiago love is kind,
+     And we'll forget those left behind--
+       So kiss us long, and kiss us well,
+       Polly and Meg and Kate and Nell--
+     Farewell, farewell, you jolly young girls!
+       We're off to Rio Bay."
+
+
+He had struck the path that ran by the bottom of the garden, and
+swaggered along it with the seaman's peculiar rolling gait, accentuated
+by strong liquor. Caro felt him coming nearer, and told herself uneasily
+that she had better go back into the house. He was drunk, and he might
+speak to her. Still she did not move, she found herself clinging to the
+gate, leaning her breast against it, while her tongue felt thick and dry
+in her mouth.
+
+He was quite close--she could hear the thud of his step on the soft
+earth. Her hands grasped the two gate-posts, and she leaned forward over
+the gate, so that her face caught the faint radiance that still lingered
+in the zenith. He had stopped singing, but she could see him now
+distinctly--a tall, loosely-built figure, with dark face, and woolly
+hair like a nigger's, while his seaman's earrings caught the starlight.
+
+He drew level with her, not seeing her. She did not move, she scarcely
+breathed, and he had almost passed her ... then suddenly his eyes turned
+and met hers.
+
+"Hello, Susan!"
+
+He stood swaying before her on his heels, his hands in his
+trouser-pockets, his head a little on one side. Caro did not speak--she
+could not.
+
+"What time is it, dear?"
+
+"I--I dunno," she faltered, her voice sounding squeaky and unlike her
+own: "it might be nine."
+
+
+     "It might be Wales or Madagasky,
+     It might be Rio de Janeiro."
+
+
+he trolled, and Caro was suddenly afraid lest someone should hear in
+the house. She glanced back uneasily over her shoulder.
+
+"Papa on the look-out?"
+
+She coloured, and began to stutter something.
+
+"I've been to a wedding," he said conversationally; "a proper wedding
+with girls and kisses."
+
+He suddenly leaned over the gate and kissed Caro on the lips.
+
+She gave a little scream and started back from him. For a moment earth,
+sky, and trees seemed to reel together in one crazy dance. She was
+conscious of nothing but the kiss, her first kiss; it had smelt and
+tasted strongly of brandy, if the truth were told, but it had none the
+less been a kiss, and her sacrament of initiation. She stood there in
+the darkness with parted lips and shining eyes. The dusk was kind to
+her, and she pleased the sailor.
+
+"Come out for a walk," he said, and lifted the latch.
+
+Caro trembled so that she could hardly move, and once again came the
+feeling that she ought to turn and run back into the house. But she was
+powerless in the clutch of her long-thwarted emotions. The tipsy sailor
+became God to her, and she followed him out on to the Moor.
+
+After all he was not really drunk, only a little fuddled. He walked
+straight, and his roll was natural to him, while though he was
+exceedingly cheerful, and often burst into song, his words were not
+jumbled, and he generally seemed to have a fair idea of what he was
+saying.
+
+She wondered if she were awake--everything seemed so strange, so new,
+and yet paradoxically so natural. Was she the same Caro who had washed
+the babies and cooked the supper and resigned herself to dying an old
+maid? She could not ponder things, ask herself how it was that a man who
+had not known her ten minutes could love her--all she realised was his
+arm round her waist, and in her heart a seethe of happy madness.
+
+
+     "When the stars are up above the Main
+       And winking in the sea,
+       'Tis then I dream of thee,
+                               Emilee!
+     And my dreams are full of pain."
+
+
+--sang the sailor sentimentally. His arm crept up from her waist to her
+shoulder and lay heavy there. They strolled on along the narrow path,
+and the darkness stole down on them from the Moor, wrapping them softly
+together. They told each other their names--his was Joe Dansay, and he
+was a sailorman of Rye, who had been on many voyages to South America
+and the Coral Seas. He looked about twenty-five, though he was tanned
+and weather-beaten all over. His eyes were dark and foreign-looking, so
+was his hair. His mouth was a trifle too wide, his nose short and
+stubborn.
+
+He was now leaning heavily on Caro as he walked, and too shy, and
+perhaps reluctant, to ask him to lift his arm, she naively suggested
+that they should sit down and rest. Dansay was delighted--she was not
+the timid little bird he had thought, and directly they had sunk into
+the heather he seized her in his arms, and began kissing her violently
+on neck and lips.
+
+Caro was frightened, horrified--she broke free, and scrambled to her
+feet. She nearly wept, and it was clear even to his muddled brain that
+her invitation had been merely the result of innocence more profound
+than that which had stimulated her shyness. Rough seaman though he was,
+he was touched, and managed to soothe her, for she was too bashful and
+frightened to be really indignant. They walked a few yards further along
+the path, then at her request turned back towards Odiam.
+
+They parted uneasily, without any arrangement to meet again.
+
+
+§ 4.
+
+For the first few hours of her sleepless night, Caro's happiness
+outweighed her regret. Her mind sucked her little experience like a
+sugar-plum and filled her thoughts with sweetness. She lived over the
+adventure from its birth in a song on Boarzell to its consummation in
+the blessedness of a kiss. Afterwards it became a little smudged, a
+little terrifying, and the end had not been in keeping with the
+beginning. None the less, the fact remained that she had been kissed,
+that she had tasted at last of the glories of love, felt the touch of a
+man's lips, of his arm about her ... she was no longer without
+knowledge; when other women spoke of these things, an answering thrill
+would creep into her heart, and words of experience to her tongue.
+
+Then she asked herself--would he come again? Her joy seemed almost too
+divine to be renewed, she could hardly picture such a profanity as its
+repetition. Yet as the night wore on, the question began to loom larger
+than all her blessed certainties--and with it came a growing tendency to
+dwell on the latter part of her experience, on the awkward aloofness of
+the walk home, and the uneasy parting at the gate. It struck her that
+she had been a fool to take fright at his violence. After all, if he
+loved her so much ... it was wonderful how quickly he had fallen in
+love, and quick things are more apt to be violent than slow ones.
+Besides, men were inclined to be rough and fierce by nature. Thus she
+reassured and reproached herself. Perhaps she had driven him away,
+perhaps her timidity had made him doubt her love. Perhaps she had been
+too squeamish. After all....
+
+She rose the next morning with a bad headache and her eyes staring
+rather plaintively out of black saucers. None the less she was happy,
+even in spite of her regrets. She loved and had been loved, so she told
+herself over and over again as she dressed David and Bill and prepared
+the breakfast. Why, even if, when he got home, Joe Dansay discovered
+that he did not really love her, she would still have had his love, and
+as for herself, she would go on loving him for ever--"for ever and ever
+and ever," she repeated in a low, trembling voice as she cut her
+father's bacon.
+
+During the rest of the day it was the same--she moved in a kind of
+exalted dream. The most common objects thrilled her, and gave her
+unexpected tokens of divinity. Her work was consuming, her leisure
+beatific. The children loved her, for that day she could do what she had
+never done properly to their mind, and that is--play; while with Harry,
+dribbling and muttering, she was tender, as no one but Naomi had been.
+
+Towards evening uneasiness sprang up again, with the old question--would
+he return? She told herself that if he did, she would not hold back, she
+would not let her inexperience and timidity rob her or him of their
+love. She would let him kiss her as he pleased--love was too good a
+thing to risk for a few qualms. But would he come?--would he give her
+the chance of reparation? The sun dipped behind Castweasel, the hot sky
+cooled into a limpid green--stars specked it in the north, and the moon
+came up behind Iden Woods, huge and dim.
+
+Caro ran out once or twice into the garden; the flowers hung pale and
+stirless on their stems, and from the orchard, full of the babble of a
+hidden wind, came a faint scent of plums. The old walls of Odiam seemed
+to smell of the sunshine they had caught and held during the day. The
+gable-ends broke into the stars, and the windows gleamed in the
+yellowing light of the moon. Up towards the south the mass of Boarzell
+rose hullish and deserted--far away at Ellenwhorne a dog was barking,
+but all else was still.
+
+
+§ 5.
+
+There was no doubt that Joe Dansay had got drunk at Willie Tailleur's
+wedding. The fact was cruelly emphasised by the headache with which he
+woke up the next morning. He thought it very hard luck, for after all,
+he had not got nearly so drunk as he might have, as he often had.
+However, he had been forced into abstinence by a long voyage from Sierra
+Leone, and put down his sufferings to nature's mutiny at such an
+unwholesome state of affairs.
+
+At present he lodged with some relations in Watchbell Street, and round
+him were all the Dansays and Tailleurs and Espinettes and Perrots, the
+Rye fisher tribe, of French origin--which was still traceable in their
+names, in their brown eyes, and the sensitiveness of their mouths. He
+nearly always went to his people between voyages, for the Rye girls took
+his fancy. There was at this moment a charmer in Wish Ward on whom a
+good part of his pay had already been spent. Sometimes he went out in
+his uncle Bob Dansay's fishing boat, for he was not above handling a net
+between his ventures on the high seas.
+
+He mumbled curses as he dressed, and bathed his head in cold water. He
+did not deserve this visitation--usually he regarded an after-debauch
+headache as one of the marvellous acts of Providence, in which he, like
+most sailormen, believed with a faith which though conveniently removed
+from works was deeply tinged with admiration. But yesterday he had not
+been really drunk--why, he could remember nearly everything that had
+happened, the dancing, the songs, the girls, how he had walked home
+singing "Rio Bay," and how he had met that queer girl at the farmhouse
+gate, and thought he was going to have some fun with her and been
+disappointed.
+
+Though he had spent, on and off, some years in Rye, he had seen very
+little of the surrounding country, and did not know that Odiam was the
+farm of his adventure. Caro had told him her name, and he had heard of
+Ben Backfield, but did not remember much about him. The episode did not
+affect him very deeply. At dinner he asked his aunt the name of
+Backfield's farm, and forgot it as he walked down Wish Ward that
+evening, wearing his best guernsey and breeches, his hands in his
+pockets, his pipe in his mouth, his earrings glittering in the forest of
+his hair.
+
+His headache had passed off, and he felt a man again; so he sought the
+woman. She lived in a small old house wedged tight between two new ones;
+her window was dark, and her threshold silent, though he knocked again
+and again. He walked up and down once or twice in front of the cottage
+whistling "Ropes and Rum"--perhaps she had gone to do some shopping; he
+saw himself sitting down to a feast of pickled herrings in her kitchen.
+
+Then when he was about a hundred feet from the house the door opened
+stealthily and a man slunk out. The gleam of a street lamp passed over
+his face, and Dansay rushed at him with his fists up.
+
+The story of Joe Dansay has nothing to do with us except so far as it
+affects Caro Backfield, so there will be no digression to explain why he
+and Albert Cock fought each other up and down Wish Ward till the police
+came running up and hauled them off to gaol. The next morning he came
+before the magistrate, and was fined ten shillings and costs or fourteen
+days. He was able to find the money, but it was not the fine which made
+him drag his footsteps and hang his head as he walked home, it was the
+sight of his victim of the night before leaving the court arm-in-arm
+with a certain pretty witness.
+
+Evening came, the dusk fell, stars floated up out of the mists that
+piled themselves along the shore, the bleat of sheep came from the
+marsh, and the eye of Dungeness Lighthouse flashed off the Point into
+the fogs. Inland the country was wrapt in a tender haze, perfumed with
+hops and harvest. The moon rose above the Fivewatering, and bronzed the
+dark masses of wood huddling northward. The scented wind seemed to sigh
+to him of a woman's hair and lips, of the softness of a woman's hand in
+his, of her silly little voice talking love and nonsense. But the house
+in Wish Ward was shut to him--perfidious woman had added yet another
+perfidy to her score. For about the twentieth time his love dream had
+been shattered. Now she was eating pickled herrings with another man.
+
+A kind of defiance, a kind of swagger possessed him. He would show her
+and himself how little he cared. He would find another woman this very
+night. He remembered the dark-browed, demure little thing of the
+farmhouse gate. He would go back to her, and she would not be so timid
+this time--they never were.
+
+
+§ 6.
+
+"Oh, I thought you wur never coming back."
+
+She murmured it over and over again as he kissed her, and she clung to
+him like a child. There was something about her words and about herself
+as she quivered in his arms that touched him inexpressibly. He swore
+that he loved her, and forgot all about the woman in Wish Ward.
+
+That evening Caro remembered her own counsels and did not draw back from
+his love. She let him kiss her as much as he chose, though he saw with
+amusement that he frightened her sometimes. They wandered on Boarzell
+through webs of star-fretted mist, they drank the night together, and
+sacramental silences. It was only when she realised that her father
+would be shutting up the house that Caro was able to tear herself away,
+and this time they parted with many kisses and vows to meet again.
+
+He came nearly every night. If she was not at the gate he would whistle
+a few bars of "Rio Bay," and she would steal out as soon as she could do
+so without rousing suspicion. Boarzell became theirs, their accomplice
+in some subtle, beautiful way. There was a little hollow on the western
+slope where they would crouch together and sniff the apricot scent of
+the gorse, which was ever afterwards to be the remembrancer of their
+love, and watch the farmhouse lights at Castweasel gleam and gutter
+beside Ramstile woods.
+
+Sometimes he would talk to her of the strange voyages he had made--how
+he had lived on ships ever since he was a boy of twelve, and had seen
+nearly the whole world, from the fiery steaming forests of Equador to
+the Northern Lights that make a mock day in Spitzbergen. He told her
+strange tales of wooded atolls in the South Seas, painting a fairyland
+she had scarcely dreamed, of palms motionless in the aromatic air, of
+pink and white shores, and lagoons full of fish all winged and frilled
+and iridescent--of the sudden swift sunrises and sunsets between Cancer
+and Capricorn, of the great ice-wall in the south, below Tasmania, which
+he had longed to penetrate, for who knew what lay beyond it in the
+Unknown? "And there's another like it what I've seen from Franz Josef
+Land--maybe there's countries beyond it, with gold." Then he told her of
+the terrible storms south of the Horn, of the uncharted Nelson
+Strait--of northern Baffin Land, where he had once gone on a whaler, of
+Rio Grande and the buried city of Tenoctitlan--"where there's gold."
+Gold seemed to be hidden in large quantities all over the world
+according to Dansay, and Caro once asked him why he had never brought
+any back. "Because I love what's better than gold," he answered, and
+drew her, happy and quivering, into his arms.
+
+She became inexpressibly dear to him during those meetings. Her timidity
+and innocence charmed him so completely that he preserved them longer
+than he had at first felt inclined to do. His vanity was tickled to
+think that though she was past thirty he was the first man who had
+kissed her. She was not bad-looking, either, with her straight black
+brows and huge eyes--in spite of toil she did not look her years, and
+during the weeks of his courtship she seemed to grow younger and
+prettier, she grew daintier. Yet she largely retained the qualities that
+had first attracted him, her admiration for him was unbounded and
+guilelessly expressed--she would listen in tender reverence to his
+yarns, and received his caresses with a humble gratitude that went
+straight to his heart.
+
+As for Caro, life was a rainbow dream. The hardships of the day were
+gladly lived through in expectation of the joys of the evening. She felt
+very few qualms of conscience, even when the barrier was past which she
+had thought impassable. Somehow love seemed to alter her whole point of
+view, or rather stripped her of one altogether--after all, her point of
+view had never been more than the acceptance of other people's. Besides,
+there were things in love that she had never guessed; nobody had ever
+done anything to make her realise that there was beauty in it--Rose's
+flirtations, her father's jealous passion had never suggested such a
+thing. But now her life was brimmed with beauty, unimaginable beauty
+that welled up into the commonest things and suffused them with light.
+Also, about it all was that surprising sense of naturalness; which
+almost always comes to women when they love for the first time, the
+feeling of "For this I was born."
+
+Sometimes she would have anxious moments, a strange sense of fear. "I'm
+a bad woman," she would repeat to herself, and she would dread the
+thought of her sister Tilly. But the terrors did not last, they were
+driven away by the remembrance of what her life had been before she met
+Joe--its drabness, its aimless toil, its lassitude, its humiliations.
+She would have been a fool to spurn her golden chance when it came. It
+had been her only chance; after all it was not as if she ever could have
+married. She had had to choose between the life she had led up to that
+August evening and the life she was leading now, and she could not
+regret her choice.
+
+She never asked Dansay to marry her. He had given her pretty clearly to
+understand that he was not a marrying man, and she was terrified of
+doing or saying anything that might turn him against her. One of the
+things about her that charmed him most was the absence of all demand
+upon him. She never asked for presents, and the few things he bought her
+stimulated both her humble gratitude and her alarm lest he should have
+spent too much money. One day he suggested that he should take her to
+Boarzell Fair.
+
+"Oh, Joe, would you really!"
+
+"Of course, if you can manage it without us being spotted."
+
+"I reckon I cud, for fäather äun't going this year, he's got an auction
+at Appledore."
+
+"Then you come along; I'll take you, and we'll have some fun."
+
+"But I döan't want you to waste your money."
+
+"It won't be wasting it. Why, Lord love ye, I'd rather spend it on you
+than anything in the world."
+
+Her look of surprise and adoration was his reward.
+
+
+§ 7.
+
+Boarzell Fair was in many ways a mark of the passage of the years and a
+commentary on history. Not only did the atmosphere and persons of it
+change very much as the nineteenth century changed, but the side-shows
+were so many lights cast on popular opinion, politics, and progress.
+
+For instance, in the year 1878, the Panorama which had started with the
+Battle of Trafalgar and the Royal Gardens of Vauxhall, now gave
+thrilling if belated episodes of the Siege of Paris, and a gorgeous
+picture of the Queen being declared Empress of India at Delhi. The
+merry-go round not only went by steam, but was accompanied by a steam
+organ playing "The Swell Commercial" and "Married to a Mermaid"
+unfalteringly from noon till night. In the shooting gallery men potted
+Mr. Gladstone, Mr. Dillon, and Charles Peace, instead of the Russian
+Czar or Nana Sahib of their youth, or the hated Boney of their fathers.
+It all moved with the times, and yet remained four or five years behind
+them. One came in contact with movements which had just ebbed from the
+country, waves that had rolled back everywhere except in these lonely
+rural districts where interests and hatreds came later and lingered
+longer than in more accessible parts.
+
+The population had altered too. Old Gideon Teazel had died some years
+ago, and his son Jasper was boss in his place. He was unlike his father
+both in character and physique, an undersized little ruffian, seasoned
+by a long career in horse-stealing, who beat his wife openly on the
+caravan steps, and boasted that he had landed more flats at thimble-rig
+than any thimble-engro in England. He would have cheated the shirt off
+any man at the Show, and established a sort of ascendancy through sheer
+dread of his cunning. The only man who did not fear him was Mexico Bill,
+a half-breed in charge of the cocoanut shie. Mexico Bill feared only the
+man who could knock him out, and that man had not yet been found in
+Boarzell Fair. As a matter of fact he was usually pretty genial and
+docile, but he had been wounded in the head by Indians long ago, and
+sometimes went mad and ran amok. On these occasions the only thing to
+do was to trip him up, and enrol as many volunteers as possible to sit
+on him till he came to his senses.
+
+There was no longer any fiddler at the Fair. Harry Backfield's successor
+had been a hurdy-gurdy which played dance music louder and more
+untiringly than any human arm could do. Dancing was still a vital part
+of the festivities, but it was more decorous than in the days when
+Reuben and Naomi had danced together to the tune of "Seth's House," or
+Robert and Bessie to "My Decided Decision." Only in the evening it
+became rowdy, when the sun had set and the mists had walled in the Show
+with nacreous battlements.
+
+Joe and Caro joined the dancers on their arrival. It was the first time
+in her life that Caro had danced at the Fair, and the experience
+thrilled her as wonderfully as if it had not been just a link in the
+chain of a hundred new experiences. The hurdy-gurdy was playing "See me
+Dance the Polka," and off they skipped, to steps of their own, betraying
+in Dansay's case a hornpipe origin.
+
+She saw people that she knew, but had no fear of betrayal, unless from
+Pete, who was, however, safe in the fighting-booth, now conveniently
+banished by public opinion to the outskirts of the Fair. Pete would
+"tell on" her, she knew, but no one else cared enough for Reuben to
+betray his daughter to him. She looked with kindly eyes on all the world
+as her accomplice--that all the world loves a lover is primarily the
+lover's point of view.
+
+Besides, she was lost in the crowd which jigged and clumped around her,
+not even daunted by the unfamiliar waltz that the hurdy-gurdy struck up
+next. Nobody, except fanatics, bothered about steps, so one could dance
+to any tune.
+
+In time Caro grew tired, and they wandered off to the shooting-gallery
+and the merry-go-round. They patronised the cocoanut shie, and won a
+gilt saucer at the hoop-là stall. In the gipsy's tent Caro was told that
+she would ride in a carriage with a lord, and have six fine children,
+all boys, while Dansay was promised such wealth that he would be able to
+throw gold to crossing-sweepers. They sat in the Panorama till it stuck
+fast at a gorgeous tableau of Britannia ruling the waves from what
+looked like a bath chair. Joe bought Caro a pie at the refreshment
+stall, and himself ate many beef rolls. She was overwhelmed by the
+lavish way he spent his money, and quite relieved for his sake when they
+went back to the dancing green.
+
+The day had slipped by, and twilight was settling down on the Fair. The
+stalls flared up, a red glow streamed into the sky, and patched the
+shagginess of Boarzell's firs with crimson shreds. The dancing had
+become more disorderly, the decent folk had retired, and left the madder
+element to its revels. The mass of the dancers was blurred, confused in
+the grey smeeth. It seemed to invite Joe and Caro, for now in the thick
+of it one could give and take surreptitious kisses; some of the kisses
+were not even surreptitious--the love-making was becoming nearly as open
+as in the days when Reuben and Naomi had danced together. Caro was no
+longer shocked at the "goings-on," which had used to scandalise her in
+earlier years when she knew them scarcely more than by hearsay. Her very
+innocence had made her easier to corrupt, and she now joined in the
+revel with a delight scarcely less abandoned, if more naïve, than that
+of the cottage wantons who bumped round her. It was all so new, and yet
+so natural, this kicking and capering to a jigging tune. Who would have
+imagined that the lonely bitter Caro, enviously watching the fun in
+earlier years, should now have both a partner and a lover? She laughed
+like a child at the thought.
+
+Then suddenly her laughter died; her expression became fixed, and she
+swayed a little in Joe's arms, as she stared into the crowd of
+spectators. They were on the outskirts of the dancers, and quite close
+to them stood Pete. He had come out of the fighting-booth, still in his
+bruiser's dressing-gown, evidently to watch the fun. He was looking
+straight at Caro as she danced dishevelled, and both he and Dansay knew
+that he had recognised her. They saw his lips tighten, and an angry look
+came on his face which his profession had not made more benevolent than
+Nature intended.
+
+"Quick," muttered Joe, and he guided her cleverly enough through the
+pack of dancers, leading her out on the opposite side.
+
+"Oh, Joe, he's seen us."
+
+Dansay bit his lip--he was afraid so.
+
+Caro began to cry.
+
+"My fäather will kill me, surelye."
+
+She knew for certain that Pete would tell him, and then almost quite as
+certainly she would lose the adventure which had become life itself to
+her. She would be driven back into the old prison, the old loneliness,
+the old despair. She clung to Dansay, weeping and frantic:
+
+"Oh, Joe--döan't let them find me. I can't lose you--I wöan't lose
+you--I love you so."
+
+He was leading her away from the people, to the back of the stalls. He
+was nearly as miserable and aghast as she. For he had become
+extraordinarily fond of her during those few weeks, and the thought of
+losing her turned him cold. He had been a fool to bring her to the Fair.
+
+"You must come away with me," he said abruptly.
+
+"Oh, Joe!"
+
+It was a bold step, but he saw that none other would serve, and he
+realised that she was not the kind of woman to take advantage of him and
+make herself a permanent encumbrance.
+
+"Yes--there's nothing for it but that. We'll go down and stay at the
+Camber. You'll be safe with me, and I've got a little money put by."
+
+Considering how much she had already given him, it was perhaps strange
+that she shuddered a little at this open venture.
+
+"You'll be good to me, Joe!"
+
+"Won't I, just!"
+
+Something in the wistfulness and humility of her appeal had touched him
+to the heart; he clasped her to him with a passion for once free from
+roughness, and for one moment at least had every intention of sticking
+to her for ever.
+
+
+§ 8.
+
+It was not from Pete that Reuben first heard of his daughter's
+goings-on. Caro's benevolent trust in humanity had been misplaced, and
+at the Seven Bells where he called for a refresher on arriving at Rye
+station, various stragglers from Boarzell eagerly betrayed her, "just to
+see how he wud täake it."
+
+Reuben received the news with the indifference due to outsiders. But he
+was not so calm when Pete told his tale at Odiam.
+
+"The bitch," he growled, "I'll learn her. Dancing wud a sailor, you say
+she wur, Pete?"
+
+"Yes," said Pete, "and wud her hair all tumbling."
+
+"I'll learn her," repeated Reuben. But he never had the chance. By the
+time the two males had sat up till about three or four the next morning,
+they came to the conclusion that Caro must have seen Pete watching her
+and run away.
+
+"She'll never come back," said Pete that evening--"you täake my word fur
+it."
+
+"That's another of my daughters gone fur a whore."
+
+"Who wur the fust?"
+
+"Why Tilly--goes off wud that lousy pig-keeper up at Grandturzel. She's
+no better than Caro."
+
+"And there wur Rose," added Pete, anxious to supply instances.
+
+Reuben swore at him.
+
+He felt Caro's disappearance more acutely than he would allow to show.
+First, she had left him badly in the lurch in household matters--he had
+to engage a woman to take her place, and pay her wages. Also she had
+caused a scandal in the neighbourhood, which meant more derisive fingers
+pointed at Odiam. Pete was now the only one left of his original
+family--his children and their runnings-away had become a byword in
+Peasmarsh.
+
+In the course of time he heard that Caro was living with Joe Dansay down
+at the Camber, but he made no effort to bring her back. "I'm shut of
+her," he told everyone angrily. If Caro preferred a common sailor and
+loose living to the dignity and usefulness of her position at Odiam, he
+was not going to interfere. Besides, she had disgraced his farm, and he
+would never forgive that.
+
+It struck him that his relations with women had been singularly
+unfortunate. Caro, Tilly, Rose, Alice, had all been failures--indeed he
+had come to look back on Naomi as his only success. Women were all the
+same, without ambition, without self-respect, ready to lick the boots of
+the first person who stroked them and was silly enough not to see
+through their wiles.
+
+During those days he spent most of his time digging on Boarzell. It
+relieved him to thrust viciously into the red dripping clay, turn in on
+his spade, and fling it back over his shoulder. It was strange that so
+few men realised that work was better than women--stranger still that
+they did not realise how much better than a woman's beauty was the
+beauty of the earth. Toiling there on the Moor, Reuben's heart gave
+itself more utterly to its allegiance. The curves of Boarzell against
+the sky, its tuft of firs, its hummocked slopes, its wet life-smelling
+earth, even its savagery of heather, gorse, and thorn brought healing to
+his heart, and strength. Caro and other women could do what they chose,
+love, hate, follow, cheat, and betray whom they chose, as long as they
+left him the red earth and the labour of his hands.
+
+
+§ 9.
+
+Early the next year Reuben heard that Caro and her lover had left
+Camber, and gone no one knew where, but by that time the elapse of
+months had dulled his feelings on the matter, and Caro, never very
+important in herself, was buried under the concerns of his farm.
+
+Odiam, after superhuman efforts, was looking up again. Years of steady
+work and strenuous economy had restored it to something like its former
+greatness. Reuben was no longer hampered by an extravagant wife, and he
+also had the advantage of a clear field. For at last Grandturzel had
+given up the battle. Realf and Tilly were now the parents of four
+healthy, growing, hungry children, and had come to the conclusion that
+domestic happiness was better than agricultural triumph. They were
+contented with their position on a farm of considerable importance and
+fair prosperity. They took no risks, but lived happily with each other
+and their children, satisfied that they could comfortably rear and
+educate their little family, and leave it an inheritance which, if not
+dazzling, was not to be despised.
+
+This was an infinite relief to Reuben. He was now no longer under the
+continual necessity of going one better than somebody else--he could
+rebuild along his own lines, and economise in the way he chose. However,
+this very convenient behaviour of Grandturzel did nothing to soften his
+resentment. Tilly and Realf were, and were always to be, unforgiven.
+Sometimes he could see that they seemed inclined to be friendly--Realf
+would touch his hat to him if they met, and perhaps Tilly would
+smile--but Reuben was not to be won by such treacly tactics. It was
+largely owing to the rivalry of Grandturzel that ruin had nearly
+swallowed him up four years ago--and he would never be weak enough to
+forget it.
+
+Meantime it was soothing to contemplate the result of his efforts. After
+all, his own striving had done more for him than any slackness or
+grass-fed contentment on the part of Grandturzel. His greatest
+achievement was the paying off of his mortgage, which he managed in the
+spring of '79. Now he could once more begin saving money to buy another
+piece of Boarzell. There was something both novel and exhilarating about
+this return to old ways. It was over ten years since he had bought any
+land, but now were renewed all the ticklish delights of calculation, all
+the plannings and layings-out, all the contrivances and scrapings and
+wrestlings.
+
+There were still about two hundred acres to acquire, including the
+Grandturzel inclosure, on which, however, he looked more hopefully than
+of old. He had so far subdued not more than about a hundred and forty
+acres--most of the northern slope of Boarzell adjoining Odiam and
+Totease, and also a small tract on the Flightshot side. This was not
+very encouraging, for it represented the labours of two-thirds of a
+lifetime, and at the same time left him with more than half his task
+still unaccomplished. If it had not been for his setback ten years ago
+he would now probably have over two hundred and fifty acres to his
+credit. But he told himself that he would progress more quickly now.
+Also, though he had not enlarged his boundaries during the last ten
+years, he had considerably improved the quality of the land within them.
+The first acquired parts of Boarzell were nearly as fruitful and richly
+cultivated as the original lands of the farm, and even the '68 ground
+was showing signs of coming into subjection.
+
+Besides, Reuben had now a respectable herd of cattle--not quite so
+numerous or valuable as the earlier lot which had been sacrificed, but
+none the less respectable, and bringing him in good returns. He had made
+some sound profit out of his service-bull, and his sheep were paying
+better than they had paid for years. He no longer "kept" other people's
+cattle. Odiam, whether in stock or cash, was now inviolate.
+
+Soon the rumour spread round Peasmarsh that Backfield was going to buy
+some more land. Reuben himself had started it.
+
+"He's done better nor he desarved," said Coalbran of Doozes.
+
+"He's warked fur it all the same, surelye," said Cooper of Kitchenhour.
+
+"He's worked like the Old Un fur the last five year," said Dunn, the new
+man at Socknersh.
+
+"Well, let's hope as he's found it worth while now as he's lost two
+wives and eight children," was the sage comment of old Vennal of
+Burntbarns.
+
+Then the conversation wandered from Reuben's successes to the price he
+had paid for them, which proved more interesting and more comforting to
+those assembled.
+
+At Flightshot the Squire viewed Odiam's recovery with some uneasiness.
+It would be a good thing for him if he could sell more land to old
+Backfield, but at the same time his conscience was restless about it.
+Backfield was a rapacious old hound, who forced the last ounce of work
+out of his labourers, and the last ounce of money out of his tenants. He
+was a hard master and a hard landlord, and ought not to be encouraged.
+All the same, Bardon did not see how he was to avoid encouraging him. If
+Backfield applied for the land it would be suicidal folly to refuse to
+sell it. He was in desperate straits for money. He had appealed to Anne,
+who had money of her own, but Anne's reply had been frigid. She wrote:--
+
+"I do not see my way to helping Flightshot while I have so many other
+calls upon me. Richard is still unsettled, and unable entirely to
+support himself. I should be a poor friend indeed if after having
+induced my protégé to abandon his home and rely on me, I should forsake
+him before he was properly established. Be a man, Ralph, and refuse to
+sell any more land to that greedy, selfish, unscrupulous old Backfield."
+
+But Ralph only sighed--it was all very well for Anne to talk!
+
+
+§ 10.
+
+Except for a steady maintenance of prosperity by dint of hard work, the
+year was uneventful. Autumn passed, and nothing broke the strenuous
+monotony of the days, not even news of the absent children. Then came an
+evening in winter when Reuben, Pete, and Harry were sitting in front of
+the kitchen fire. Reuben and his son were half asleep, Harry was
+mumbling to himself and playing with a piece of string.
+
+A great quiet was wrapped round the house, and a great darkness, pricked
+by winking stars. The barns were shut, the steamings of the midden were
+nipped by brooding frosts--now and then the dull movements of some
+stalled animal could be heard, but only from the yard; in the house
+there was silence except for the singing fire, and Harry's low muttering
+which seldom rose into words. Then suddenly there was a knock at the
+door.
+
+Reuben started, and Pete awoke noisily. Harry was frightened and dropped
+his string, crying because he could not find it. The knock came again,
+and this time Pete crossed the room yawning, and opened the door.
+
+For a moment he stood in front of it, while the icy wind swept into the
+room. Then he dashed back to Reuben's chair.
+
+"Fäather--it's Albert!"
+
+Reuben sprang to his feet. He was still only half awake, and he rubbed
+his eyes as he stared at the figure framed in the doorway. Then suddenly
+he pulled himself together.
+
+"Come in, and shut the door behind you."
+
+The figure did not move. Reuben took a step towards it, and then it
+tottered forward, and to his horror fell against him, almost bearing him
+to the floor.
+
+Pete, who had recovered his faculties to some extent, helped support his
+brother. But he had fainted clean away, and the only thing to do was to
+let him down as gently as possible.
+
+"Lordy!" said Pete, and stooped over Albert, his hands on his knees.
+
+"You're sure that's Albert?" asked Reuben, though he really did not
+doubt it for a moment.
+
+"Course I am. That's his face sure enough, though he's as thin as wire."
+
+"It's nigh fifteen year since he went away. Wot did he want to come back
+fur?"
+
+"I reckon he's half starved--and he looks ill too."
+
+"Well, he's swooneded away, anyhow. Can't you do something to mäake him
+sensible?"
+
+"Poor feller," said Pete, and scratched his head.
+
+Reuben was irritated by this display of sentiment.
+
+"You needn't go pitying him, nuther--he's a lousy Radical traitor. You
+do something to mäake him sensible and out he goes."
+
+At this juncture Albert opened his eyes.
+
+"Hullo," he said feebly.
+
+"Hullo," said Pete. Something in his brother's pitiable condition seemed
+to have touched him.
+
+Albert sat up--then asked for some water.
+
+Pete fetched a jug, which he held awkwardly to Albert's lips. Then he
+helped him to a chair, and began to unlace his boots.
+
+"Stop that," shouted Reuben--"he äun't to stay here."
+
+"You'll let me stop the night," pleaded Albert. "I'll explain things
+when I'm better. I can't now."
+
+"You can go to the Cocks--I wöan't have you in my house."
+
+"But I haven't got a penny--cleaned myself out for my railway ticket.
+I've walked all the way from the station, and my lungs are bad."
+
+"Wot did you come here fur?"
+
+"It struck me that you might have some natural affection."
+
+"Me!--fur a hemmed Radical! You'd better have saved your money, young
+feller--I'm shut of you."
+
+"If you're still harping on my politics," said Albert fretfully, "you
+needn't worry. Either side can go to the devil, for all I care. I
+suppose it's natural to brood over things down here, but in London one
+forgets a rumpus fifteen years old."
+
+"I'll never disremember the way you shamed me in '65."
+
+"I don't ask you to disremember anything. Only let me have supper and a
+bed, and to-morrow----"
+
+A fit of coughing interrupted him. He strained and shook from head to
+foot. He had no handkerchief, and spat blood on the floor.
+
+"Fäather!" cried Pete, "you can't turn him out lik this."
+
+"He's shamming," said Reuben.
+
+"Quite so," said Albert, who seemed to have learned sarcasm in
+exile--"hæmorrhage is so deuced easy to sham."
+
+"He's come back to git money out of me," said Reuben, "but he shan't
+have a penny--I've none to spare."
+
+"I don't ask for that to-night--all I ask is food and shelter, same as
+you'd give to a dog."
+
+"Well, I'll leave you to Pete," said Reuben, and walked out of the
+room. He considered this the more dignified course, and went upstairs to
+bed.
+
+The brothers were left alone, except for Harry, who was busy imitating
+Albert's cough, much to his own satisfaction.
+
+Pete fetched some soup from the larder and heated it up to a tepid
+condition; he also produced bread and cold bacon, which the prodigal
+could not touch. Albert sat hunched up by the fire, coughing and
+shivering. He had not altered much since he left Odiam; he was thin and
+hectic, and had an unshaved look about him, also there were a few grey
+streaks in his hair--otherwise he was the same. His manner was the same
+too, though his voice had changed completely, and he had lost his Sussex
+accent.
+
+Pete ministered to him with a strange devotion, which he carried finally
+to the pitch of putting him into his own bed. The absence of so many of
+the children did not make much more room in the house, as Reuben's ideas
+on sleeping had always been compact--also there were the little boys,
+the new dairy woman, and a big store of potatoes. Pete's large untidy
+bed was the only available accommodation, and Albert was glad of it, for
+he had reached the last stage of exhaustion.
+
+"I bet you anything," he said before he fell asleep, "that now I'm here
+the old boy won't be able to turn me out, however much he wants to."
+
+
+§ 11.
+
+Whether Reuben would have succeeded or not is uncertain, for he was
+never put to the proof. The next day Albert was feverish and delirious,
+and the doctor had to be sent for. He cheerfully gave the eldest
+Backfield three months to live--his lungs were in a dreadful state, one
+completely gone, the other partly so. He had caught a chill, too,
+walking in the dark and cold. There could be no thought of moving him.
+
+So Albert stayed in Pete's room, almost entirely ignored by his father.
+After some consideration, Reuben had come to the conclusion that this
+was the most dignified attitude to adopt. Now and then, when he was
+better, he sent him up some accounts to do, as it hurt him to think of
+his son lying idle week after week; but he never went near him, and
+Albert would never have willingly crossed his path. Those were not the
+days of open windows and fresh-air cures, so there was no especial
+reason why he should ever leave the low-raftered stuffy room, where he
+would lie by the hour in a frowsty dream of sickness, broken only by
+fits of coughing and hæmorrhage.
+
+His return had created a mild stir in the neighbourhood, and in Reuben's
+breast, despite circumstances and appearances, many thrills of
+gratification. Albert's penniless and broken condition was but another
+instance of the folly of those who deserted Odiam. None of the
+renegades, Reuben told himself, had prospered. Here was Albert come home
+to die; Robert, after a prelude in gaol, had exiled himself to
+Australia, where the droughts lasted twenty years; Richard, in spite of
+studyings and strivings and spendings, had only an occasional brief, and
+was unable to support himself at thirty-five; Tilly was living on a
+second-rate farm instead of a first-rate one; Caro was living in sin;
+Benjamin was probably not living at all. There was no denying it--they
+had all done badly away from Odiam.
+
+However, he refused all temptations to discuss this latest prodigal. If
+anyone asked him how his son was doing, he would answer, "I dunno; ask
+Pete--he's the nurse."
+
+Pete's attitude was Reuben's chief perplexity. It is true that in early
+years Albert seemed to have exercised a kind of fascination over his
+younger brothers and sisters; still that was long ago, and Pete did not
+appear to have given him a thought in the interval. But now he suddenly
+developed an almost maternal devotion for the sick and broken Albert. He
+would sit up whole nights with him in spite of the toils of the day, he
+trod lumberingly about on tiptoe in his presence, he read to him by the
+sweat of his brow. Something in his brother's weakness and misery seemed
+to have appealed to his clumsy strength. The root of sentimentality
+which is always more or less encouraged by a brutal career was quickened
+in his heart, and sprouted to an extent that would have mystified the
+many he had bashed. It perplexed and irritated his father. To see Pete
+hulking about on tiptoe, carrying jugs of water and cups of milk,
+shutting doors with grotesque precaution, and perpetually telling
+someone upstairs in a voice hoarse with sympathy that he "wurn't to
+vrother, as he'd be better soon"--was a foolish and maddening spectacle.
+Also Reuben dreaded that Pete would scamp his farm work, so he fussed
+round after everything he did, and called him from Albert's bedside
+times without number to hoe turnips or guide the plough.
+
+However, someone had to look after the invalid, and Pete might as well
+do it as anybody else--as long as he realised that his sick-nursing was
+a recreation, and not a substitute for his duties on the farm.
+
+Spring came on, and Albert grew worse. Pete began to look haggard; even
+his bullish strength was faltering under sleepless nights, days of moil
+and sweat, and constant attendance on the sick man. The dairy-women
+helped a little, but what they did they did unwillingly; and as the
+dairy was short-handed, Reuben did not like them to take up any extra
+work. Pete's existence was a continual round of anxiety and contrivance,
+and he was not used to either.
+
+There was also another depressing factor. As he felt his end approaching
+Albert began to develop a conscience and remorse. He said he had wasted
+his life, and as time wore on and he became weaker he passed from the
+general to the particular. The memory of certain sins tormented him, and
+he used Pete as his confessor.
+
+Pete was a very innocent soul. He had spoilt many a man's beauty for
+him, but he had never been the slave of a woman's. He had broken arms
+and ribs, and noses by the score--and he had once nearly killed a man,
+and only just escaped being arrested for manslaughter; but he had
+remained through it all an innocent soul. He had always lived in the
+open air, always worked hard, always fought hard--his recreations had
+been whistling and sleep. He had never thought about sin or evil of any
+kind, he had never troubled about sex except as it manifested itself in
+the brutes he had the care of, he had never read or talked bawdry. All
+the energies of his nature had been poured into hard work and hard
+blows.
+
+Therefore the confessions of a man like Albert came upon him as a
+revelation. Indeed, at first he scarcely understood them. They
+disquieted him and sometimes made him nervous and miserable, not because
+he had any very definite moral recoil, but because they forced him to
+think. Few can gauge the tragedy of thinking when it visits an
+unthinking soul. For the first time in his life Pete found himself
+confused, questioning, lying awake of nights and asking "why?" The world
+suddenly showed itself to him as a place which he could not understand.
+It frightened him to think about it. Sometimes he was acutely miserable,
+but he would not betray his misery to Albert, as the poor fellow seemed
+to find relief in his confidences. And on and on the stream flowed,
+swifter and muddier every day.
+
+
+§ 12.
+
+At last matters reached a climax. It was late in March; Albert was much
+worse, and even the doctor looked solemn. "He won't last till the
+summer," he said in answer to one of Pete's questions, and unluckily
+the sick man heard him.
+
+When Pete went back into the room he found him struggling under the
+bedclothes, the sweat trickling down his face.
+
+"Pete!" he cried chokingly--"I won't die!--I won't die!"
+
+"And you wöan't, nuther," said Pete, soothing him.
+
+"But I heard what the doctor said to you."
+
+Pete was at a loss. He could lie if the lie were not too constructive,
+but in a case like this he was done for.
+
+"Well, döan't you fret, nohow," he murmured tenderly.
+
+But it was no good telling Albert not to fret. He threw himself from
+side to side in the bed, moaned, and almost raved. For months now he had
+known that he must die soon, but somehow the idea had not really come
+home to him till this moment. He would not let Pete leave him, though
+there was a load of mangolds to be brought in; he clung to his brother's
+hand like a child, and babbled of strange sins.
+
+"I've been so wicked--I daren't die. I've been the lowest scum. I'm
+lost. Pete, I'm damned--I shall go to hell."
+
+Albert had been known openly to scoff at hell, whereas Pete had never
+thought much about it. Now it confronted them both under a new
+aspect--the scoffer trembled and the thoughtless was preoccupied.
+
+"Döan't fret," reiterated poor Pete, desperate under the fresh
+complication of theology, "I reckon you're not bad enough to go to hell,
+surelye."
+
+"But I'm the worst--the worst that ever was. I'm scum, I'm dirt"--and
+out poured more of the turbid stream, till Pete sickened.
+
+"If I could only see a parson," sobbed Albert at last.
+
+"A parson?"
+
+"Yes--maybe he could comfort me. Oh, I know I've mocked 'em and scoffed
+'em all my life, but I reckon they could do summat for me now."
+
+In his weakness he had gone back not only to the religious terrors of
+his youth, but to the Sussex dialect he had long forgotten.
+
+Pete scarcely knew what to do. He had become used to his brother's
+gradual disintegration, but this utter collapse was terrifying. He
+offered his own ministrations.
+
+"You've told me a dunnamany things, and you can tell me as many more as
+you justabout like"--touching the climax of self-sacrifice.
+
+But Albert's weak mind clung to its first idea with scared tenacity. He
+was still raving about it when Pete came in from his work that evening.
+
+"I want a parson," he moaned, throwing himself about the bed, and his
+terrors seemed to grow upon him as the darkness grew.
+
+Neither of them slept that night. Albert was half delirious, and
+obsessed by the thought of hell. The room looked out on Boarzell, and he
+became convinced that the swart, tufted mass outlined against the
+sprinkled stars was hell, the country of the lost. He pictured himself
+wandering over and over it in torment. He said he saw fire on it,
+scaring the superstitious Pete out of his life.
+
+
+     "On the great Moor of the lost
+       Wander all the proud and dead--
+       Those who brothers' blood have shed,
+     Those who brothers' love have crossed."
+
+
+He broke into his own verse, pouring it out deliriously:
+
+
+     "There's the shuddering ghost of me
+       Lips all black with fire and brine,
+       Chained between the libertine
+     And the fasting Pharisee."
+
+
+Then he became obsessed by the idea that he was out on the Moor,
+wandering on it, and bound to it. The earth was red-hot under his feet,
+and he picked them up off the bed like a cat on hot bricks, till Pete
+began to laugh inanely. He saw round him all the places he had known as
+a child, and called out for them, because he longed to escape to them
+from the burning Moor--"Castweasel! Castweasel!... Ramstile!...
+Ellenwhorne...."
+
+It was strange to hear a man calling out the names of places in his
+fever as other men might call the names of people.
+
+It was all a return to Albert's childhood. In spite of fifteen years in
+London, of a man's work and a man's love and a man's faith, he had gone
+back completely to the work and love and faith of his childhood. Odiam
+had swallowed him up, it had swallowed him up completely, his very hell
+was bounded by it. He spoke with a Sussex accent; he forgot the names of
+the women he had loved, and cried instead the names of places, and he
+forgot that he did not believe in hell, but thought of it as Boarzell
+Moor punctured by queer singing flames.
+
+Pete lay and listened shuddering, waiting with sick desire for the
+kindling of the dawn and the whiteness that moved among the trees. At
+last they came, the sky bloomed, and the orchard flickered against it,
+stirred by a soundless wind. The poor fellow sat up in bed, all troubled
+and muddled by things that had never touched him before. He stretched
+himself and yawned from force of habit, for he was not in the least
+sleepy, then he began to dress.
+
+"What is it?" mumbled Albert, himself again for a moment.
+
+"I'm going to fetch a parson," said Pete.
+
+It was very gallant of him to do so, for it meant venturing still
+further into new spheres of thought. None of the Backfields had been to
+church for years, though Reuben prided himself on being a good
+churchman, and Pete was rather at a loss what to do in a ghostly crisis
+such as this. However, on one thing he was resolved--that he would not
+go through another night like the last, and he credited a parson with
+mysterious cabalistic powers which would miraculously soothe the invalid
+and assure him of sleep in future.
+
+So he tramped off towards the Rectory, wondering a little what he should
+say when he got there, but leaving it to the inspiration of the moment.
+He warmed his honest heart with thoughts of Albert sleeping peacefully
+and dying beautifully, though it chilled him a little to think of death.
+Why could not Albert live?--Pete would have liked to think of him lying
+for years and years in that big untidy bed, pathetic and feeble, and
+always claiming by his weakness the whole strength that a day of
+unresting toil had left his brother.
+
+The morning flushed. A soft pink crept into ponds and dawn-swung
+windows. The light perfumes of April softened the cold, clear air--the
+scent of sprouting leaves in the woods, and of primroses in the grass,
+while the anemones frothed scentless against the hedges. Pete was about
+half a mile from the village when he heard the sound of angry voices
+round a bend in the lane, pricked by little screams from a woman.
+Expecting a fight he hurried up eagerly, and was just in time to see one
+of the grandest upper cuts in his life. A short, well-built man in black
+had just knocked down a huge, hulking tramp who had evidently been
+improving the hour with a woman now blotted against the hedge. He lay
+flat in the road, unconscious, while his adversary stood over him, his
+fist still clenched and all the skin off his knuckles.
+
+"Lordy! but that wur justabout präaper!" cried Pete, bustling up, and
+sorry that the tramp showed no signs of getting on to his feet.
+
+"It's settled him anyhow," said the man in black.
+
+They both stooped and eyed him critically.
+
+"You've landed him in a good pläace," said Pete; "a little farther back
+and he'd have been gone."
+
+"Praise be to God that his life was spared."
+
+Pete looked in some surprise at the bruiser, who continued:
+
+"I'm out of practice, or I shouldn't have skinned myself like this--ah,
+here's Coalbran's trap. Perhaps he'll give you a lift, ma'am, into
+Peasmarsh."
+
+The woman was helped into the trap, and after some discussion it was
+decided not to give themselves the trouble of taking the tramp to the
+police station, but to pull him to the side of the road and leave him to
+the consequences he had brought upon himself.
+
+"He's had some punishment," said Pete when they were alone. He inspected
+the tramp, now feebly moaning, with the air of a connoisseur. "I'm
+hemmed if I ever saw a purtier knock-out."
+
+"I'm out of training, as I told you," said the stranger.
+
+"Then you must have bin a valiant basher in your day. It's a pity you
+let yourself go slack."
+
+"It was not becoming that I should use my fists, except to defend the
+weak. I am a minister of the Lord."
+
+"A parson!" cried Pete.
+
+"A minister of the Lord," repeated with some severity the man in black,
+"of the brotherhood named Ebenezer."
+
+Pete remembered hearing that a new parson was coming to the local
+Methodists, but nothing had led him to expect such thrilling
+developments.
+
+"I used to be in the fancy," said the minister, "but five years ago the
+Lord challenged me, and knocked me out in the first round."
+
+Pete was following a train of thought.
+
+"Is a minister the same as a parson?" he asked at length.
+
+"Is a priest of Jehovah the same as a priest of Baal? For shame, young
+man!"
+
+"I mean can a minister do wot a Parson does?--tell a poor feller wot's
+dying that he wöan't go to hell."
+
+"Not if he's washed in the blood of the Lamb."
+
+"That's wot I mean, surelye. Could you come and talk to a sick man about
+all that sort of thing?"
+
+A gleam came into the minister's eyes, very much the same as when he had
+knocked out the tramp.
+
+"Reckon I could!" he cried fierily. "Reckon I can snatch a brand from
+the burning, reckon I can find the lost piece of silver; reckon I can
+save the wandering sheep, and wash it in the blood of the Lamb."
+
+"Same as a parson?" enquired Pete anxiously.
+
+"Better than any mitred priest of Ammon, for I shall not vex the
+sinner's soul with dead works, but wash it in the crimson fountain. You
+trust your sick man to me, young feller--I'll wash him in blood, I'll
+clothe him in righteousness, I'll feed him with salvation."
+
+"I'll justabout täake you to him, then. He asked fur a 'stablished
+parson, but I'd sooner far bring you, for, Lordy, if you äun't the
+präaperest bruiser I've ever set eyes on."
+
+
+§ 13.
+
+That was how the Rev. Roger Ades started his ministrations at Odiam. At
+first Reuben was disgusted. He had never before had truck with
+Dissenters, whom he considered low-class and unfit for anyone above a
+tenant farmer. He was outraged by the thought of the pastor's almost
+daily visits, accompanied by loud singing of hymns in Albert's bedroom.
+However, he did not actually forbid him the house, for Pete had brought
+him there, and Reuben never treated Pete exactly as he treated his other
+sons. Pete was the only member of his family who had so far not
+disgraced Odiam--except the two little boys, who were too young--and he
+was always careful to do nothing that might unsettle him and drive him
+into his brother's treacherous ways. So the pastor of Ebenezer came
+unchecked, and doubtless his ministrations were appreciated, for as time
+went by the intervals between them grew shorter and shorter, till at
+last Mr. Ades was more often in the house than out of it.
+
+Though strengthened in soul, Albert grew weaker in body, and Pete began
+to scamp his farm work. Even when the minister was present, he would not
+leave his brother. It grieved Reuben that, while outside matters
+prospered, indoors they should remind him of a Methodist conventicle.
+The house was full of hymns, they burst through the close-shut windows
+of Albert's bedroom and assaulted the ears of workers on Boarzell. In
+the evenings, when Ades was gone, Pete whistled them about the house.
+Reuben was ashamed; it made him blush to think that his stout
+churchmanship should have to put up with this. "I scarcely dare show my
+face in the pub, wud all this going on at höame," he remarked
+sorrowfully.
+
+Meanwhile, the farm was doing well; indeed, it was almost back at its
+former glory. Having laid the foundations, Reuben could now think of
+expansion, and he engaged two more farm-hands.
+
+He had quite changed the look of Boarzell. Instead of the swell and
+tumble of the heather, were now long stretches of chocolate furrows,
+where only the hedge mustard sometimes sprang mutinously, soon to be
+rooted up. Reuben, however, looked less on these than on the territories
+still unconquered. He would put his head on one side and contemplate the
+Moor from different angles, trying to size the rough patch at the top.
+He wondered how long it would be before it could all be his. He would
+have to work like a fiend if he was to do it in his lifetime. There was
+the Grandturzel inclosure, too.... Then he would go and whip up his men,
+and make them work nearly as hard as he worked himself, so that in the
+evening they would complain at the Cocks of "wot a tedious hard mäaster
+Mus' Backfield wur, surelye!"
+
+One day Albert sent his father a message through Pete.
+
+"He wanted me to tell you wot an unaccountable difference he sees in
+Boarzell now he's come back. He'd never have known it, 'tis so changed.
+All the new bit towards Doozes is justabout präaper."
+
+Reuben said nothing, in spite of the entreaty in Pete's honest eyes, but
+his heart warmed towards his son. Albert had shown at last proper
+spirit; he had no doubt realised his baseness, and acknowledged that he
+had been a fool and villain to betray Odiam. Now he saw how mightily the
+farm prospered in spite of adversity, he praised its greatness, and no
+man could praise Odiam without winning a little of Reuben's goodwill. He
+softened towards the prodigal, and felt that he would like to see the
+boy--he still called him "the boy," though he was thirty-seven--and if
+he behaved penitently and humbly, forgive him before he died.
+
+That evening he went up to Pete's room. The sound of voices came from
+it, one exceedingly loud, and it struck Reuben that "that hemmed
+Methody" was there. He opened the door and looked in. Albert lay propped
+up in the bed, his hands, wasted into claws, clasped in the attitude of
+prayer, his eyes protruding strangely above his sunken cheeks, where the
+skin was stretched on the bones. Pete knelt beside him, his eyes closed,
+his hands folded, like a child saying its prayers, and at the foot of
+the bed stood the Rev. Roger Ades, his face contorted with fervour, his
+arms waving in attitudes that were reminiscent of the boxing ring in
+spite of his efforts.
+
+None of them saw or heard Reuben's entrance, and at that moment they all
+burst into a hymn:
+
+
+     "There's life in the crimson Fountain,
+       There's peace in the Blood of the Slain."
+
+
+A long shudder of disgust went over Reuben's flesh. He was utterly
+shocked by what he saw. That such things could go on in his house struck
+him with horror, tinctured by shame. He went out, shutting the door
+noisily behind him--the softer feelings had gone; instead he felt
+bitterly and furiously humiliated.
+
+The hymn faltered and stopped when the door banged, but the next moment
+the minister caught it up again, and hurled it after Reuben's indignant
+retreat:
+
+
+     "My soul is all washed to whiteness,
+       And I'll never be foul again.
+         Salvation! Salvation full and free!"
+
+
+§ 14.
+
+Early in May, Pete came out to Reuben on Boarzell and told him that
+Albert was dead. Reuben felt a little awkward and a little relieved.
+
+"He died quiet, I hope?"
+
+"Oh, yes," said Pete, "he laid hold on the merits of Jesus."
+
+Reuben started.
+
+"It wur a präaper death," continued Pete; "his soul wur washed as white
+as wool. He wur the prodigal son come höame; he wur the Lord's lost
+sixpence, I reckon."
+
+"And that son of a harlot from Little Bethel wurn't wud him, I trust?"
+
+"No, I'm going to fetch him now."
+
+His father opened his mouth to forbid him angrily, but changed his mind
+and said nothing. Pete walked off whistling--"When the cleansing Blood
+is poured."
+
+Reuben could not help feeling relieved at Albert's death, but he had
+noticed with some alarm Pete's definitely religious phraseology. He
+hoped that Ades had not corrupted him from his pure churchmanship, the
+honourable churchmanship of the Backfields. Being a Dissenter was only
+one degree better than being a Liberal, and Reuben swore to keep a firm
+hand over Pete in future.
+
+That evening he and his son had their first conflict. Pete announced
+that he had made arrangements with Ades for Albert's funeral, and Reuben
+announced with equal conviction that he was hemmed if Ades had any truck
+in it wotsumdever. Albert should be buried according to the rites and
+ceremonies of the Church of England, he wasn't going to have any
+salvation sung over his grave. Pete, on the other hand, stuck to his
+point, and alarmed Reuben with more religious phraseology.
+
+"It wur Ades wot gave him to the Lord, wot found him salvation in the
+Blood of the Lamb."
+
+"I döan't care two straws about that. Albert wur born and christened
+Church, and he's not going to die chapel because a lousy Methody sings
+hymns over him when he's sick and döan't know better. If I find that
+feller on my pläace again, I'll break every bone in his body."
+
+Pete angrily defended the minister, which caused Reuben fresh alarm; for
+in the old days when his father abused Ades he had tried to conciliate
+him by laying stress on the latter's prowess as a bruiser, but now he
+never once mentioned his fists, enlarging instead on his qualities of
+soul and on the fact that he had found Christ. The two theologians
+carried on their argument till well past bedtime, and at last separated
+in a great state of dogma and indignation.
+
+In the end it was the Church that won. Reuben went over early the next
+morning to the Rectory, and made arrangements for Albert's funeral on
+the following Monday. He enlarged on the conflict he had had with Pete,
+and was a little dashed by the rector's want of enthusiasm.
+
+Albert was buried with all the decent rites of the Establishment. He
+was laid to rest in the Christian company of his mother and his brother
+George, at the bottom of the churchyard where it touched the pond; a
+little way from him was the old yeoman who had "never wanted anything he
+hadn't got, and so hadn't got anything he didn't want." It relieved Pete
+a little to think that from where he lay his brother could not see
+Boarzell--"not even if he sat up in his grave."
+
+The funeral was dignified and impressive, and every now and then Reuben
+glanced across at his son with eyes that said--"Wot could Ebenezer have
+done compared wud this?" All the same, he was disappointed. Somehow he
+had expected his churchmanship to strike the rector and the curate very
+favourably; he had expected them metaphorically to fall on his neck; he
+saw himself as a champion of established Christendom, of tithes and
+glebes and cosy rectories and "dearly beloved brethren" on Sundays. It
+was humiliating to find himself ignored, indeed treated as an outsider,
+simply because he had not been to church for ten years. He had had his
+children baptised into the Establishment, and now he was burying his son
+according to its rites, in spite of opposition, even persecution. These
+parsons were ungrateful, bigoted, and blind.
+
+Perhaps though, he thought, their behaviour was partially accounted for
+by that of Pete, who stood beside the grave with his eyes shut, saying
+"A-aaa-men" at unliturgical intervals, as only Dissenters can say it.
+
+
+§ 15.
+
+Pete spent that evening with Ades, and Reuben's fireside slumbers were
+unrestful because he missed Pete's accustomed snore from the other end
+of the settle. The next morning his son did not appear, though there was
+plenty of work to be done in the hop-fields. The young hops were now
+well above ground, and exposed to the perils of blight, so Reuben and
+Beatup were spraying them with insect-killer, badly in need of a third
+man to do the mixing.
+
+"Where's Pete?" asked Reuben.
+
+"I dunno--äun't seen un this mornun. Ah--thur he be!"
+
+"Where?"
+
+"Cöaming up by the brook, surelye."
+
+Reuben stared in amazement. The approaching figure undoubtedly was Pete,
+but a Pete so changed by circumstances and demeanour as to be almost
+unrecognisable. He wore his Sunday black clothes, which--as, with the
+exception of the funeral, he had not put them on for ten years--were
+something of a misfit. On his head was a black hat with a wide flapping
+brim, he walked with a measured step and his hands folded in front of
+him.
+
+"Well," cried Reuben, calling abuse to the rescue of surprise--"you
+hemmed lazy good-fur-nothing, you!--wud all the Glotten hay to be cut,
+and ten acres o' hops to be sprayed, and you go laying in bed lik a
+lady, and then come out all dressed as if you wur going to church.
+Where's your corduroys?"
+
+"In my box--you can clöathe the naked wud 'em--I'm never going to put
+'em on no more."
+
+"I'm hemmed if I'll have you working on my farm in that foolery. You'll
+mäake us the laughing-stock of Peasmarsh. You've got Ebenezer on the
+brain, you have, and you can justabout git it off again."
+
+"I'm never going to do another ströake of wark on your farm as long as I
+live. Salvation's got me."
+
+Reuben dropped the insect-killer.
+
+"I'm the Lord's lost lamb," announced Pete.
+
+"The Lord's lost----!" cried his father angrily. "You täake off them
+blacks, and git to work lik a human being."
+
+"I tell you I'm never going to work fur you agäun. I'm going forth to
+spread the Word. Salvation's got me."
+
+"You wait till _I_ git you, that's all," and Reuben ran at Pete.
+
+"Kip off, or I'll slosh you one on the boko," cried the Lord's lost lamb
+swinging up a vigorous pair of fists. Reuben breathed a sigh of relief.
+
+"There--I knew as there wur reason in you, Pete. You wöan't go and leave
+your fäather lik the rest, all fur a hemmed Methody."
+
+"Hemmed Methody! That's how you spik of the man wot's säaved my soul. I
+tell you as there I wur lost in trespasses and sins, and now I'm washed
+white as wool--there wur my evil doings sticking to my soul lik maggots
+to a dead rat, and now my soul's washed in the Blood of the Lamb, and
+I'm going out to spread the Word."
+
+"Where are you going?"
+
+"Unto the ends of the earth--Hastings. There's a friend of Ades there
+wot'll guide me into the Spirit's ways."
+
+"But you'll never leave me at the time of the hay-harvest, and Emily due
+to calve in another month?"
+
+"I tell you I'm shut of your farm--it's wot's led me astray from a lad.
+Instead of settin' and reading godly books and singing wud the saints
+I've gone and ploughed furrers and carted manure; I've thought only of
+the things of the flesh, I've walked lik accursed Adam among the
+thistles. But now a Voice says, 'work no more!--go and spread the Word!'
+And if you're wise, fäather, you'll cöame too, and you, Beatup. You'll
+flee from the wrath to cöame, when He shall shäake the earth and the
+elimunts shall dissolve in fervient heat, and He ..."
+
+"Have adone do wud your preaching. I'm ashamed of you, led astray by
+lunies as if you wur no better nor poor Harry. You're a hemmed lousy
+traitor, you are, the worst of 'em all."
+
+"I'm only fleeing from the wrath to cöame--and if you're wise you'll
+foller me. This farm is the city of destruction, I tell you, it's a
+snare of the devil, it's Naboth's vineyard, it's the lake that burneth
+wud fire and brimstone. Cöame out of her, cöame out of her, my peoples!"
+
+Reuben was paralysed. His jaw worked convulsively, and he looked at Pete
+as if he were a specially new and pestilential form of blight.
+
+"Save yourself, fäather," continued the evangelist, "and give up all the
+vain desires of the flesh. Is this a time to buy olive-yards and
+vineyards? Beware lest there cöame upon you as it did to him wot
+purchaised a field, the reward of inquiety, and falling headlong he bust
+asunder in the midst and his bowels goshed out----"
+
+But Reuben had found his voice.
+
+"Git out of this!" he shouted. "I wöan't stand here and listen to you
+miscalling the farm wot's bred you and fed you over thirty year. Git
+out, and never think you'll come back again. I'm shut of you. I döan't
+want no more of you--I'm out of the wood now, I've got all the work out
+of you I've needed, so you can go, and spread your hemmed Word, and be
+hemmed. I'm shut of you."
+
+Pete fixed upon his father a gaze meant to inspire the utmost terrors of
+conscience, then turned on his heel and slowly walked away.
+
+The sight of his broad black back disappearing among the hop-bines was
+too much for Reuben. He picked up the can of insect-killer and hurled it
+after his son, splashing his respectability from head to foot with the
+stinking fluid. Pete flung round with his fists up, then suddenly
+dropped them and raised his eyes instead.
+
+"You wudn't daur do that if I hadn't been saved!" he shouted.
+
+Then he walked off, beautiful of soul no doubt, but highly unpleasant of
+body.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK VII
+
+THE END IN SIGHT
+
+
+§ 1.
+
+The next five years were comparatively uneventful. All that stood out of
+them was the steady progress of the farm. It fattened, it grew, it crept
+up Boarzell as the slow tides softly flood a rock.
+
+Reuben was now alone at Odiam with his two small children and Harry.
+David and Bill, unlike their predecessors, did not start their career as
+farm-hands till well past babyhood. Reuben no longer economised in
+labour--he had nearly a dozen men in regular employ, to say nothing of
+casuals. Sometimes he thought regretfully of the stalwart sons who were
+to have worked for him, to have run the farm without any outside help
+... but that dream belonged to bygone days, and he resolutely put it
+from him. After all, his posse of farm-hands was the envy of the
+neighbourhood; no one in Peasmarsh employed so many.
+
+Reuben himself was still able for a great deal of work. Though over
+sixty, he still had much of the vigour, as he had all the straightness,
+of his youth. Work had not bent him and crippled him, as it had crippled
+Beatup, his junior by several years. The furnace of his pride and
+resolution seemed to have dried the damps steamed up by the earth from
+her revengeful wounds, so that rheumatism--the plague of the labourer on
+the soil--had done no worse for him than shooting pains in the winter
+with a slight thickening of his joints.
+
+His hair had been grey for years, and as he grew older it did not
+whiten, but stayed the colour of polished iron, straight, shining, and
+thick as a boy's. He had lost two back teeth, and made a tremendous fuss
+about them, saying it was all the fault of the dentist in Rye, who
+preferred a shilling extraction to a threepenny lotion--but the rest of
+his teeth were as good as ever, though at last a trifle discoloured by
+smoking.
+
+His face was a network of wrinkles. He was not the sort of countryman
+whose skin old age stretches smoothly over the bones and reddens
+benignly as a sun-warmed apple. On the contrary, he had grown swarthier
+with the years, the ruddy tints had been hardened into the brown, and
+from everywhere, from the corners of his eyes, of his mouth, of his
+nose, across his forehead, along his cheeks, under his chin, spread a
+web of lines, some mere hair-tracery on the surface, others wrinkled
+deep, others ploughed in like the furrows of his own fields.
+
+Harry had not aged so successfully. He was terribly bent, and some of
+his joints were swollen grotesquely, though he had not had so much truck
+as Reuben with the earth and her vapours. He was so thin that he
+amounted to little more than shrivelled yellow skin over some twisted
+bones, and yet he was wiry and clung desperately to life. Reuben was
+sorry for this--his brother annoyed him. Harry grew more irritating with
+old age. He still played his fiddle, though he had now forgotten every
+semblance of a tune, and if it were taken away from him by some
+desperate person he would raise such an outcry that it would soon be
+restored as a lesser evil. He hardly ever spoke to anyone, but muttered
+to himself. "Salvation's got me!" he would croak, for his mind had been
+inexplicably stamped by Pete's outrage, and he forgot all about that
+perpetual wedding which had puzzled him for so many years. "Salvation's
+got me!" he would yell, suddenly waking in the middle of the
+night--keeping the memory of the last traitor always green.
+
+But it was for other reasons that Reuben most wished that Harry would
+die. Harry was a false note, a discord in his now harmonious scheme. He
+was a continual reminder of the power of Boarzell, and would
+occasionally sweep Reuben's thoughts away from those fat corn-fields
+licking at the crest to that earliest little patch down by Totease,
+where the Moor had drunk up its first blood. He called himself a fool,
+but he could not help seeing something sinister and fateful in Harry,
+scraping tunelessly at his fiddle, or repeating over and over again some
+wandering echo from the outside world which had managed to reach his
+dungeoned brain. Reuben wished he would die, and so did the farm-boy who
+slept with him, and the dairy-woman who fed him at meals.
+
+The only people who would have been sorry if he had died were the
+children. Harry was popular with them, as he had been with baby Fanny
+long ago, because he made funny faces and emitted strange, unexpected
+sounds. He was unlike the accepted variety of grown-up people, who were
+seldom amusing or surprising, and one could take liberties with him,
+such as one could not take with fäather or Maude. Also, being blind, one
+could play on him the most fascinating tricks.
+
+These tricks were never unkind, for David and William were the most
+benevolent little boys. They saw life through a golden mist, it smelt of
+milk and apples, it was full of soft lowings and bleatings and
+cheepings, of gentle noses to stroke and little downy things to hold.
+For the first time since it became Reuben's, Odiam made children happy.
+The farm which had been a galley and a prison to those before them, was
+an enchanted land of adventure to these two. Old Beatup, who remembered
+earlier things, would sometimes smile when he saw them trotting hand in
+hand about the yard, playing long hours in the orchard, and now and
+then pleading as a special favour to be allowed to feed the chickens,
+or help fetch the cows home. He seemed to see the farm peopled by little
+ghosts who had never dared trot about aimlessly, or had time to play,
+and had fed the fowls and fetched the cows not as a treat and an
+adventure, but as a dreary part of the day's grind ... he reflected that
+"the mäaster had learned summat by the others, surelye."
+
+Of course, one reason why David and Billy were so free was because of
+the growing prosperity of the farm, which no longer made it necessary to
+save and scrape. But on the other hand, it was a fact that the mäaster
+had learned summat by the others. He was resolved that, come what might,
+he would keep these boys. They should not leave him like their brothers;
+and since harshness had failed to keep those at home, he would now try a
+slacker rule. He was growing old, and he wanted to think that at his
+death Odiam would pass into loyal and loving hands, he wanted to think
+of its great traditions being carried on in all their glory. Sometimes
+he would have terrible dreams of Odiam being divided at his death, split
+up into allotments and small-holdings, scrapped into building plots.
+Such dreams made him look with hungry tenderness at the two little
+figures trotting hand in hand about the orchard and the barns.
+
+
+§ 2.
+
+It was about that time that the great Lewin case came on at the Old
+Bailey. The papers were full of it, and Reuben could not suppress a glow
+of pride when Maude the dairy-woman read out the name of Richard
+Backfield as junior counsel for the defence. But his pride was to be
+still further exalted. The senior counsel collapsed with some serious
+illness on the very eve of the trial, and Richard stepped into his
+shoes. The papers were now full of his name, it was on everyone's lips
+throughout the kingdom, and especially in the public-houses between Rye
+and the Kent border. Men stopped drinking at the Cocks when Reuben came
+in, and women ran down to their garden gates when he passed by. Reuben
+himself did not say much, but he now regularly took in a daily paper,
+and being able to recognise the name of Backfield in print, sat chasing
+the magic word through dark labyrinths of type, counting the number of
+its appearances and registering them on the back of his corn accounts.
+
+"How's the Lewin cäase gitting on?" someone would ask at the Cocks, and
+Reuben would answer:
+
+"Valiant--my näum wur sixteen times in the päaper this mornun."
+
+He almost taught himself to read by this means, for it was the first
+time he had ever studied a printed page, and he had soon picked up
+several words besides Backfield. Not that he took much interest in the
+case beyond Richard's--that is to say, Odiam's--share in it, but soon it
+became clear that Richard was leading it to marvellous developments.
+Lewin was a bank-manager accused of colossal frauds, and Richard amazed
+the country by dragging a couple of hitherto respected banking knights
+into the business. At one time it was thought he would get an acquittal
+by this, but Richard was a barrister, not a detective, and he
+brilliantly got his client acquitted on a point of law, which though it
+may have baffled a little the romantic enthusiasm of his newspaper
+admirers, made his name one to conjure with in legal circles, so that
+briefs were no longer matters of luck and prayer.
+
+His fortune was made by the Lewin case. He wrote home and told his
+father that he had now "arrived," and was going to marry Anne Bardon.
+
+The excitement created by his defence of Lewin was nothing to that which
+now raged in Rye and Peasmarsh. Reuben was besieged by the curious, who
+found relief for a slight alloy of envy by pointing out how
+unaccountable well the young man had done for himself by running away.
+
+"Reckon you dudn't think as how it 'ud turn out lik this, or you wudn't
+have been in such tedious heart about it."
+
+"I can't say as I'm pleased at his marrying Miss Bardon," Reuben would
+say. "She's ten year older than he if she's a day. 'Twas she who asked
+him, I reckon. He could have done better fur himself if he'd stayed at
+höame."
+
+
+§ 3.
+
+Reuben had bought thirty-five more acres of Boarzell in '81, and thirty
+in '84. The first piece was on the Flightshot side of the Moor, by Cheat
+Land, the second stretched from the new ground by Totease over to
+Burntbarns. Now only about fifty acres, including the Fair-place and the
+crest, remained to be won outside the Grandturzel inclosure. Bardon
+publicly announced his intention never to sell the Fair-place to
+Backfield. Flightshot and Odiam had not been drawn together by Richard's
+marriage. At first Reuben had feared that the Squire might take
+liberties on the strength of it, and had been stiffer than ever in his
+unavoidable intercourse with the Manor. But Bardon had been, if
+anything, stiffer still. He thoroughly disapproved of Backfield as an
+employer of labour--some of his men were housed, with their families, in
+two old barns converted into cottages at the cheapest rate--and as he
+was too hard up to refuse to sell him Boarzell, he could express his
+disgust only by his attitude. Fine shades of manner were apt to be lost
+on Reuben, but about the refusal to sell the Fair-place there could be
+no mistake.
+
+Meantime he cast covetous and hopeful eyes on the Grandturzel inclosure.
+Realf was doing nothing with it, and his affairs were not so prosperous
+as they used to be. His abandonment of the struggle had not changed his
+luck, and a run of bad luck--the usual farmer's tale of poor harvests,
+dead cows, blighted orchards, and low prices--had plunged Grandturzel
+nearly as deep as Odiam had once been. Realf had shown himself without
+recuperative powers; he economised, but inefficiently, and Reuben
+foresaw that the day would come when he would be forced to part with
+some of his land. He was in no immediate hurry for this, as he would be
+all the readier to spend his money in a few years' time, but
+occasionally he gave himself the treat of going up to the Grandturzel
+inclosure and inspecting it from the fence, planning exactly what he
+would do with it when it was his.
+
+More than once Realf and Tilly saw him in the distance, a tall, sinister
+figure, haunting their northern boundaries.
+
+"Fäather's after our land," said Tilly, and shuddered.
+
+
+§ 4.
+
+The little boys grew big and went to school. This time it was not to the
+dame's school in the village, for that had collapsed before the new
+board-school which had risen to madden Reuben's eyes with the spectacle
+of an educated populace. They went to Rye Grammar School and learned
+Latin and Greek like gentlemen. There was something new in Reuben's
+attitude towards these boys, for his indulgence had deeper roots than
+expediency. Sometimes of an evening he would go to the bottom of the
+Totease lane, where it joins the Peasmarsh road, and wait there for his
+sons' return. They would see him afar off, and run to meet him, and they
+would all three walk home together, arm-in-arm perhaps.
+
+He would have been exceedingly indignant if in bygone days anyone had
+ever hinted that he did not love the sons and daughters whom he had
+beaten, kicked out of doors, frustrated, suppressed, or driven to
+calamity. All the same, he acknowledged that there was a difference
+between his feelings towards Rose's children and Naomi's. Though Naomi
+was the wife more pleasant to remember, Rose's were the children he
+loved best. They had not grown up in the least like her, and he was glad
+of that, for he would have hated to confront again her careless, lovely
+face, or the provoking little teeth of her smile; they were Backfields,
+dark of hair and swarthy of skin, David with grey eyes, William with
+brown.
+
+When he saw them running along the lane from school, or tramping the
+fields together--they were always together--or helping with the hops or
+the hay, his heart would stir with a warm, unwonted sense of fatherhood,
+not just the proud paternal impulse which had visited him when he held
+his new-born babies in his arms, but something belonging more to the
+future than the present, to the days when they should carry on Odiam
+after his death. For the first time he had sons whom he looked upon not
+merely as labourers to help him in his work, but as men created in his
+own image to inherit that work and reap its fruits when he was gone.
+
+He was pleased to see their evident love of the farm. They begged him
+not to keep them too long at school, for they wanted to come home and
+work on Odiam. So he took David away when he was sixteen, and William
+when he was fifteen the next year.
+
+Meantime it seemed as if in spite of his absorption in his new family he
+was not to be entirely cut off from the old. In the summer of '87, just
+after the Jubilee, he had a letter from Richard, announcing that he and
+his wife were coming for a week or so to Rye. Reuben had not heard of
+Richard for some years, and had not seen him since he left Odiam--he had
+been asked to the wedding, but had refused to go. Now Richard expressed
+the hope that he would soon see his father. His was a nature that
+mellows and softens in prosperity, and though he had not forgotten the
+miseries of his youth, he was too happy to let them stand between him
+and Reuben now that they were only memories.
+
+Anne was not so disposed to forgive--she had her brother's score as well
+as her husband's to settle, and concealed from no one that she thought
+her father-in-law a brutal and conscienceless old slave-driver whose
+success was a slur on the methods of Providence. She refused to
+accompany Richard on his first visit to Odiam, but spent the afternoon
+at Flightshot, while he tramped with Reuben over the land that had once
+been so hateful to him.
+
+Reuben, though he would not have confessed it, was much taken with his
+son's appearance. Richard looked taller, which was probably because he
+held himself better, more proudly erect; his face seemed also subtly
+changed; he had almost a legal profile, due partly no doubt to a
+gold-rimmed pince-nez. He looked astonishingly clean-shaven, he wore
+good clothes, and his hands were slim and white, not a trace of
+uncongenial work remaining. He had quite lost his Sussex accent, and
+Reuben vaguely felt that he was a credit to him.
+
+Their attitude, at first constrained, soon became more cordial than
+either would have thought possible in earlier days. Richard made no
+tactless references to his brothers and sisters, and admired and praised
+everything, even the pigsties that had used to make him sick. They went
+out into the fields and inspected the late lambs, Richard showing that
+he had lost every trace of shepherd-lore that had ever been his. His
+remarks on shearing gave Reuben a very bad opinion of the English Bar;
+however, they parted in a riot of mutual civility, and Richard asked his
+father to dine with him at the Mermaid in a couple of days.
+
+Anne was furious when she heard of the invitation.
+
+"You know I don't want to meet your father--and I'm sure he'll disgrace
+us."
+
+"He's more likely to amuse us," said Richard; "he's a character, and I
+shall enjoy studying him for the first time from an unbiassed
+view-point."
+
+"It won't be unbiassed if he disgraces us."
+
+However, Reuben did not disgrace them. On the contrary, more than one
+admiring glance drifted to the Backfields' table, and remarks were
+overheard about "that picturesque old man." Reuben had dressed himself
+with care in a suit of dark grey cloth and the flowered waistcoat he had
+bought when he married Rose. His collar was so high and stiff that he
+could hardly get his chin over it, his hair was brushed and oiled till
+its grey thickness shone like the sides of a man-o'-war, and his hands
+looked quite clean by artificial light.
+
+Richard had invited his young half-brothers too, for they had been at
+school when he visited Odiam. They struck him as quite ordinary-looking
+boys, dressed in modern reach-me-downs, and only partially inheriting
+their father's good looks. As for them, they were cowed and abashed past
+all words. It seemed incredible that this resplendent being in the white
+shirt-front and gold-rimmed eye-glasses was their brother, and the lady
+with the hooked nose and the diamonds their sister-in-law. They scarcely
+ventured to speak, and were appalled by the knives and forks and glasses
+that lay between them and their dinner.
+
+Reuben too was appalled by them, but would not for worlds have shown it.
+He attacked the knives and forks with such vigour that he did not get
+really involved in them till the joint, and as he refused no drink the
+waiter offered he soon had all his glasses harmlessly occupied. Nor was
+he at a loss for conversation. He was resolved that neither Richard nor
+Anne should ignore the greatness of his farm; if only he could stir up
+a spark of home-sickness in his son's white-shirted breast, his triumph
+would be complete.
+
+"I reckon I'm through wud my bad luck now--Odiam's doing valiant. I'm
+shut of all the lazy-bones, Grandturzel's beat, and I've naun to stand
+agäunst me."
+
+"What about Nature?" asked Richard, readjusting his pince-nez and
+thrusting forward his chin, whereby it was always known in court that he
+meant to "draw out" the witness.
+
+"Nature!" snorted Reuben--"wot's Nature, I'd lik to know?"
+
+"The last word on most subjects," said Richard.
+
+"Well, is it? I reckon it äun't the last word on your wife."
+
+"I beg your pardon!"--Anne's chin came forward so like Richard's that
+one might gather he had borrowed the trick from her.
+
+"Well, 'carding to Nature, ma'am, and saving your presence, you're
+forty-five year if you're a day. I remember the very 'casion you wur
+born. Well, if I may be so bold, you döan't look past thirty. How's
+that? Just because you know some dodges worth two of Nature's, you've a
+way of gitting even wud her. Now if a lady can bust Nature at her
+dressing-täable, I reckon I can bust her on my farm."
+
+"This is most interesting," said Anne icily, raising her lorgnette and
+looking at Reuben as if he were a bad smell.
+
+"He means to be complimentary," said Richard.
+
+"Reckon I do!" cried Reuben genially, warmed by various liquors--"naun
+shall say I döan't know a fine woman when I see one. And I reckon as me
+and my darter-in-law are out after the säum thing--and that's the
+beating of Nature, wot you seem to set such a store by, Richard."
+
+"Well, she'll have you both in the end, anyhow."
+
+"She! no--she wöan't git me."
+
+"She'll get you when you die."
+
+"Oh, I döan't count that--that's going to good earth."
+
+"Perhaps she'll get you before then."
+
+Reuben banged the table with his fist.
+
+"I'm hemmed if she does. She'd have got me long ago if she'd ever been
+going to--when I wur young and my own hot blood wur lik to betray me.
+But I settled her then, and I'll settle her to the end of time. Mark my
+words, Richard my boy, there's always some way of gitting even wud her.
+Wot's nature?--nature's a thing; and a man's a--why he's a man, and he
+can always go one better than a thing. Nature mäakes potato-blight, so
+man mäakes Bordeaux spray; nature mäakes calf-husk, so man mäakes
+linseed oil; nature mäakes lice, so man mäakes lice-killer. Man's the
+better of nature all along, and I döan't mind proving it."
+
+Having thus delivered himself under the combined fire of the lorgnette
+and the pince-nez, Reuben poured himself out half a tumblerful of _crème
+de menthe_ and drank the healths of them both with their children,
+whereat Anne rose quickly from the table and sought refuge in the
+drawing-room.
+
+It was after ten o'clock when her father-in-law and his two silent boys
+climbed into their trap and started homewards over the clattering
+cobbles of Mermaid Street. In the trap the two silent boys found their
+tongues, and fell to discussing their brother Richard in awestruck
+voices. They whispered about his dinner, his wife, his hands, his
+eye-glasses, his voice, while old Dorrington picked his way up Playden
+Hill in the white starshine. Reuben heard them as if in a dream as he
+leaned forward over the reins, his eyes fixed on Capella, bright and
+cold above Bannister's Town. He had drunk more liberally and more
+variously than he had ever drunk in his life, but he carried his liquor
+well, and all he was conscious of was a slight exaltation, a feeling of
+triumph, as if all these huddled woods, lightless farms, and cold
+winking stars were in some strange way his by conquest, the tokens of
+his honour. The wind lapped round him, baffing at his neck--it sighed in
+the woods, and rocked them gently towards the east. In the south Orion
+hung above Stonelink, with Sirius at the end of his sword ... the
+constellation of the Ram was high....
+
+Then suddenly his sons' voices floated up to him in his dream.
+
+"I wish I could be like Richard, Bill."
+
+"So do I--but I reckon we never shall."
+
+"Not if we stick to the farm. Did you notice that ring on his little
+finger?"
+
+"Yes, quite a plain one, but it looked justabout fine."
+
+"And he had a gold watch-chain across his waistcoat."
+
+"I reckon he's done well fur himself by running away."
+
+"Yes, if he'd stayed he'd never have married Miss Bardon and had his
+name in all the papers."
+
+"We'll never do anything fur ourselves if we stay at Odiam."
+
+"No--but we'll have to stay. Fäather will make us."
+
+"He couldn't make Richard stay."
+
+Reuben listened as if in a nightmare--the blood in his veins seemed to
+turn to ice. He could hardly believe his ears.
+
+"Richard's made his fortune by quitting Odiam. 'Tis a good place, but
+he'd never have done half so valiant for himself if he'd stayed."
+
+Reuben pulled himself together, and swinging round cuffed both speakers
+unaccustomedly.
+
+"Döan't let me hear another word of that hemmed nonsense. If you think
+as Richard's bettered himself by running away from Odiam, you're
+unaccountable mistaken. Wot's a dirty lawyer compared wud a farmer as
+farms three hundred acres, and owns 'em into the bargain? All my boys
+have busted and ruined them selves by running away--Richard's the only
+one that's done anything wotsumdever ... and if he's done well, there's
+one as has done better, and that's his fäather wot stayed at home."
+
+
+§ 5.
+
+About three years later Sir Ralph Bardon died. He died of typhus caught
+on one of Reuben's insanitary cottages, where he had been nursing a sick
+boy. The village was inclined to look upon him as a martyr and Reuben as
+his murderer, but Reuben himself preserved a contemptuous attitude. "If
+I'd wanted anything as much as he wanted them houses o' mine, I'm hemmed
+if I wudn't have had 'em," he said, "and all he could do wur to die of
+'em"--and he spat.
+
+Sir Ralph had never married and there was no direct heir; Anne was about
+as likely to produce offspring as a Latin grammar, and the property went
+to a distant cousin, Eustace Fleet. The very name of Bardon was now
+extinct. For two hundred years it had been coupled with Flightshot and
+Whig politics and the idea of a gentleman, till the last had finally
+been the downfall of the other two. The race of Bardon had died of its
+own virtues.
+
+Reuben's hopes of the Fair-place now revived, and he at once approached
+the new Squire with a view to purchase; but Sir Eustace turned out to be
+quite as wrong-headed as Sir Ralph on the matter of popular rights.
+
+"Of course I know the Fair has no legal title to this ground, but one
+must respect public feeling. I will sell you the forty acres adjoining
+the crest with pleasure, Mr. Backfield, they are no use to me, and you
+certainly seem to do wonders with the land when you get it--but the
+Place itself must be preserved for the people. I'm sure you understand."
+
+Reuben didn't, nor pretended that he did.
+
+He started licking his forty acres into shape, with many inward vows
+that he would have the rest of them soon, he was hemmed if he didn't. He
+was on the high ground now, he could throw a stone into the clump of
+firs which still mocked his endeavours. The soil was all hard and
+flinty, matted with heather roots and the fibres of gorse. Reuben's men
+grumbled and cursed as the earth crumbled and rattled against their
+spades, which sometimes broke on the big flints and bits of limestone.
+They scoffed incredulously when old Beatup told them that the lower
+pastures and the Totease oatfields had once been like this.
+
+Boarzell was almost unrecognisable now. When one climbed the Forstal
+Hill behind Peasmarsh and looked southward, one no longer saw a great
+roughness of Moor couching like something wild and untrapped in the
+midst of the tame fields and domestic cottages. The fields had licked up
+its sides till all they had left was the brown and golden crest with its
+central clump of firs. Behind this to the north was the Grandturzel
+inclosure, but Reuben's land was nibbling round the edge of it, and
+everyone knew that Grandturzel would not be able to hold out much
+longer.
+
+Opinion in Peasmarsh was divided. There was a general grudging
+admiration of the man who seemed able, in defiance of the Scriptures, to
+make Leviathan his servant. No one could deny that Backfield had
+performed a job which the neighbourhood from the first had declared to
+be impossible. He was disliked--not because anyone particularly envied
+him the land he bought so eagerly and so strenuously shaped, but because
+of his utter disregard of what other men prized and his willingness to
+sacrifice it for the sake of what they did not prize at all. He was a
+living insult to their hearths, their homes, their wives, their
+children, their harmless recreations, the delights of their flesh, all
+those things which he had so readily set aside to win his great
+ambition. It was not for what he wanted that they hated him so much as
+for the things he did not want.
+
+However, everyone viewed with dislike and suspicion his covetous eye
+cast on the Fair-place. He might have the rest of Boarzell and welcome,
+for no other man had any use for flints, but the Fair was sacred to them
+through the generations, and they gauged his sacrilegious desire to rob
+them of it for his own ends. He might have the Grandturzel inclosure,
+though all the village sympathised with the beaten Realf--beaten, they
+said, because he hadn't it in him to be as hard-hearted as the old
+Gorilla, and sacrifice his wife and children to his farm--but they would
+far rather see Grandturzel swallowed up than Boarzell Fair.
+
+When his failure to buy the crest became known there were great
+rejoicings throughout Peasmarsh. The Fair that year was more than
+usually crowded, and the merriment was increased by the sight of Reuben
+stalking among the booths, and glaring at them as if he wished them all
+at blazes.
+
+
+§ 6.
+
+The boys were now sixteen and eighteen, fine, manly young fellows,
+working cheerfully on Odiam and rejoicing their father's heart. Reuben
+watched over them sometimes with an odd kind of anxiety--they were so
+satisfactory that he felt it could not last. He remembered that
+conversation he had overheard in the trap on the way home from Rye, and
+though nothing had happened since to remind him of it or cause him fresh
+alarm, he could never quite shake off the cold thrills it had given him.
+
+Besides, David and William had come to a dangerous age, they were
+beginning to form opinions and ideas of their own, they were beginning
+to choose their own friends and pastimes. But what Reuben distrusted
+most was their affection for each other, it was more fundamental to his
+anxieties than any outside independence. From childhood they had been
+inseparable, but in past years he had put this down to the common
+interests of their play, for there were few boys of their own age on the
+neighbouring farms. But now they were grown up the devotion
+persisted--they still did everything together, work or play. Reuben knew
+that they had secrets from him, their union gave him a sense of
+isolation. They were fond of him, but he was not to them what they were
+to each other, and his remoteness seemed to grow with the years.
+
+In his alarm he made plans to separate them. He discovered that the big
+attic they slept in was not healthy, and moved their beds to two rooms
+divided by his own. He now felt that he had put an end to those bedtime
+conferences which must have done so much to unite the brothers and set
+him at a distance.
+
+His vigilance increased when their first love affairs began. At first
+they would gabble innocently to him about pretty girls they had seen in
+Rye, but they soon found out such conversation was most unwelcome.
+Reuben looked upon love as the biggest curse and snare of life; if David
+and William fell in love they would lose interest in Odiam, they would
+do something silly like Robert, or mad like Caro, or bad like Rose. Love
+was the enemy of Odiam, and Reuben having trodden it down himself was
+not going to see it rise and stamp on his boys. He gave them the benefit
+of his experience in no measured terms:
+
+"If you fall in love wud a gal you can't say no to her, and she'll find
+it out lamentable soon. When either of you boys finds a nice strong,
+sensible gal, wud a bit o' money, and not self-willed, such as 'ull be a
+good darter-in-law' to me, I shan't have nothing to say agäunst it. But
+döan't you go running after petticoats and mäake fools of yourselves and
+disgrace Odiam, and call it being in love. Love mäakes you soft, and if
+you're soft you might just as well be buried fur all the good you're
+likely to do yourself."
+
+David and William seemed much impressed, and Reuben congratulated
+himself. Two days later he went into the dairy to give an order, and saw
+one of the dairy girls bending over a pan of cream. Something in her
+attitude and in the soft curly down on the nape of her neck reminded him
+of Naomi and that early courting scene, now nearly fifty years ago; but
+before he had time to recall it, David came in by another door, not
+seeing his father, and running lightly up to the dairymaid suddenly
+kissed the back of her neck and ran away. She turned round with a
+scream, just in time to see him disappearing through one door, while in
+the other stood Reuben with grimly folded arms. He gave her a week's
+wages and sent her away.
+
+"Where's Agnes?" asked David with laboured carelessness a day or two
+later.
+
+"She wasted her time," said Reuben, "so I got shut of her."
+
+"She's gone!"
+
+"Yes--back to her parents at Tonbridge"--and Reuben grinned.
+
+David said no more, but for the rest of the day he seemed glum and
+abstracted. In the evening Reuben found him sitting at the corn
+accounts, staring through the open window into the dusk.
+
+"Wot's fretting you, boy?" he asked.
+
+"Naun--I'm thinking."
+
+Once or twice Reuben caught him in the same mood, and questioned him.
+But David still answered:
+
+"I'm thinking."
+
+
+§ 7.
+
+That autumn David and William went to Newhaven to see the Rye Football
+Club play the West Sussex United. They had more than once gone on such
+jaunts together, and on this occasion, trains being difficult, they put
+up for the night at a small hotel near the port. It was the first time
+they had spent a night away from Odiam, and a certain thrill attached to
+it.
+
+When the match was over they went for a stroll on the parade. There was
+not much daylight left, but the evening was warm, and the parade was
+crowded with saunterers. The young men were glad to think that there was
+no homeward train to be caught, or account of the day's doings to be
+given to their father. He always asked minutely how they spent their
+time, and it annoyed them a little.
+
+To-night they would walk and sit on the parade till supper time, then go
+to some coffee-house, and wind up at a music-hall. It was a gay
+programme and they discussed it happily, glanced at the passers-by,
+inspected the empty bandstand, and finally sat down on one of the seats
+to watch the fishing-boats trim their lamps in the amethyst fog of the
+sea. For some time they talked about the terrible licking the United had
+given Rye, arguing about this or that player, and speculating as to what
+would be the Club's fate at Hythe next week.
+
+It was David who drew William's attention to the woman sitting at the
+other end of their seat. David piqued himself on his knowledge of the
+world.
+
+"She's a--you know," he said.
+
+William peeped round his brother's shoulder.
+
+"How can you tell?"
+
+"Why, you kid, it's as plain as the nose on your face--look at her
+paint."
+
+Bill looked, his eyes opening wider than ever. She certainly was a
+disreputable female, or there was no judging by appearances. She wore a
+big frowsy hat trimmed with roses and ears of corn, under which her
+thick black hair was held up by several tawdry pins; her face was more
+lavishly than artistically adorned with rouge and _blanc de perle_, and
+she pulled a cape of lavender velvet closely round her shoulders as if
+she were cold--which might well have been, for, as far as they could
+see, her bodice consisted almost entirely of lace.
+
+"It's early for her to be prowling," said the man of the world. "I
+reckon she's having just a breath of fresh air before she starts work."
+
+"Where'll she go then?" asked Billy.
+
+"Oh, to the more crowded streets, round about the pubs and that."
+
+"I wonder how much she mäakes at it."
+
+"Not much, I reckon. She's a very low-class sort, and not at all young."
+
+"Täake care--she might hear you."
+
+"Oh, don't you worry," said the lady blandly; "I like listening to you,
+and I was only waiting till you'd stopped before I introduced myself."
+
+Bill gasped, and David forgot that he was a man of the world, and sidled
+against his brother.
+
+"Don't you know me?" continued the siren, tilting her hat back from her
+face.
+
+"No-o-o."
+
+"Ever heard of your sister Caro?"
+
+Both boys started, and stared at her in utter blankness.
+
+"Well, it wasn't to be expected as you'd recognise me. You were only
+little boys, and I've changed a bit. Maybe I shouldn't have spoken to
+you--got no decent feelings, some people would say; but I justabout
+couldn't help it. I heard you call each other David and Bill, and talk
+about Odiam and that, so I'd have known you even if you hadn't been the
+dead spit of your father."
+
+The boys still didn't seem to have much to say, so she continued:
+
+"I heard of your brother Pete the other day--never knew he'd left home
+till I saw his name down to preach at Piddinghoe Mission Hall last
+month. He's called Salvation Pete now, as I daresay you know, and I half
+thought of going to hear him, only times are so bad I couldn't afford an
+evening off. When did he leave Odiam?--I should like some news of home."
+
+"He quitted years ago, when we were little chaps. Salvation got him."
+
+"I reckon that must have come hard on fäather--he always was
+unaccountable set on Pete. Heard anything of Tilly lately?"
+
+"No, nothing particular. But fäather's going to buy the Grandturzel
+inclosure."
+
+"And Rose?"
+
+"Who's Rose?"
+
+"Your mother, my precious innocents. But look here, you shall ask me to
+supper--it'll only be doing the decent thing by me--and you shall tell
+me about them all at Odiam--as used to be at Odiam, rather, for I reckon
+there's nobody but yourselves there now."
+
+David and William looked at each other uneasily; however, there was
+nothing else to be done, and also a certain excitement and curiosity
+inspired them. So they set out with Caro to an eating-house chosen by
+herself in a small fish-smelling back street. They were much too
+embarrassed to order supper, so Caro good-naturedly did this for
+them--fish and chips, and three bottles of six ale.
+
+"I don't often come here," she said--"this is a bit too classy for me. I
+go mostly to the coffee stalls down by the harbour. You mustn't think as
+I'm coining money at this, you know. I work mostly among the fishermen,
+and they're a seedy lot. I started up town, but I'm not so young as I
+was, and sometimes even at the harbour I find it unaccountable hard to
+git off."
+
+With the gas-light flaring on her raddled face, showing up mercilessly
+the tawdriness and shoddiness of her clothes, which reeked of a cheap
+scent, the boys did not find it hard to believe that she often had a
+struggle to "git off "--indeed, it was a mystery how any man, however
+unfastidious, however fuddled, could kiss or take kisses from this
+bundle of rags and bones and paint. Caro seemed to notice the
+disparaging look.
+
+"Oh, I'm a bit off colour to-night, but I can tell you I was a fine girl
+when I went away with Joe--and all the time I lived with him, too, first
+at the Camber and then at New Romney; there was many as 'ud have been
+proud to git me from him. But I stuck to him faithful, I did, till one
+morning I woke up and found him gone, off on a voyage to
+Australia--wonder if he met Robert--having given me over to a pal of his
+for five pounds and a set of oilskins. Oh, I can tell you I took on
+something awful--I wasn't used to men in those days. But Joe's pal he
+was a decent chap--there was nothing the matter with him save that he
+wasn't Joe. He was unaccountable good to me, and I stayed with him three
+years--and then I hooked it, scarcely knew why. I got a post as barmaid
+in Seaford, but the landlord took up with me and his missus chucked me
+out. And now I'm here."
+
+"Have--have you been here long?" stammered David, feeling he must say
+something.
+
+"Three year or so. I started up town. But we've spoken enough about me.
+Let's hear about you, and the farm. How's Richard?"
+
+The boys told her; they described their prosperous brother with his
+white shirt-front, his pince-nez, his ring, and his high-born wife. As
+they talked they grew more at their ease.
+
+"Well," said Caro, "I reckon he got away in time."
+
+"From what?"
+
+"From Odiam, of course. I stayed too long. I stayed till I was half
+killed by the place. If I'd gone off as a young girl I reckon I'd have
+done well by myself, but I waited on till I was ready to take anything
+that was going, and when you're like that it's too late."
+
+"I shouldn't think Richard was sorry he left."
+
+"No--and mark you, nor am I. It 'ud have been worse for me if I'd
+stayed. I'm miserable in a different way from what I was there--somehow
+the life's easier. I'm not happy, but I'm jolly. I'm not good, but I'm
+pleasant-like. It's all a change for the better. See?"
+
+"Then you don't wish as you wur back again?"
+
+"Back! Back with fäather! Not me! Now let's hear some more about
+him--does he ever speak to you of your mother?"
+
+For the rest of the meal they discussed the absent ones--Rose, Robert,
+Albert, Benjamin, Tilly, the boys hearing a great deal that had never
+come to their ears before. Caro ordered two more bottles of six, and in
+the end the party became quite convivial, and David and William,
+forgetting the strangeness of it all, were sorry when their sister at
+last stood up and announced that she must wobble off or she'd be late.
+
+"You'll tell father you met me?" she said as they left the eating-house.
+
+David and William looked at each other, and hesitated.
+
+"You've no call to be ashamed of me," said Caro rather irritably.
+
+"We--we äun't ashamed of you."
+
+"That's right--for you've no call to be. I was driven to this, couldn't
+help myself. Besides, I'm no worse than a lot of women wot you call
+respectable--at least, I put some sort of a price on myself, if it's
+only five shillings. Now good night, young men, and thank you for a
+very pleasant evening. I don't suppose as you'll ever see me again. And
+mind--you tell father as, no matter the life I lead and the knocks I
+get, I've never once, not once, regretted the day I ran off from his old
+farm. Now mind--you tell him that."
+
+
+§ 8.
+
+The boys told him. Reuben listened in silence save for one ejaculation
+of "the dirty bitch!"
+
+David nudged William.
+
+"And she asked us particular to say as she'd never regretted the day she
+left Odiam, or wished herself back there, nuther."
+
+"She wur purty säafe to say that--for who'd have her back, I'd lik to
+know? Larmentable creature she always wur, spanneling around lik a mangy
+cat. Always thin and always miserable--I'm glad to be shut of her. But
+she seemed cheery when you saw her?"
+
+"Unaccountable cheery--and she drank three bottles of six ale."
+
+"Um," said Reuben.
+
+The boys had one or two secret talks about Caro. She also stimulated
+that habit of "thinking" which their father so thoroughly disapproved
+of. Somehow their encounter with her, combined with their encounter with
+Richard, seemed to have modified their enthusiasm for Odiam. They could
+not help comparing that supper at Newhaven with that dinner at Rye, and
+wondering if it was true what she had said about Richard having got away
+in time, whereas she had been too late.
+
+"And yet she was glad she'd gone--she'd rather be free too late than not
+at all."
+
+"Bill, do you think that if we stay here, Odiam 'ull' do for us wot it
+did for Caro?"
+
+"I döan't think so. Fäather was much harder on Caro than he is on us."
+
+"He's not hard on us--but he's unaccountable interfering; it maddens me
+sometimes."
+
+"Seems as if he didn't trust us--seems sometimes as if he was afraid
+we'd go off like the others."
+
+"Reckon he is--he saw how we envied Richard."
+
+"Davy, it 'ud be cruel of us to go and leave him."
+
+"I döan't say as I want to do that."
+
+"Besides, it äun't likely as we'd do as well fur ourselves as Richard.
+We've no Miss Bardon to trouble about us--reckon we'd come to grief like
+Albert."
+
+"Maybe we would."
+
+
+§ 9.
+
+Four years later Reuben bought the farmstead of Totease. Brazier died,
+and the Manor, anxious as usual for ready money, put up his farm for
+sale. It was a good place of about sixty acres, with some beautiful hop
+gardens and plenty of water. Reuben felt that it would be unwise to
+neglect such an opportunity for enlarging the boundaries of Odiam. He
+outbid one or two small farmers, put the place under repair, engaged
+more hands, and set to work to develop a large business in hops.
+
+His enthusiasm was immense; he saw quicker returns from hops than from
+anything else, and the sheltered position of Totease made it possible to
+cover the whole of it with goldings and fuggles. He built a couple of
+new oasts with concrete roofs, and announced his intention of engaging
+London pickers that autumn. There was great perturbation at the
+Rectory--the Manor had long since abandoned social crusades--because
+Reuben housed these pickers indiscriminately in a barn. It was also said
+that he underpaid them. The rector was quite insensible to his argument
+that if a man were fool enough to work for two shillings a day, why
+should wise men lose money by preventing him? Also he compelled no one
+to come, so the indiscriminate sleepers were only, so to speak,
+volunteers--and when the rector persisted he became coarse on the
+subject.
+
+His temper had grown a little difficult of late years--it had never been
+a particularly pleasant one, but it had been fierce rather than quick.
+His sons felt uneasily that they were partly responsible for this--they
+irritated him by asserting their independence. Also he suspected them of
+a lack of enthusiasm. He had tried to arrange a marriage for David with
+the daughter of the new farmer at Kitchenhour. She was ten years older
+than he, and not strikingly beautiful, but she satisfied Reuben's
+requirements by being as strong as a horse and having a hundred a year
+of her own. His indignation was immense when David refused this prize.
+
+"I can't abear the sight of her."
+
+"You'll git used to her, lad."
+
+"Well, I want something better than that."
+
+"She's got a hundred a year, and that 'ud mäake our fortunes at Odiam."
+
+"Odiam's doing splendid--you don't want no more."
+
+"I justabout do. I shan't be satisfied till I've bought up Grandturzel
+säum as I've bought Totease."
+
+"Well, I'm not going to sacrifice myself for Odiam, and you've no right
+to ask me, dad."
+
+"If I haven't got a right to ask you that, wot have I, I'd lik to know?"
+
+
+§ 10.
+
+In the spring of '99 old Jury died over at Cheat Land. His wife had died
+a year or two earlier--Reuben had meant to go over and see Alice, but
+the untimely calving of a new Alderney had put the idea entirely out of
+his head. On this occasion, however, he attended the funeral, with the
+other farmers of the district, and at the churchyard gate had a few
+words with Alice before she went home.
+
+She was a middle-aged woman now, but her eyes were as bright as ever,
+which made her look strangely young. Her hair had turned very prettily
+grey, she was fatter in the face, and on the whole looked well and
+happy, in spite of her father's death. She told him she was going to
+live at Rye--she had a tiny income, derived from Jury's life insurance,
+and she meant to do art needlework for an ecclesiastical firm. Reuben
+experienced a vague sense of annoyance--not that he wanted her to be
+unhappy, but he felt that she had no right to happiness, going out into
+the world, poor and alone, her parents dead, her life's love missed....
+
+That summer the country was shaken by rumours of war, Reuben; having
+more leisure on his hands, spent it in the study of his daily paper. He
+could now read simple sentences, and considered himself quite an
+educated man. When war at last broke out in South Africa he was
+delighted. It was the best of all possible wars, organised by the best
+of all possible Governments, under the best of all possible ministers.
+Chamberlain became his hero--not that he understood or sympathised with
+his Imperialism, but he admired him for his attitude towards the small
+nations. He hated all talk about preserving the weak--such was not
+nature's way, the way of farms; there the weakest always went to the
+wall, and he could not see why different methods should obtain in the
+world at large. If Reuben had been a politician he would have kept alive
+no sick man of Europe, protected no down-trodden Balkan States. One of
+the chief reasons why he wanted to see the Boers wiped out was because
+they had muddled their colonisation, failed to establish themselves, or
+to make of the arid veldt what he had made of Boarzell.
+
+"They're no good, them Boers," he announced at the Cocks; "there they've
+bin fur years and years, and they say as how that Transvaal's lik a
+desert. They've got mizzling liddle farms such as I wudn't give sixpence
+for--and all that gurt veldt's lik the palm of my hand, naun growing.
+They döan't deserve to have a country."
+
+He expressed himself so eloquently in this fashion that the member for
+the Rye division of Sussex--the borough had been disenfranchised in
+'85--asked him to speak at a recruiting meeting at the Court Hall.
+Unluckily Reuben's views on recruiting were peculiar.
+
+"Now's your chance," he announced to the assembled yokels; "corn prices
+is going up, and every man who wants to do well by himself had better
+grub his pastures and sow grain. Suppose we wur ever to fight the
+French--who are looking justabout as ugly at us now as they did in
+Boney's time--think wot it 'ud be if we had grain-stocks in the country,
+and cud settle our own prices. My advice to the men of Rye is the same
+as wot I gave in this very hall thirty-five years ago--sow grain, and
+grain, and more grain."
+
+The member, the colonel of the volunteers, and others present, pointed
+out to Reuben afterwards that the situation was military, not
+agricultural; but it was characteristic of him to see all situations
+from the agricultural point of view. His old ideas of an agricultural
+combine, which had fallen miserably to pieces in '65, now revived in all
+their strength. He saw East Sussex as a country of organised
+corn-growing, Odiam at the head. His rather eclectic newspaper reading
+had impressed him with the idea that England was on the verge of war
+with one or two European Powers, notably the French, whose ribald
+gloatings over British disasters stirred up all the fury of the man who
+had been born within range of the Napoleonic wars and bred on tales of
+Boney and his atrocities.
+
+He was dismayed by the lack of local enthusiasm. He dug up one or two of
+his own pastures and planted wheat; he even sacrificed ten acres of his
+precious hops, but nobody seemed inclined to follow his example. The
+neighbourhood was ornately patriotic, flags flew from the oast-houses at
+Socknersh, Union Jacks washed to delicate pastel shades by the
+chastening rain--while the Standard misleadingly proclaimed that the
+Royal Family was in residence at Burntbarns. On Odiam the boys sang:
+
+
+     "Goodbye, Dolly, I must leave you
+       Though it breaks my heart to go--
+     Something tells me I am wanted
+       At the Front to drive away the foe."
+
+
+Some of them in fact did go. Others remained, and sang:
+
+
+     "Good-bye, my Bluebell, farewell to you,
+       One last long look into your eyes of blue--
+     'Mid camp-fires gleaming, 'mid shot and shell,
+       I will be dreaming of my own Bluebell."
+
+
+§ 11.
+
+Quite early in the war David and William walked home in silence after
+seeing a troop-train off from Rye, then suddenly, when they came to
+Odiam, shook hands.
+
+"It's our chance," said Bill.
+
+"We've waited for it long enough."
+
+"I couldn't have stood much more, and this will be a good excuse."
+
+"The old man 'ull take on no end--wot with his corn-growing plans and
+that."
+
+"Funny how he never seems to think of anything but Odiam."
+
+"Strikes me as he's mad--got what you call a fixed idea, same as mad
+people have."
+
+"He's sensible enough--but he's unaccountable hard to live with."
+
+"Yes--he's fair made me hate Odiam. I liked the place well enough when I
+was a little lad, but he's made me sick of it. It's all very well
+living on a farm and working on it, but when you're supposed to give up
+your whole life to it and think of nothing else, well, it's too much."
+
+"We won't tell him that, though, Davy--we'll make out as it's pure
+patriotic feeling on our part."
+
+"Yes; I don't want him to think we're set on getting away--but, by gum,
+Bill! we are."
+
+"If this war hadn't happened we'd have had to have thought of something
+else."
+
+So they went and broke their news to Reuben. They were careful and
+considerate--but he was knocked out by the blow.
+
+"Going!--both of you!" he cried.
+
+"We feel we've got to. They want all the young men."
+
+"But you could help your country just as well by staying at höame and
+growing corn."
+
+"You can grow corn without us--we're wanted out there."
+
+"But you're all I've got--one go, and t'other stay."
+
+"No, we must stick together."
+
+"Oh, I know, I know--you've always thought more of each other than of
+your father or of Odiam."
+
+"Don't say that, dad--we care for you very much, and we're coming back."
+
+"There's no one gone from here as has ever come back."
+
+For the first time they noticed something of the cracked falsetto of old
+age in his voice, generally so firm and ringing. Their hearts smote
+them, but the instinct of self-preservation was stronger than pity. They
+knew now for certain that if they stayed Odiam would devour them, or at
+best they would escape maimed and only half alive. Either they must go
+at once--in time, like Richard, or go in a few years--too late, like
+Caro. Besides, the war called to their young blood; they thought of
+guns and bayonets, camp-fires and battlefields, glory and victory. Their
+youth called them, and even their father's game and militant old age
+could not silence its bugles and fifes.
+
+The next day they left Odiam for the recruiting station at Rye. Reuben
+and the farm-hands watched them as they marched off whistling "Good-bye,
+Dolly, I must leave you," shaking their shoulders in all the delight of
+their new freedom. They had gone--as Albert had gone, as Robert, as
+Richard, as Tilly, as Benjamin, as Caro, as Pete had gone. Reuben stood
+erect and stiff, his eyes following them as they turned out of the drive
+and disappeared down the Peasmarsh road.
+
+When they were out of sight he walked slowly to the new ground near the
+crest of Boarzell, which was being prepared for the winter wheat. He
+made a sign to the man who was guiding the plough, and taking the
+handles himself, shouted to the team. The plough went forward, the red
+earth turned, sprinkled, creamed into long furrows, and soothed Reuben's
+aching fatherhood with its moist fertile smell. It was the faithful
+earth, which was his enemy and yet his comforter--which was always
+there, though his children forsook him--the good earth to which he would
+go at last.
+
+
+§ 12.
+
+Reuben was now alone at Odiam--for the first time. Of course Harry was
+with him still, but Harry did not count. There was an extraordinary
+vitality in him, none the less; it was as if the energies unused by his
+brain were diverted to keep together his crumbled body. He grew more
+shrivelled, more ape-like every day, and yet he persisted in life. He
+still scraped at his fiddle, and would often sit for hours at a time
+mumbling--"Only a poor old man--a poor old man--old man--old man," over
+and over again, sometimes with a sudden shrill cry of "Salvation's got
+me!" or "Another wedding!--we're always having weddings in this house."
+His brother avoided him, and did his best to ignore him--he was the scar
+of an old wound.
+
+His loneliness seemed to drive Reuben closer to the earth. He still had
+that divine sense of the earth being at once his enemy and his only
+friend. Just as the gorse which murders the soil with its woody fibres
+sweetens all the air with its fragrance, so Reuben when he fought the
+harsh strangling powers of the ground also drank up its sweetness like
+honey. He did not work so hard as formerly, though he could still dig
+his furrow with the best of them--he knew that the days had come when he
+must spare himself. But he maintained his intercourse with the earth by
+means of long walks in the surrounding country.
+
+Hitherto he had not gone much afield. If affairs had called him to
+Battle, Robertsbridge, or Cranbrook, he had driven or ridden there as a
+matter of business--he had seldom walked in the more distant bye-lanes,
+or followed the field-paths beyond the marshes. Now he tramped over
+nearly the whole country within a radius of ten miles--he was a tireless
+walker, and when he came home knew only the healthy fatigue which is
+more delight than pain and had rewarded his dripping exertions as a
+young man.
+
+He would walk southwards to Eggs Hole and Dinglesden, then across the
+Tillingham marshes to Coldblow and Pound House, then over the Brede
+River to Snailham, and turning up by Guestling Thorn, look down on
+Hastings from the mill by Batchelor's Bump. Or he would go northwards to
+strange ways in Kent, down to the Rother Marshes by Methersham and
+Moon's Green, then over to Lambstand, and by side-tracks and bostals to
+Benenden--back by Scullsgate and Nineveh, and the lonely Furnace road.
+
+He learned to love the moving shadows of clouds travelling over a
+sunlit view--to love ridged distances fading from dark bice, through
+blue, to misty grey. He used to watch for the sparkle of light on far
+cottage windows, the white sheen of farmhouse walls and the capped
+turrets of oasts. But he loved best of all to feel the earth under his
+cheek when he cast himself down, the smell of her teeming sap, the
+sensation that he lay on a kind breast, generous and faithful. It was
+strange that the result of all his battles should be this sense of
+perfect union, this comfort in his loneliness. Reuben was not ashamed at
+eighty years old to lie full length in some sun-hazed field, and stretch
+his body over the grass, the better to feel that fertile quietness and
+moist freshness which is the comfort of those who make the ground their
+bed.
+
+He never let anyone see him in these moments--somehow they were almost
+sacred to him, the religion of his godless old age. But soon the more
+distant cottagers came to know him by sight, and watch for the tall old
+man who so often tramped past their doors. He always walked quickly, his
+head erect, a stout ash stick in his hand. He was always alone--not even
+a dog accompanied him. He wore dark corduroys, and either a wide-brimmed
+felt hat, or no hat at all, proud of the luxuriance of his iron-grey
+hair. They soon came to know who he was.
+
+"'Tis old Mus' Backfield from Odiam farm by Peasmarsh. They say as he's
+a hard man."
+
+"They say as he's got the purtiest farm in Sussex--he's done wäonders
+fur Odiam, surelye."
+
+"But his wife and children's run away."
+
+"They say he's a hard man."
+
+"And he's allus alöan."
+
+"He döan't seem to care for nobody--never gives you the good marnun."
+
+"It's larmentäable to see an old feller lik that all alöan, wudout
+friend nor kin."
+
+"He's straight enough in spite of it all--game as a youngster he is."
+
+
+§ 13.
+
+Meanwhile the South African War dragged its muddled length from
+Stormberg to Magersfontein, through Colenso to Spion Kop. It meant more
+to Reuben than any earlier war--more than the Crimea, for then there
+were no newspaper correspondents, more than the Indian Mutiny, for that
+was with blacks, or the Franco-Prussian, for that was between furriners.
+Besides, there were two additional factors of tremendous importance--he
+could now spell out a good deal of his daily paper, and his sons were
+both fighting. They had gone out early in November, and were very good
+about writing to him.
+
+They could afford to be generous now they were free, so they sent him
+long letters, carefully printed out, as he could not read running hand.
+They told him wonderful stories of camps and bivouacs, of skirmishes and
+snipings. They enlarged on the grilling fierceness of the December sun
+which had burnt their faces brick-red and peeled their noses--on the
+flies which swarmed thicker by far than over Odiam midden--on the awful
+dysentery that grabbed at half their pals--on the hypocritical Boers,
+who read the Bible and used dum-dum bullets.
+
+They came safely through Magersfontein, the only big encounter in which
+they were both engaged. David was made a sergeant soon afterwards.
+Reuben sent them out tobacco and chocolate, and contributed to funds for
+supplying the troops with woollen comforts. He felt himself something of
+a patriot, and would talk eagerly about "My son the Sergeant," or "My
+boys out at the Front."
+
+He was very busy over his new corn scheme, and as time went on came to
+resent the attitude of the European Powers in not attacking England and
+forcing her to subsist on her own grain supplies. All Europe hated
+Britain, so his newspapers said, so why did not all Europe attack
+Britain with its armies as well as with its Press? We would beat it, of
+course--what was all Europe but a set of furriners?--meantime our
+foreign wheat supplies would be cut off by the prowling navies of
+France, Germany, Russia and everywhere else, which Reuben imagined
+crowding the seas, while the true-born sons of Britain, sustaining
+themselves for the first time on British-grown corn, and getting drunk
+for the first time on beer innocent of foreign hop-substitutes, would
+drive upstart Europe to its grave, and start a millennium of high prices
+and heavy grain duties.
+
+However, Europe was disobliging; corn prices hardly rose at all, and
+Reuben was driven to the unwelcome thought that the only hope of the
+British farmer was milk--at least, that was not likely ever to be
+imported from abroad.
+
+The year wore on. Kimberley and Ladysmith were relieved. Rye hung out
+its flags, and sang "Dolly Grey" louder than ever. Then Mafeking was
+saved, and a bonfire was lit up at Leasan House, in which a couple of
+barns and some stables were accidentally involved. Everyone wore penny
+medallion portraits of officers--Roberts and Baden-Powell were the
+favourites at Odiam, which nearly came to blows with Burntbarns over the
+rival merits of French. While Reuben himself bought a photograph of
+Kitchener in a red, white, and blue frame.
+
+Then suddenly an honour fell on Odiam. The War Office itself sent it a
+telegram. But the honour was taken sadly, for the telegram announced
+that Sergeant David Backfield had been killed in action at Laing's Nek.
+
+
+§ 14.
+
+It was not the first time death had visited Reuben, but it was the first
+time death had touched him. His father's death, his mother's, George's,
+Albert's, had all somehow seemed much more distant than this very
+distant death in Africa. Even Naomi's had not impressed him so much with
+sorrow for her loss as sorrow for the inadequacy of her life.
+
+But David's death struck home. David and William were the only two
+children whom he had really loved. They were his hope, his future. Once
+again he tasted the agonies of bereaved fatherhood, with the added
+tincture of hopelessness. He would never again see David's brown,
+strong, merry face, hear his voice, build plans for him. For some days
+the paternal feeling was so strong that he craved for his boy quite
+apart from Odiam, just for himself. It had taken eighty years and his
+son's death to make a father of him.
+
+An added grief was the absence of a funeral. Reuben did not feel this as
+the relief it would have been to some. He had given handsome and
+expensive funerals to those not half so dear as this young man who had
+been hurried into his soldier's grave on the lonely veldt. In course of
+time William sent him a snapshot of the place, with its little wooden
+cross. Reuben dictated a tremendously long letter through Maude the
+dairy-woman, in which he said he wanted a marble head-stone put up, and
+"of Odiam, Sussex," added to the inscription.
+
+The neighbourhood pitied him in his loss. There was indeed something
+rather pathetic about this old man of eighty, who had lost nearly all
+his kith and kin, yet now tasted bereavement for the first time. They
+noticed that he lost some of the erectness which had distinguished him,
+the corners of his mouth drooped, and his hair, though persistently
+thick, passed from iron grey to a dusty white.
+
+One day when he was walking through the village he heard a woman say as
+he passed--"There he goes! I pity un, poor old man!" The insult went
+into him like a knife. He turned round and gave the woman his fiercest
+scowl. Old indeed! Had one ever heard of such a thing! old!--and he
+could guide the plough and dig furrows in the marl, and stack, and reap
+with any of 'em. Old!--why, he was only--
+
+--He was eighty. He suddenly realised that, after all, he _was_ old. He
+did not carry himself as erectly as he had used; there were pains and
+stiffness in his limbs and rheumatic swellings in his joints. His hair
+was white, and his once lusty arms were now all shrivelled skin and
+sinew, with the ossified veins standing out hard and grey. He was what
+Harry was always calling himself--"only a poor old man"--a poor old man
+who had lost his son, whom cottage women pitied from their
+doorsteps--and be hemmed to them, the sluts!
+
+
+§ 15.
+
+Meantime affairs at Grandturzel were going from bad to worse. Reuben did
+not speak much about Grandturzel, but he watched it all the same, and as
+time wore on a look of quiet satisfaction would overspread his face when
+it was mentioned at the Cocks. He watched the tiles drip gradually off
+its barn roofs, he watched the thatch of its haggards peel and moult, he
+watched the oasts lose their black coats of tar, while the wind battered
+off their caps, and the skeleton poles stuck up forlornly from their
+turrets. Holes wore in the neat house-front, windows were broken and not
+mended, torn curtains waved signals of distress. It was only a question
+of waiting.
+
+Reuben often went to the Cocks, for he had heard it said that one's
+beer-drinking capacities diminished with old age, and he was afraid that
+if he stayed away, men would think it was on that account. So he went
+frequently, particularly if the weather was of a kind to keep old people
+at home. He did not talk much, preferring to listen to what was said,
+sitting quietly at his table in the corner, with the quart of Barclay
+and Perkins's mild which had been his evening drink from a boy.
+
+It was at the Cocks that he learned most of Grandturzel's straits,
+though he occasionally made visits of inspection. Realf had messed his
+hops that autumn, and the popular verdict was that he could not possibly
+hold out much longer.
+
+"Wot'll become of him, I wäonder?" asked Hilder, the new man at
+Socknersh.
+
+"Someone 'ull buy him up, I reckon," and young Coalbran, who had
+succeeded his father at Doozes, winked at the rest of the bar, and the
+bar to a man turned round and stared at old Reuben, who drew himself up,
+but said nothing.
+
+"Wot d'you think of Grandturzel, Mus' Backfield?" someone asked
+waggishly.
+
+"Naun," said Reuben; "I'm waiting."
+
+He did not have to wait long. A few days later he was told that somebody
+wanted to see him, and in the parlour found his daughter Tilly.
+
+He had seen Tilly at intervals through the years, but as he had never
+allowed himself to give her more than a withering glance, he had not a
+very definite idea of her. She was now nearly fifty-five, and more than
+inclined to stoutness--indeed, her comfortable figure was almost
+ludicrous compared with her haggard, anxious face, scored with lines and
+patched with shadows. Her grey hair was thin, and straggled on her
+forehead, her eyes had lost their brightness; yet there was nothing wild
+or terrible about her face, it was just domesticity in desperation.
+
+"Fäather," she said as Reuben came into the room.
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Henry döan't know I've come," she murmured helplessly.
+
+"Wot have you come fur?"
+
+"To ask you--to ask you--Oh, fäather!" she burst into tears, her broad
+bosom heaved under her faded gown, and she pressed her hands against it
+as if to keep it still.
+
+"Döan't täake on lik that," said Reuben, "tell me wot you've come fur."
+
+"I dursn't now--it's no use--you're a hard man."
+
+"Then döan't come sobbing and howling in my parlour. You can go if
+you've naun more to say."
+
+She pulled herself together with an effort.
+
+"I thought you might--perhaps you might help us ..."
+
+Reuben said nothing:
+
+"We're in a larmentable way up at Grandturzel."
+
+Her father still said nothing.
+
+"I döan't know how we shall pull through another year."
+
+"Nor do I."
+
+"Oh, fäather, döan't be so hard!"
+
+"You said I wur a hard man."
+
+"But you'll--you'll help us jest this once. I know you're angry wud me,
+and maybe I've treated you badly. But after all, I'm your daughter, and
+my children are your grandchildren."
+
+"How many have you got?"
+
+"Five--the youngest's rising ten."
+
+There was a pause. Reuben walked over to the window and looked out.
+Tilly stared at his back imploringly. If only he would help her with
+some word or sign of understanding! But he would not--he had not
+changed; she had forsaken him and married his rival, and he would never
+forget or forgive.
+
+She had been a fool to come, and she moved a step or two towards the
+door. Then suddenly she remembered the anguish which had driven her to
+Odiam. She had been frantic with grief for her husband and children;
+only the thought of their need had made it possible for her to override
+her inbred fear and dislike of Reuben and beg him to help them. She had
+come, and since she had come it must not be in vain; the worst was over
+now that she was actually here, that she had actually pleaded. She would
+face it out.
+
+"Fäather!" she called sharply.
+
+He turned round.
+
+"I thought maybe you'd lend us some money--just fur a time--till we're
+straight agäun."
+
+"You'd better ask somebody else."
+
+"There's no one round here as can lend us wot we need--it's--it's a good
+deal as we'll want to see us through."
+
+"Can't you mortgage?"
+
+"We are mortgaged--the last foot"--and she burst into tears again.
+
+Reuben watched her for a minute or two in silence.
+
+"You've bin a bad daughter," he said at last, "and you've got no right
+to call on me. But I've had my plans for Grandturzel this long while."
+
+She shuddered.
+
+"This mortgage business alters 'em a bit. I'll have to think it over.
+Maybe I'll let you hear to-morrow mornun."
+
+"Oh, fäather, if only you'll do anything fur us, we'll bless you all our
+lives."
+
+"I döan't want you to bless me--and maybe you wöan't täake my terms."
+
+"I reckon we haven't much choice," she said sorrowfully.
+
+"Well, you've only got wot you desarve," said Reuben, turning to the
+door.
+
+Tilly opened her mouth to say something, but was wise, and held her
+tongue.
+
+
+§ 16.
+
+The next morning Reuben sent his ultimatum to Grandturzel. He would pay
+off Realf's mortgage and put the farm into thorough repair, on condition
+that Grandturzel was made over to him, root, stock, crop, and inclosure,
+as his own property--the Realfs to live in the dwelling-house rent free
+and work the place for a monthly wage.
+
+These rather strange terms had been the result of much thought on his
+part. His original plan had been simply to buy the farm for as little
+money as Realf would take, but Tilly's visit had inspired him with the
+happy thought of getting it for nothing. As the land was mortgaged it
+would be very difficult for Realf to find buyers, who would also be
+discouraged by the farm's ruinous state of disrepair. Indeed, Reuben
+thought himself rather generous to offer what he did. He might have
+stipulated for Realf to pay him back in a given time part of the money
+disbursed on his account. After all, mortgage and repairs would amount
+to over a thousand pounds, so when he talked of getting the place for
+nothing it was merely because the mortgage and the repairs would have to
+be tackled anyhow. He had little fear of Realf's refusing his terms--not
+only was he very unlikely to find another purchaser, but no one else
+would let him stay on, still less pay him for doing so. Reuben had
+thought of keeping him on as tenant, but had come to the conclusion that
+such a position would make him too independent. He preferred rather to
+have him as a kind of bailiff--the monthly, instead of the weekly, wage
+making acceptance just possible for his pride.
+
+Of course Reuben himself would rather have wandered roofless for the
+rest of his life than live as a hireling on the farm which had once been
+his own. But he hardly thought Realf would take such a stand--he would
+consider his wife and children, and accept for their sakes. "If he's got
+the sperrit to refuse I'll think better of him than I've ever thought in
+my life, and offer him a thousand fur the pläace--but I reckon I'm purty
+safe."
+
+He was right. Realf accepted his offer, partly persuaded by Tilly. His
+mortgage foreclosed in a couple of months, and he had no hopes of
+renewing it. If he rejected Reuben's terms, he would probably soon find
+himself worse off than ever--his farm gone with nothing to show for it,
+and himself a penniless exile. On the other hand, his position as
+bailiff, though ignominious, would at least leave him Grandturzel as his
+home and a certain share in its management. He might be able to save
+some money, and perhaps at last buy a small place of his own, and start
+afresh.... He primed himself with such ideas to help drug his pride.
+After all, he could not sacrifice his wife and children to make a
+holiday for his self-respect. Tilly was past her prime, and not able for
+much hard work, and though his eldest boys had enlisted, like Reuben's,
+and were thus no longer on his mind, he had two marriageable girls at
+home besides his youngest boy of ten. One's wife and children were more
+to one than one's farm or one's position as a farmer--and if they were
+not, they ought to be.
+
+So a polite if rather cold letter was written accepting Odiam's
+conditions, and Tilly thanked heaven that she had sacrificed herself and
+gone to plead with her father.
+
+
+§ 17.
+
+The whole of Boarzell now belonged to Odiam, except the Fair-place at
+the top. Reuben would stare covetously at the fir and gorse clump which
+still defied him; but he had reached that point in a successful man's
+development when he comes to believe in his own success; bit by bit he
+had wrested Boarzell from the forces that held it, and he could not
+think that one patch would withstand him to the end.
+
+As luck would have it, the only piece that was not his was the Moor's
+most characteristic feature, the knob of firs that made it a landmark
+for miles round. While they still stood men could still talk of and
+point at Boarzell, but when he had cut them down, grubbed up the gorse
+at their roots, ploughed over their place--then Boarzell would be lost,
+swallowed up in Odiam; it would be at most only a name, perhaps not even
+that. Sometimes Reuben shook his fist at the fir clump and muttered,
+"I'll have you yet, you see if I döan't, surelye."
+
+Meantime he devoted his attention to the land he had just acquired. The
+Grandturzel inclosure was put under cultivation like the rest of
+Boarzell, and a stiff, tough, stony ground it proved, reviving all
+Reuben's love of a fight. He was glad to have once more, as he put it, a
+piece of land he could get his teeth into. Realf could not help a half
+resentful admiration when he saw his father-in-law's ploughs tearing
+through the flints, tumbling into long chocolate furrows what he had
+always looked upon as an irreclaimable wilderness.
+
+He accepted his position with a fairly good grace--to complain would
+have made things worse for Tilly and the children. He was inclined
+privately to scoff at some of Reuben's ideas on farming, but even as he
+did so he realised the irony of it. He might have done otherwise, yes,
+but he was kicked out of his farm, the servant of the man whose methods
+he thought ridiculous.
+
+Reuben on his side thought Realf a fool. He despised him for failing to
+lift Grandturzel out of adversity, as he had lifted Odiam. He would not
+have kept him on as bailiff if he had thought there would have
+otherwise been any chance of his accepting Odiam's terms. He disliked
+seeing him about the place, and did not find--as the neighbourhood
+pictured he must--any satisfaction in watching his once triumphant rival
+humbly performing the duties of a servant on the farm that used to be
+his own. Reuben's hatreds were not personal, they were merely a question
+of roods and acres, and when that side of them was appeased, nothing
+remained. They were, like almost everything else of his, a question of
+agriculture, and having now settled Realf agriculturally he had no
+grudge against him personally.
+
+About this time old Beatup died. He was Odiam's first hand, and had seen
+the farm rise from sixty acres and a patch on Boarzell to two hundred
+acres and nearly the whole Moor. Reuben was sorry to lose him, for he
+was an old-fashioned servant--which meant that he gave much in the way
+of work and asked little in the way of wages or rest. The young men
+impudently demanded twenty shillings a week, wanted afternoons in the
+town, and complained if he worked them overtime--there had never been
+such a thing as overtime till board schools were started.
+
+However, of late Beatup had been of very little use. He was some years
+younger than Reuben, but he looked quite ten years older, and his figure
+was almost exactly like an S. The earth had used him hardly, steaming
+his bones into strange shapes and swellings, parching his skin to
+something dark and crackled like burnt paper, filling him with stiffness
+and pains. Reuben had straightened his shoulders, which had drooped a
+little after David's death, and once more carried his old age proudly,
+as the crown of a hale and strenuous life.
+
+He looked forward to William coming back and settling down at Odiam. It
+would be good to have companionship again. The end of the war was in
+sight--only a guerilla campaign was being waged among the kopjes,
+Kruger had fled from Pretoria, and everyone talked of Peace.
+
+At last Peace became an accomplished fact. Reuben could not help a few
+disloyal regrets that his corn-growing had been in vain, but he consoled
+himself with the thought that now he would have William back in a few
+weeks. He expected a letter from him, and grew irritable when none came.
+Billy had not been so good about writing since David's death, but his
+father thought that he at least might have written to announce his
+return. As things were, he did not know when to expect him. He supposed
+he was bound to get his discharge, and he would have heard if anything
+had happened to him. Why did not William hurry home to share Odiam's
+greatness with his old father?
+
+At last the letter came. Reuben took it into the oast-barn to read it.
+His hands trembled as he tore the envelope, and there was a dimness in
+his eyes, so that he could scarcely make out the big printing hand. But
+it was not the dimness of his eyes which was responsible for the
+impossible thing he saw; at first he thought it must be, and rubbed
+them--yet the unthinkable was still there. William was not coming back
+at all.
+
+
+     "This place suits me, and I think I could do well for myself out
+     here. I feel I should get on better if I was my own master.... She
+     was good and sensible-like, and looked as if she could manage
+     things. So I married her.... We're starting up on a little farm
+     near Jo'burg ... I can't see it matters her being Dutch ... fifty
+     acres of pasture ... ten head of cattle ... niggers to work ..."
+
+
+... The words danced and swam before Reuben, with black heaving spaces
+between that grew wider and wider, till at last they swallowed him up.
+
+For the first time in his life he had fainted.
+
+
+§ 18.
+
+Reuben's last hope was now gone--for his family, at least. He was forced
+regretfully to the conclusion that he was not a successful family man.
+Whatever methods he tried with his children, severity or indulgence, he
+seemed bound to fail. He had had great expectations of David and
+William, brought up, metaphorically, on cakes and ale, and they had
+turned out as badly as Albert, Richard--Reuben still looked upon Richard
+as a failure--Tilly, or Caro, who had been brought up, literally, on
+cuffs and kicks.
+
+And the moral of it all was--not to trust anyone but yourself to carry
+on with you or after you the work of your life. Your ambition is
+another's afterthought, your afterthought his ambition. He would not
+give a halfpenny for that for which you would give your life. If you
+have many little loves, you have always a comrade; if you have one great
+love, you are always alone. This is the Law.
+
+His pride would not let him give way to his grief. He was not going to
+have any more of "Pity the poor old man." He mentioned William's
+decision almost casually at the Cocks. However, he need not have been
+afraid. "No more'n he desarves," was the universal comment ... "shameful
+the way he treated Grandturzel" ... "no feeling fur his own kin" ...
+"the young feller was wise not to come back." Indeed, locally the matter
+was looked upon as a case of poetic justice, and the rector's sermon on
+Sunday, treating of the wonderful sagacity of Providence, was taken,
+rightly or wrongly, to have a personal application.
+
+Meantime, in Reuben's heart was darkness. As was usual when any fear or
+despair laid hold of him, he became obsessed by a terror of his old age.
+Generally he felt so well and vigorous that he scarcely realised he was
+eighty-two; but now he felt an old man, alone and childless. Harry's
+reiterated "only a poor old man ... a poor old man," rang like a knell
+in his ears. It was likely that he would not live much longer--he would
+probably die with the crest of Boarzell yet unconquered. He made a new
+will, leaving his property to William on condition that he came home to
+take charge of it, and did not sell a single acre. If he refused these
+conditions, he left it to Robert under similar ones, and failing him to
+Richard. It was a sorry set of heirs, but there was no help for it, and
+he signed his last will and testament with a grimace.
+
+Fair day was to be a special holiday that year because of the
+Coronation. Reuben at first thought that he would not go--it was always
+maddening to see the booths and shows crowding over his Canaan, and
+circumstances would make his feelings on this occasion ten times more
+bitter. But he had never missed the Fair except for some special reason,
+such as a funeral or an auction, and he felt that if he stayed away it
+might be put down to low spirits at his son's desertion, or, worse
+still, to his old age.
+
+So he came, dressed in his best, as usual, with corduroy breeches,
+leggings, wide soft hat, and the flowered waistcoat and tail-coat he had
+refused to discard. He was no longer the centre of a group of farmers
+discussing crops and weather and the latest improvements in
+machinery--he stood and walked alone, inspecting the booths and
+side-shows with a contemptuous eye, while the crowd stared at him
+furtively and whispered when he passed ... "There he goes" ... "old Ben
+Backfield up at Odiam." Reuben wondered if this was fame.
+
+The Fair had moved still further with the times. The merry--go-round
+organ played "Bluebell," "Dolly Grey," and "The Absent-Minded Beggar,"
+the chief target in the shooting-gallery was Kruger, with Cronje and De
+Wet as subordinates, and the Panorama showed Queen Victoria's funeral.
+The fighting booth was hidden away still further, and dancing now only
+started at nightfall. There were some new shows, too. The old-fashioned
+thimble-rigging had given place to a modern swindle with tickets and a
+dial; instead of the bearded woman or the pig-faced boy, one put a penny
+in the slot and saw a lady undress--to a certain point. There was a
+nigger in a fur-lined coat lecturing on a patent medicine, while the
+stalls themselves were of a more utilitarian nature, selling whips and
+trousers and balls of string, instead of the ribbon and gingerbread
+fairings bought by lovers in days of old.
+
+Reuben prowled up and down the streets of booths, grinned scornfully at
+the efforts in the shooting gallery, watched a very poor fight in the
+boxing tent, had a drink of beer and a meat pie, and came to the
+conclusion that the Fair had gone terribly to pieces since his young
+days.
+
+He found his most congenial occupation in examining the soil on the
+outskirts, and trying to gauge its possibilities. The top of Boarzell
+was almost entirely lime--the region of the marl scarcely came beyond
+the outskirts of the Fair. Of course the whole place was tangled and
+matted with the roots of the gorse, and below them the spreading
+toughness of the firs; Reuben fairly ached to have his spade in it. He
+was kneeling down, crumbling some of the surface mould between his
+fingers, when he suddenly noticed a clamour in the Fair behind him. The
+vague continuous roar was punctuated by shrill screams, shouts, and an
+occasional crash. He rose to his feet, and at the same moment a bunch of
+women rushed out between the two nearest stalls, shrieking at the pitch
+of their lungs.
+
+They ran down towards the thickset hedge which divided the Fair-place
+from Odiam's land, and to his horror began to try to force their way
+through it, screaming piercingly the while. Reuben shouted to them:
+
+"Stop--you're spoiling my hëadge!"
+
+"He's after us--he'll catch us--O-o-oh!"
+
+"Who's after you?"
+
+But before they had time to answer, something burst from between the
+stalls and ran down the darkling slope, brandishing a knife. It was
+Mexico Bill, running amok, as he had sometimes run before, but on less
+crowded occasions. The women sent up an ear-splitting yell, and made a
+fresh onslaught on the hedge. Someone grabbed the half-breed from
+behind, but his knife flashed, and the next moment he was free, dashing
+through the gorse towards his victims.
+
+Reuben was paralysed with horror. In another minute they would break
+down his hedge--a good young hedge that had cost him a pretty penny--and
+be all over his roots. For a moment he stood as if fixed to the spot,
+then suddenly he pulled himself together. At all costs he must save his
+roots. He could not tackle the women single-handed, so he must go for
+the madman.
+
+"Backfield's after him!"
+
+The cry rose from the mass up at the stalls, as the big dark figure with
+flapping hat-brim suddenly sprang out of the dusk and ran to meet Mexico
+Bill. Reuben was an old man, and his arm had lost its cunning, but he
+carried a stout ash stick and the maniac saw no one but the women at the
+hedge. The next moment Reuben's stick had come against his forehead with
+a terrific crack, and he had tumbled head over heels into a gorse-bush.
+
+In another minute half the young men of the Fair were sitting on him,
+and everyone else was crowding round Backfield, thanking him, praising
+him, and shaking him by the hand. The women could hardly speak for
+gratitude--he became a hero in their eyes, a knight at arms.... "To
+think as how when all them young tellers up at the Fair wur no use, he
+shud risk his life to save us--he's a präaper valiant man."
+
+But Reuben hardly enjoyed his position as a hero. He succeeded in
+breaking free from the crowd, now beginning to busy itself once more
+with Mexico Bill, who was showing signs of returning consciousness, and
+plunged into the mists that spread their frost-smelling curds over the
+lower slopes of Boarzell.
+
+"Thank heaven I saved them rootses!" he muttered as he walked.
+
+Then suddenly his manner quickened; a kind of exaltation came into his
+look, and he proudly jerked up his head:
+
+"I'm not so old, then, after all."
+
+
+
+
+BOOK VIII
+
+THE VICTORY
+
+
+§ 1.
+
+The next year, Richard and Anne Backfield took a house at Playden for
+week-ends. Anne wanted to be near her relations at the Manor, and
+Richard, softened by prosperity, had no objection to returning to the
+scene of his detested youth.
+
+A week or two before they arrived Reuben went to Playden, and looked
+over the house. It was a new one, on the hill above Star Lock, and it
+was just what he would have expected of Richard and Anne--gimcrack. He
+scraped the mortar with his finger-nail, poked at the tiles with his
+stick, and pronounced the place jerry-built in the worst way. It had no
+land attached to it, either--only a silly garden with a tennis court and
+flowers. Richard's success struck him as extremely petty compared with
+his own.
+
+He did not see much of his son and daughter-in-law on their visits.
+Richard was inclined to be friendly, but Anne hated Odiam and all
+belonging to it, while Reuben himself disliked calling at Starcliffe
+House, because he was always meeting the Manor people.
+
+The family at Flightshot consisted now of the Squire, who had nothing
+against him except his obstinacy, his lady, and his son who was just of
+age and "the most tedious young rascal" Reuben had ever had to deal
+with. He drove a motor-car with hideous din up and down the Peasmarsh
+lanes, and once Odiam had had the pleasure of lending three horses to
+pull it home from the Forstal. But his worst crimes were in the hunting
+field; he had no respect for roots or winter grain or hedges or young
+spinneys. Twice Reuben had written to his father, through Maude the
+scribe, and he vowed openly that if ever he caught him at it he'd take a
+stick to him.
+
+The result of all this was that George Fleet, being young and humorous,
+indulged in some glorious rags at old Backfield's expense. He had not
+been to Cambridge for nothing, and one morning Reuben found both his
+house doors boarded up so that he had to get out by the window, and on
+another occasion his pigs were discovered in a squalling mass with their
+tails tied together. There was no good demanding retribution, for the
+youth's scandalised innocence when confronted with his crimes utterly
+convinced his fools of parents, and gave them an opinion of his accuser
+that promised ill for his ultimate possession of the Fair-place.
+
+Reuben still dreamed of that Fair-place, and occasionally schemed as
+well; but everything short of the death of the Squire--and his
+son--seemed useless. However, he now had the rest of Boarzell in such a
+state of cultivation that he sometimes found it possible to forget the
+land that was still unconquered. That year he bought a hay-elevator and
+a steam-reaper. The latter was the first in the neighbourhood--never
+very go-ahead in agricultural matters--and quite a crowd collected when
+it started work in the Glotten Hide, to watch it mow down the grain,
+gather it into bundles, and crown the miracle by tying these just as
+neatly as, and much more quickly than, a man.
+
+Though Reuben's corn had not done much for him materially, it had
+far-reaching consequences of another kind. It immensely increased his
+status in the county. Odiam had more land under grain cultivation than
+any farm east of Lewes, and the local Tories saw in Backfield a likely
+advocate of Tariff Reform. He was approached by the Rye Conservative
+Club, and invited to speak at one or two of their meetings. He turned
+out to be, as they had expected, an ardent champion of the new idea. "It
+wur wot he had worked and hoped and prayed fur all his life--to git back
+them Corn Laws." He was requested not to put the subject quite so
+bluntly.
+
+So in his latter days Reuben came back into the field of politics which
+he had abandoned in middle age. Once more his voice was heard in
+school-houses and mission-halls, pointing out their duty and profit to
+the men of Rye. He was offered, and accepted, a Vice-Presidentship of
+the Conservative Club. Politics had changed in many ways since he had
+last been mixed up in them. The old, old subjects that had come up at
+election after election--vote by ballot, the education of the poor, the
+extension of the franchise, Gladstone's free breakfast table--had all
+been settled, or deformed out of knowledge. The only old friend was the
+question of a tax on wheat, revived after years of quiescence--to
+rekindle in Reuben's old age dreams of an England where the corn should
+grow as the grass, a golden harvest from east to west, bringing wealth
+and independence to her sons.
+
+
+§ 2.
+
+The only part of the farm that was not doing well was Grandturzel. The
+new ground had been licked into shape under Reuben's personal
+supervision, but the land round the steading, which had been under
+cultivation for three hundred years, yielded only feeble crops and
+shoddy harvests--things went wrong, animals died, accidents happened.
+
+Realf had never been a practical man--perhaps it was to that he owed his
+downfall. Good luck and ambition had made him soar for a while, but he
+lacked the dogged qualities which had enabled Reuben to play for years
+a losing game. Besides, he had to a certain extent lost interest in land
+which was no longer his own. He worked for a wage, for his daily bread,
+and the labour of his hands and head which had once been an adventure
+and a glory, was now nothing but the lost labour of those who rise up
+early and late take rest.
+
+Also he was in bad health--his hardships and humiliations had wrought
+upon his body as well as his soul. He was not even the ghost of the man
+whose splendid swaggering youth had long ago in Peasmarsh church first
+made the middle-aged Reuben count his years. He stooped, suffered
+horribly from rheumatism, had lost most of his hair, and complained of
+his eyesight.
+
+Reuben began to fidget about Grandturzel. He told his son-in-law that if
+things did not improve he would have to go. In vain Realf pleaded bad
+weather and bad luck--neither of them was ever admitted as an excuse at
+Odiam.
+
+The hay-harvest of 1904 was a good one--of course Realf's hay had too
+much sorrel in it, there was always something wrong with Realf's
+crops--but generally speaking the yield was plentiful and of good
+quality. Reuben rejoiced to feel the soft June sun on his back, and went
+out into the fields with his men, himself driving for some hours the
+horse-rake over the swathes, and drinking at noon his pint of beer in
+the shade of the waggon. In the evening the big hay-elevator hummed at
+Odiam, and old Backfield stood and watched it piling the greeny-brown
+ricks till darkness fell, and he went in to supper and the sleep of his
+old age.
+
+It took about a week to finish the work--on the last day the fields
+which for so long had shown the wind's path in tawny ripples, were
+shaven close and green, scattering a sweet steam into the air--a soft
+pungency that stole up to the house at night and lapped it round with
+fragrance. Old Reuben stretched himself contentedly as he went into his
+dim room and prepared to lie down. The darkness had hardly settled on
+the fields--a high white light was in the sky, among the stars.
+
+He went to bed early with the birds and beasts. Before he climbed into
+the bed, lying broad and white and dim in the background of the
+candleless room, he opened the window, to drink in the scent of his land
+as it fell asleep. The breeze whiffled in the orchard, fluttering the
+boughs where the young green apples hid under the leaves, there was a
+dull sound of stamping in the barns ... he could see the long line of
+his new haycocks beyond the yard, soft dark shapes in the twilight.
+
+He was just going to turn back into the room, his limbs aching
+pleasantly for the sheets, when he noticed a faint glow in the sky to
+southward. At first he thought it was a shred of sunset still burning,
+then realised it was too far south for June--also it seemed to flicker
+in the wind. Then suddenly it spread itself into a fan, and cast up a
+shower of sparks.
+
+The next minute Reuben had pulled on his trousers and was out in the
+passage, shouting "Fire!"
+
+The farm men came tumbling from the attics--"Whur, mäaster?"
+
+"Over at Grandturzel--can't see wot's burning from here. Git buckets and
+come!"
+
+Shouts and gunshots brought those men who slept out in the cottages, and
+a half-dressed gang, old Reuben at the head, pounded through the misty
+hay-sweet night to where the flames were spreading in the sky. From the
+shoulder of Boarzell they could see what was burning--Realf's new-made
+stacks, two already aflame, the others doomed by the sparks which
+scattered on the wind.
+
+No one spoke, but from Realf's yard came sounds of shouting, the uneasy
+lowing and stamping of cattle, and the neigh of terrified horses. The
+whole place was lit up by the glare of the fire, and soon Reuben could
+see Realf and his two men, Dunk and Juglery, with Mrs. Realf, the
+girls, and young Sidney, passing buckets down from the pond and pouring
+them on the blazing stacks--with no effect at all.
+
+"The fools! Wot do they think they're a-doing of? Döan't they know how
+to put out a fire?"
+
+He quickened his pace till his men were afraid he would "bust himself,"
+and dashing between the burning ricks, nearly received full in the chest
+the bucket his son-in-law had just swung.
+
+"Stop!" he shouted--"are your cattle out?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Then git 'em out, you fool! You'll have the whole pläace a bonfire in a
+minnut. Wot's the use of throwing mugs of water lik this? You'll never
+put them ricks out. Säave your horses, säave your cows, säave your
+poultry. Anyone gone for the firemen?"
+
+"Yes, I sent a boy over fust thing."
+
+"Why didn't you send to me?"
+
+"Cudn't spare a hand."
+
+"Cudn't spare one hand to fetch over fifteen--that's a valiant idea. Now
+döan't go loitering; fetch out your cattle afore they're roast beef, git
+out the horses and all the stock--and souse them ricks wot äun't burning
+yit."
+
+The men scurried in all directions obeying his orders. Soon terrified
+horses were being led blindfold into the home meadow; the cows and
+bullocks, less imaginative, followed more quietly. Meantime buckets were
+passed up from the pond to the stacks that were not alight; but before
+this work was begun Reuben went up to the furthest stack and thrust his
+hand into it--then he put in his head and sniffed. Then he called Realf.
+
+"Cöame here."
+
+Realf came.
+
+"Wot's that?"
+
+Realf felt the hay and sniffed like Reuben.
+
+"Wot's that?" his father-in-law repeated.
+
+Realf went white to the lips, and said nothing.
+
+"I'll tell you wot it is, then!" cried Reuben--"it's bad stacking. This
+hay äun't bin präaperly dried--it's bin stacked damp, and them ricks
+have gone alight o' themselves, bust up from inside. It's your doing,
+this here is, and I'll mäake you answer fur it, surelye."
+
+"I--I--the hay seemed right enough."
+
+"Maybe it seems right enough to you now?"--and Reuben pointed to the
+blazing stacks.
+
+Realf opened his lips, but the words died on them. His eyes looked wild
+and haggard in the jigging light; he groaned and turned away. At the
+same moment a pillar of fire shot up from the roof of the Dutch barn.
+
+The flying sparks had soon done their work. Fires sprang up at a
+distance from the ricks, sometimes in two places at once. Everyone
+worked desperately, but the water supply was slow, and though
+occasionally these sporadic fires were put out, generally they burned
+fiercely. Wisps of blazing hay began to fly about the yard, lodging in
+roofs and crannies. By the time the fire engine arrived from Rye, the
+whole place was alight except the dwelling-house and the oasts.
+
+The engine set to work, and soon everything that had not been destroyed
+by fire was destroyed by water. But the flames were beaten. They hissed
+and blackened into smoke. When dawn broke over the eastern shoulder of
+Boarzell, the fire was out. A rasping pungent smell rose from a wreckage
+of black walls and little smoking piles of what looked like black rags.
+Water poured off the gutters of the house, and soused still further the
+pile of furniture and bedding that had been pulled hastily out of it.
+The farm men gathered round the buckets, to drink, and to wash their
+smoke-grimed skins. Reuben talked over the disaster with the head of the
+fire brigade, who endorsed his opinion of spontaneous combustion; and
+Realf of Grandturzel sat on a heap of ashes--and sobbed.
+
+
+§ 3.
+
+That morning Reuben had a sleep after breakfast, and did not come down
+till dinner-time. He was told that Mrs. Realf wanted to see him and had
+been waiting in the parlour since ten. He smiled grimly, then settled
+his mouth into a straight line.
+
+He found his daughter in a chair by the window. Her face was puffed and
+blotched with tears, and her legs would hardly support her when she
+stood up. She had brought her youngest son with her, a fine sturdy
+little fellow of fourteen. When Reuben came into the room she gave the
+boy a glance, and, as at a preconcerted signal, they both fell on their
+knees.
+
+"Git up!" cried Backfield, colouring with annoyance.
+
+"We've come," sobbed Tilly, "we've come to beg you to be merciful."
+
+"I wöan't listen to you while you're lik that."
+
+The son sprang to his feet, and helped his mother, whose stoutness and
+stiffness made it a difficult matter, to rise too.
+
+"If you've come to ask me to kip you and your husband on at
+Grandturzel," said Reuben, "you might have säaved yourself the trouble,
+fur I'm shut of you both after last night."
+
+"Fäather, it wur an accident."
+
+"A purty accident--wud them stacks no more dry than a ditch. 'Twas a
+clear case of 'bustion--fireman said so to me; as wicked and tedious a
+bit o' wark as ever I met in my life."
+
+"It'll never happen agäun."
+
+"No--it wöan't."
+
+"Oh, fäather--döan't be so hard on us. The Lord knows wot'll become of
+us if you turn us out now. It 'ud have been better if we'd gone five
+years ago--Realf wur a more valiant man then nor wot he is now. He'll
+never be able to start agäun--he äun't fit fur it."
+
+"Then he äun't fit to work on my land. I äun't a charity house. I can't
+afford to kip a man wud no backbone and no wits. I've bin too kind as it
+is--I shud have got shut of him afore he burnt my pläace to cinders."
+
+"But wot's to become of us?"
+
+"That's no consarn of mine--äun't you säaved anything?"
+
+"How cud we, fäather?"
+
+"I could have säaved two pound a month on Realf's wage."
+
+Tilly had a spurt of anger.
+
+"Yes--you'd have gone short of everything and made other folks go
+short--but we äun't that kind."
+
+"You äun't. That's why I'm turning you away."
+
+Her tears welled up afresh.
+
+"Oh, fäather, I'm sorry I spöake lik that. Döan't be angry wud me fur
+saying wot I did. I'll own as we might have managed better--only döan't
+send us away--fur this liddle chap's sake," and she pulled forward young
+Sidney, who was crying too.
+
+"Where are your other sons?"
+
+"Harry's got a wife and children to keep--he cudn't help us; and
+Johnnie's never mäade more'n fifteen shilling a week since the war."
+
+Reuben stood silent for a moment, staring at the boy.
+
+"Does Realf know you've come here?" he asked at length.
+
+"Yes," said Tilly in a low voice.
+
+There was another silence. Then suddenly Reuben went to the door and
+opened it.
+
+"There's no use you waiting and vrothering me--my mind's mäade up."
+
+"Fäather, fur pity's säake----"
+
+"Döan't talk nonsense. How can I sit here and see my land messed about
+by a fool, jest because he happens to have married my darter?--and
+agäunst my wish, too. I'm sorry fur you, Tilly, but you're still young
+enough to work. I'm eighty-five, and I äun't stopped working yet, so
+döan't go saying you're too old. Your gals can go out to service ... and
+this liddle chap here ..."
+
+He stopped speaking, and stared at the lad, chin in hand.
+
+"He can work too, I suppose?" said Tilly bitterly.
+
+"I wur going to say as how I've täaken a liking to him. He looks a
+valiant liddle feller, and if you'll hand him over to me and have no
+more part nor lot in him, I'll see as he doesn't want."
+
+Tilly gasped.
+
+"I've left this farm to William," continued Reuben, "because I've naun
+else to leave it to that I can see. All my children have forsook me; but
+maybe this boy 'ud be better than they."
+
+"You mean that if we let you adopt Sidney, you'll mäake Odiam his when
+you're gone?"
+
+"I döan't say for sartain--if he turns out a präaper lad and is a
+comfort to me and loves this pläace as none of my own children have ever
+loved it----"
+
+But Tilly interrupted him. Putting her arm round the terrified boy's
+shoulders, she led him through the door.
+
+"Thanks, fäather, but if you offered to give us to-day every penny
+you've got, I'd let you have no child of mine. Maybe we'll be poor and
+miserable and have to work hard, but he wöan't be one-half so wretched
+wud us as he'd be wud you. D'you think I disremember my own childhood
+and the way you mäade us suffer? You're an old man, but you're
+hearty--you might live to a hundred--and I'd justabout die of sorrow if
+I thought any child of mine wur living wud you and being mäade as
+miserable as you mäade us. _I'd rather see my boy dead than at Odiam._"
+
+
+§ 4.
+
+There was a big outcry in Peasmarsh against Backfield's treatment of the
+Realfs. Not a farmer in the district would have kept on a hand who had
+burnt nearly the whole farm to ashes through bad stacking, but this fact
+did little to modify the general criticism. A dozen excuses were found
+for Realf's "accident," as it came to be called--"and old Ben cud have
+afforded to lose a stack or two, surelye."
+
+Reuben was indifferent to the popular voice. The Realfs cleared out bag
+and baggage the following month. No one knew their destination, but it
+was believed they were to separate. Afterwards it transpired that Realf
+had been given work on a farm near Lurgashall, while Tilly became
+housekeeper to a clergyman, taking with her the boy she would rather
+have seen dead than at Odiam. Nothing was heard of the daughters, and
+local rumour had it that they went on the streets; but this pleasing
+idea was shattered a year or two later by young Alce, the publican's
+son, coming back from a visit to Chichester and saying he had found both
+the girls in service in a Canon's house, doing well, and one engaged to
+marry the butler.
+
+Reuben did not trouble about the Realfs. Tilly had been no daughter of
+his from the day she married; it was a pity he had ever revoked his
+wrath and allowed himself to be on speaking terms with her and her
+family; if he had turned them out of Grandturzel straight away there
+would have been none of this absurd fuss--also he would not have lost a
+good crop of hay. But he comforted himself with the thought that his
+magnanimity had put about a thousand pounds into his pocket, so he could
+afford to ignore the cold shoulder which was turned to him wherever he
+went. And the hay was insured.
+
+He gave up going to the Cocks. It had fallen off terribly those last
+five years, he told Maude the dairy-woman, his only confidant nowadays.
+The beer had deteriorated, and there was a girl behind the counter all
+painted and curled like a Jezebubble, and rolling her eyes at you like
+this.... If any woman thought a man of his experience was to be caught,
+she was unaccountable mistaken (this doubtless for Maude's benefit, that
+she might build no false hopes on the invitation to bring her sewing
+into the kitchen of an evening). Then the fellows in the bar never
+talked about stocks and crops and such like, but about race-horses and
+football and tomfooleries of that sort, wot had all come in through the
+poor being educated and put above themselves. Moreover, there was a
+gramophone playing trash like "I wouldn't leave my little wooden hut for
+you"--and the tale of Reuben's grievances ended in expectoration.
+
+All the same he was lonely. Maude was a good woman, but she wasn't his
+equal. He wanted to speak to someone of his own class, who used to be
+his friend in days gone by. Then suddenly he thought of Alice Jury. He
+had promised to go and see her at Rye, but had never done so. He
+remembered how long ago she had used to comfort him when he felt
+low-spirited and neglected by his fellows. Perhaps she would do the same
+for him now. He did not know her address, but the new people at Cheat
+Land would doubtless be able to give it to him, and perhaps Alice would
+help him through these trying times as she had helped him through
+earlier ones.
+
+A few days later he drove off in his trap to Rye. Though he had scarcely
+thought of her for ten years, he was now all aflame with the idea of
+meeting her. She would be pleased to see him, too. Perhaps their
+long-buried emotions would revive, and as old people they would enjoy a
+friendship which would be sweeter than the love they had promised
+themselves in more ardent days.
+
+Alice lived in lodgings by the Ypres Tower. The little crinkled cottage
+looked out over the marshes towards Camber and the masts of ships.
+Reuben was shown into a room which reminded him of Cheat Land long ago,
+for there were books arranged on shelves, and curtains of dull red linen
+quaintly embroidered. There was a big embroidery frame on the table, and
+over it was stretched a gorgeous altar-cloth all woven with gold and
+violet tissue.
+
+He was inspecting these things when Alice came in. Her hair was quite
+white now, and she stooped a little, but it seemed to Reuben as if her
+eyes were still as lively as ever. Something strange suddenly flooded up
+in his heart and he held out both hands.
+
+"Alice ..." he said.
+
+"Good afternoon," she replied, putting one hand in his, and withdrawing
+it almost immediately.
+
+"I--I--äun't you pleased to see me?"
+
+"I thought you'd forgotten all about me, certainly."
+
+She offered him a chair, and he sat down. Her coldness seemed to drive
+back the tides that had suddenly flooded his lips, and slowly too they
+began to ebb from his heart. Whom had he come to see?--the only woman he
+had ever loved, whose love he had hoped to catch again in these his
+latter days, and hold transmuted into tender friendship, till he went
+back to his earth? Not so, it seemed--but an old woman who had once been
+a girl, with whom he had nothing in common, and from whom he had
+travelled so far that they could scarcely hear each other's voices
+across the country that divided them. Alice broke the silence by
+offering him some tea.
+
+"Thanks, but I döan't täake tea--I've never held wud it."
+
+"How are you, Reuben? I've heard a lot about you, but nothing from you
+yourself. Is it true that you've sent away your daughter and her family
+from Grandturzel?"
+
+"Yes--after they burnt the pläace down to the ground."
+
+"And where are they now?"
+
+"I dunno."
+
+Alice said nothing, and Reuben fired up a little:
+
+"I daresay you think badly of me, lik everyone else. But if a man mäade
+a bonfire of your new stacks, I reckon you wouldn't say 'thank'ee,' and
+raise his wages."
+
+Another pause--then Alice said:
+
+"How are you getting on with Boarzell? I hear that most of it's yours
+now."
+
+"All except the Fair-pläace--and I mean to have that in a year or two,
+surelye."
+
+This time it was she that kindled:
+
+"You talk as if you'd all your life before you--and you must be nearly
+eighty-five."
+
+"I döan't feel old--at least not often. I still feel young enough to
+have a whack at the Fair-pläace."
+
+"So you haven't changed your idea of happiness?"
+
+"How d'you mean?"
+
+"Your idea of happiness always was getting something you wanted. Well,
+lately I've discovered my idea of happiness, and that's--wanting
+nothing."
+
+"Then you _have_ got wot you want," said Reuben cruelly.
+
+"I don't think you understand."
+
+"My old fäather used to say--'I want nothing that I haven't got, and so
+I've got nothing that I döan't want, surelye.'"
+
+"It's all part of the same idea, only of course he had many more things
+than I have. I'm a poor woman, and lonely, and getting old. But"--and a
+ring of exaltation came into her voice, and the light of it into her
+eyes--"I want nothing."
+
+"I wish you'd talk plain. If you never want anything, then you äun't
+präaperly alive. So you äun't happy--because you're dead."
+
+"You don't understand me. It's not because I'm dead and sluggish that I
+don't want anything, but because I've had fight enough in me to triumph
+over my desires. So now everything's mine."
+
+"Fust you say as how you're happy because you've got nothing, and now
+you say as everything's yourn. How am I to know wot you mean?"
+
+"Well, compare my case with yours. You've got everything you want, and
+yet in reality you've got nothing."
+
+"That's nonsense, Alice." He spoke more gently, for he had come to the
+conclusion that sorrow and loneliness had affected her wits.
+
+"It isn't. You've got what you set out to get--Boarzell Moor, and
+success for Odiam; but in getting it you have lost everything that makes
+life worth while--wife, children, friends, and--and--love. You're like
+the man in the Bible who rebuilt Jericho, and laid the foundations in
+his firstborn, and set up the gates in his youngest son."
+
+"There you go, Alice! lik the rest of them--no more understanding than
+anyone else. Can't you see that _it's bin worth while_?"
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"Why, that it's worth losing all those things that I may get the one big
+thing I want. Döan't you see that Boarzell and Odiam are worth more to
+me than wife or family or than you, Alice. Come to that, you've got none
+o' them things either, and you haven't a farm to mäake up fur it. So
+even if I wur sorry fur wot I'm not sorry fur, I'm still happier than
+you."
+
+"No you aren't--because you want a thing, and I want nothing."
+
+"I've got a thing, my girl, and you've got nothing."
+
+They had both risen and faced each other, anger in their eyes. But their
+antagonism had lost that vital quality which had once made it the salt
+of their friendship.
+
+"You döan't understand me," said Reuben--"I'd better go."
+
+"You don't understand me," said Alice--"you can't."
+
+"We've lost each other," said Reuben--"good-bye."
+
+Alice smiled rather bitterly, and had a moment of vision.
+
+"The fact is that we can't forgive each other--for being happy in
+different ways."
+
+"I tell you I'm sorry for nothing."
+
+"Nor I."
+
+So they parted.
+
+Reuben drove back slowly through the October afternoon. A transparent
+brede of mist lay over the fields, occasionally torn by sunlight.
+Everything was very quiet--sounds of labour stole across the valley from
+distant farms, and the barking of a dog at Stonelink seemed close at
+hand. Now and then the old man muttered to himself: "We döan't
+understand each other--we döan't forgive each other--we've lost each
+other. We've lost each other."
+
+He knew now that Alice was lost. The whole of Boarzell lay between them.
+He had thought that she would be always there, but now he saw that
+between him and her lay the dividing wilderness of his success. She was
+the offering and the reward of failure--and he had triumphed over
+failure as over everything else.
+
+He drove through Peasmarsh and turned into the Totease lane. The fields
+on both sides of it were his now. He sniffed delightedly the savour of
+their sun-baked earth, of the crumpling leaves in their hedges, of the
+roots, round and portly, that they nourished in their soil--and the west
+wind brought him the scent of the gorse on Boarzell, very faintly, for
+now only the thickets of the top were left.
+
+Almost the whole south was filled by the great lumpish mass of the Moor,
+no longer tawny and hummocky, but lined with hedges and scored with
+furrows, here and there a spread of pasture, with the dotted sheep. A
+mellow corn-coloured light rippled over it from the west, and the sheep
+bleated to each other across the meadows that had once been wastes....
+
+"My land," murmured old Reuben, drinking in the breeze of it. "My
+land--more to me than Alice." Then with a sudden fierceness:
+
+"I'm shut of her!"
+
+
+§ 5.
+
+The next year came the great Unionist collapse. The Government which had
+bumped perilously through the South African war, went on the rocks of an
+indignant peace--wrecked by Tariff Reform with the complication of
+Chinese Labour and the Education Bill. Once more Reuben took prominent
+part in a general election. The circumstances were altered--no one threw
+dead cats at him at meetings, though the common labouring men had a way
+of asking questions which they had not had in '65.
+
+Old Backfield spoke at five meetings, each time on Tariff Reform and the
+effect it would have on local agriculture. The candidate and the
+Unionist Club were very proud of him, and spoke of him as "a grand old
+man." On Election Day, one of the candidates' own cars was sent to fetch
+him to the Poll. It was the first time Reuben had ever been in a motor,
+but he did his best to dissemble his excitement.
+
+"It's lik them trains," he said to the chauffeur, "unaccountable strange
+and furrin-looking at first, but naun to spik of when you're used to
+'em. Well I remember when the first railway train wur run from Rye to
+Hastings--and most people too frightened to go in it, though it never
+mäade more'n ten mile an hour."
+
+Though the country in general chose to go to the dogs, Reuben had the
+consolation of seeing a Conservative returned for Rye. He put this down
+largely to his own exertions, and came home in high good humour from the
+declaration of the Poll. Mr. Courthope, the successful candidate, had
+shaken him by the hand, and so had his agent and one or two prominent
+members of the Club. They had congratulated him on his wonderful energy,
+and wished him many more years of usefulness to the Conservative cause.
+He might live to see a wheat-tax yet.
+
+He compared his present feelings with the miserable humiliation he had
+endured in '65. Queer!--that election seemed almost as real and vivid to
+him as this one, and--he did not know why--he found himself feeling as
+if it were more important. His mind recaptured the details with
+startling clearness--the crowd in the market-place, the fight with
+Coalbran, the sheep's entrails that were flung about ... and suddenly,
+sitting there in his arm-chair, he found himself muttering: "that hemmed
+gëate!"
+
+It must be old age. He pulled himself together, as a farm-hand came into
+the room. It was Boorman, one of the older lot, who had just come back
+from Rye.
+
+"Good about the poll, mäaster, wurn't it?" he said--the older men were
+always more cordial towards Reuben than the youngsters. They had seen
+how he could work.
+
+"Unaccountable good."
+
+"I mäade sure as how Mus' Courthope ud git in. 'Täun't so long since we
+sent up another Unionist--seems strange when you and me remembers that a
+Tory never sat fur Rye till '85."
+
+"When did you come back?"
+
+"I've only just come in, mäaster. Went räound to the London Trader after
+hearing the poll. By the way, I picked up a piece of news thur--old
+Jury's darter wot used to be at Cheat Land has just died. Bob Hilder
+töald me--seems as she lodges wud his sister."
+
+"Um."
+
+"Thought you'd be interested to hear. I remember as how you used to be
+unaccountable friendly wud them Jurys, considering the difference in
+your position."
+
+"Yes, yes--wot did she die of?"
+
+"Bob dudn't seem to know. She allus wur a delicate-looking woman."
+
+"Yes--a liddle stick of a woman. That'll do, now."
+
+Boorman went out, grumbling at "th' öald feller's cussedness," and
+Reuben sat on without moving.
+
+Alice was dead--she had died in his hour of triumph. Just when he had
+succeeded in laying his hands on one thing more of goodness and glory
+for Odiam, she who had nothing and wanted nothing had gone out into the
+great nothingness. A leaden weight seemed to have fallen on him, for all
+that he was "shut of her."
+
+The clock ticked on into the silence, the fire spluttered, and a cat
+licked itself before it. He sat hunched miserably, hearing nothing,
+seeing nothing. In his breast, where his heart had used to be, was a
+heavy dead thing that knew neither joy nor sorrow. Reuben was feeling
+old again.
+
+
+§ 6.
+
+"Please, mäaster, there's trouble on the farm."
+
+Reuben started out of the half-waking state into which he had fallen. It
+was late in the afternoon, the sunlight had gone, and a wintry twilight
+crept up the wall. Maude the dairy-woman was looking in at the door.
+
+"Wot is it? Wot's happened?"
+
+"Boorman asked me to fetch you. They've had some vrother wud the young
+Squire, and he's shot a cow."
+
+"Shot one of my cows!" and Reuben sprang to his feet. "Where woman?
+Where?"
+
+"Down at Totease. He wur the wuss for liquor, I reckon."
+
+Reuben was out of the house bare-headed, and running across the yard to
+the Totease meadows. He soon met a little knot of farm-hands coming
+towards him, with three rather guilty-looking young men.
+
+"Wot's happened?" he called to Boorman.
+
+"Only this, mäaster--Dunk and me found Mus' Fleet a-tearing about the
+Glotten meadow wud two of his friends, trying to fix Radical posters on
+the cows--seems as they'd räaked up one or two o' them old Ben the
+Gorilla posters wot used to be about Peasmarsh, and they'd stuck one on
+Tawny and one on Cowslip, and wur fair racing the other beasts to death.
+Then when me and the lads cöame up and interfere, they want to fight
+us--and when we täake höald of 'em, seeing as they 'pear to be a liddle
+the wuss for drink, why Mus' Fleet he pulls out a liddle pistol and
+shoots all around, and hits poor öald Dumpling twice over."
+
+"Look here, farmer," said one of the young men--"we're awfully sorry,
+and we'll settle with you about that cow. We were only having a rag.
+We're awfully sorry."
+
+"Ho, indeed! I'm glad to hear it. And you'll settle wud me about the
+cow! Wur it you who shot her, I'd lik to know?"
+
+"I didn't actually fire the pistol--but we're all in the same boat. Had
+a luncheon over at Rye to cheer ourselves up after seeing the Tory get
+in. We're awfully sorry."
+
+"You've said that afore," said Reuben.
+
+He pondered sternly over the three young men, who all looked sober
+enough now. As a matter of fact, Dumpling was no great loss; fifteen
+pounds would have paid for her. But he was not disposed to let off
+George Fleet so easily. Against the two other youths he bore no
+grudge--they were just ordinary ineffective young asses, of Radical
+tendencies, he noted grimly. George, however, stood on a different
+footing; he was the mocker of Odiam, the perpetrator of many gross and
+silly practical jokes at its expense. He should not escape with the mere
+payment of fifteen pounds, for he owed Reuben the punishment of his
+earlier misdeeds.
+
+"The man as shot my cow shall answer fur it before the magistrate," he
+said severely.
+
+"Look here----" cried George Fleet, and his two friends began to bid for
+mercy, starting with twenty pounds.
+
+"Be a sport," pleaded one of them, when they had come to forty, "you
+simply can't hand him over to the police--his father's Squire of the
+Manor, and it would be no end of a scandal."
+
+"I know who his fäather is, thank'ee," said Reuben.
+
+Then suddenly a great, a magnificent, a triumphant idea struck him. He
+nearly staggered under the force of it. He was like a general who sees
+what he had looked upon hitherto as a mere trivial skirmish develop into
+a battle which may win him the whole campaign. He spoke almost faintly.
+
+"Someone go fur the Squire."
+
+"Sir Eustace!"
+
+"Yes--fetch him here, and I'll talk the matter over wud him."
+
+"But----"
+
+"Either you fetch him here or I send fur the police."
+
+The two young men stared at each other, then George Fleet nodded to
+them:
+
+"You'd better go. The dad'll be better than a policeman anyhow. Try and
+smooth him down a bit on the way."
+
+"Right you are"--and they reluctantly moved off, leaving their comrade
+in the enemy's hands.
+
+However, Reuben's whole manner had changed. His attitude towards George
+Fleet became positively cordial. He took him into the kitchen, and made
+Maude give him some tea. He himself paced nervously up and down, a queer
+look of exaltation sometimes passing over his face. One would never have
+taken him for the same man as the old fellow who an hour ago had huddled
+weak and almost senile in his chair, broken under his life's last
+tragedy. He felt young, strong, energetic, a soldier again.
+
+The Squire soon arrived. Reuben had him shown into the parlour, and
+insisted on seeing him alone.
+
+"You finish your tea," he said to George, "and bring some more, Maudie,
+for these gentlemen," nodding kindly to the two young men, who stared at
+him as if they thought he had taken leave of his senses.
+
+In the parlour, Sir Eustace greeted him with mingled nervousness and
+irritation.
+
+"Well, Backfield, I'm sorry about this young scapegrace of mine. But
+boys will be boys, you know, and we'll make it all right about that cow.
+I promise you it won't happen again."
+
+"I'm sorry to have given you the trouble of coming here, Squire. But I
+thought maybe you and I cud come to an arrangement wudout calling in the
+police."
+
+"Oh, certainly, certainly. You surely wouldn't think of doing that,
+Backfield. I promise you the full value of the cow."
+
+"Quite so, Squire. But it äun't the cow as I'm vrothered about so much
+as these things always happening. This äun't the first 'rag,' as he
+calls it, wot he's had on my farm. I've complained to you before."
+
+"I know you have, and I promise you nothing of this kind shall ever
+happen again."
+
+"How am I to know that, Squire? You can't kip the young man in a
+prammylator. Now if he wur had up before the magistrate and sent to
+prison, it 'ud be a lesson as he'd never disremember."
+
+"But think of me, Backfield! Think of his mother! Think of us all! It
+would be a ghastly thing for us. I promise to pay you the full value of
+the cow--and of your damaged self-respect into the bargain. Won't that
+content you?"
+
+"Um," said Reuben--"it might."
+
+The Squire thought he had detected Backfield's little game, and a
+relieved affability crept into his manner.
+
+"That'll be all right," he said urbanely. "Of course I understand your
+feelings are more important to you than your cow. We'll do our best to
+meet you. What do you value them at, eh?"
+
+"The Fair-pläace."
+
+
+§ 7.
+
+He had triumphed. He had beaten down the last resistance of the enemy,
+won the last stronghold of Boarzell. It was all his now, from the clayey
+pastures at its feet to the fir-clump of its crown. A trivial event
+which he had been able to seize and turn to his advantage had
+unexpectedly given him the victory.
+
+The Squire had called it blackmail and made a terrible fuss about it,
+but from the first the issues had been in Reuben's hands. A public
+scandal, the appearance of Flightshot's heir before the county
+magistrates on the charge of shooting a cow in a drunken frolic, was
+simply not to be contemplated; the only son of the Manor must not be
+sacrificed to make a rustic holiday. After all, ever since the Inclosure
+the Fair had been merely a matter of toleration; and as Backfield
+pointed out, it could easily go elsewhere--to the big Tillingham meadow
+outside Rye, for instance, where the wild beast shows pitched when they
+came. All things considered, resistance was not worth while, and
+Flightshot made its last capitulation to Odiam.
+
+Of course there was a tremendous outcry in Peasmarsh and the
+neighbourhood. Everyone knew that the Fair was doomed--Backfield would
+never allow it to be held on his land. His ploughs and his harrows were
+merely waiting for the negotiations to be finished before leaping, as it
+were, upon this their last prey. He would even cut down the sentinel
+firs that for hundreds of years had kept grim and lonely watch over the
+Sussex fields--had seen old Peasen Mersch when it was only a group of
+hovels linked with the outside world by lanes like ditches, and half the
+country a moor like the Boar's Hyll.
+
+The actual means by which he acquired the Fair-place never quite
+transpired, for the farm-men were paid for their silence by Sir Eustace,
+and also had a kindly feeling for young George which persisted after the
+money was spent. However, one or two of the prevalent rumours were worse
+for Reuben than the facts, and if anyone, in farmhouse or cottage, had
+ever had a grudging kindness for the man who had wrested a victory out
+of the tyrant earth, he forgot it now.
+
+But Reuben did not care. He had won his heart's desire, and public
+opinion could go where everything else he was supposed to value, and
+didn't, had gone. In a way he was sorry, for he would have liked to
+discuss his triumph at the Cocks, seasoning it with pints of decadent
+ale. As things were, he had no one to talk it over with but the
+farm-men, who grumbled because it meant more work--Maude, who said she'd
+be sorry when all that pretty gorse was cleared away--and old mad Harry,
+now something very like a grasshopper, whose conversation since the
+blaze at Grandturzel had been limited entirely to the statement that
+"the house was afire, and the children were burning."
+
+But this isolation did not trouble Reuben much. He had lost mankind, but
+he had found the earth. The comfort that had sustained him after the
+loss of David and William, was his now in double measure. The earth, for
+which he had sacrificed all, was enough for him now that all else was
+gone. He was too old to work, except for a snip or a dig here and there,
+but he never failed to direct and supervise the work of the others.
+Every morning he made his rounds on horseback--it delighted him to think
+that they were too long to make on foot. He rode from outpost to
+outpost, through the lush meadows and the hop-gardens of Totease, across
+the lane to the wheatlands of Odiam, and then over Boarzell with its
+cornfields and wide pastures to Grandturzel, where the orchards were now
+bringing in a yearly profit of fifteen pounds an acre. All that vast
+domain, a morning's ride, was his--won by his own ambition, energy,
+endurance, and sacrifice.
+
+In the afternoon he took life easy. If it was warm and fine he would sit
+out of doors, against the farmhouse wall, his old bones rejoicing in the
+sunshine, and his eager heart at the sight of Boarzell shimmering in the
+heat--while sounds of labour woke him pleasantly from occasional dozes.
+
+When evening came and the cool of the day, he would go for a little
+stroll--round by Burntbarns or Socknersh or Moor's Cottage, just to see
+what sort of a mess they were making of things. He was no longer upright
+now, but stooped forward from the hips when he walked. His hair was
+astonishingly thick--indeed it seemed likely that he would die with a
+full head of hair--but he had lost nearly all his teeth--a very sore
+subject, wisely ignored by those who came in contact with him. The
+change that people noticed most was in his eyes. In spite of their thick
+brows, they were no longer fierce and stern;--they were full of that
+benign serenity which one so often sees in the eyes of old men--just as
+if he had not ridden roughshod over all the sweet and gentle things of
+life. One would think that he had never known what it was to trample
+down happiness and drive love out of doors--one would think that having
+always lived mercifully and blamelessly he had reaped the reward of a
+happy old age.
+
+
+§ 8.
+
+Reuben did not go to the Fair that autumn--there being no reason why he
+should and several why he shouldn't. He went instead to see Richard, who
+was down for a week's rest after a tiring case. Reuben thought a
+dignified aloofness the best attitude to maintain towards his son--there
+was no need for them to be on bad terms, but he did not want anyone to
+imagine that he approved of Richard or thought his success worth while.
+Richard, for his part, felt kindly disposed towards his father, and a
+little sorry for him in his isolation. He invited him to dinner once or
+twice, and, realising his picturesqueness, was not ashamed to show him
+to his friends.
+
+There were several of his friends at Starcliffe that afternoon--men and
+women rising in the worlds of literature, law, and politics. It was
+possible that Richard would contend the Rye division--in the Liberal
+interest, be it said with shame--and he was anxious to surround himself
+with those who might be useful to him. Besides, he was one of those men
+who breathe more freely in an atmosphere of Culture. Apart from mere
+utilitarian questions, he liked to talk over the latest books, the
+latest _cause célèbre_ or diplomatic _coup d'étât_. Anne, very upright,
+very desiccated, poured out tea, and Reuben noted with satisfaction that
+Nature had beaten her at the battle of the dressing-table. Richard, on
+the other hand, in spite of an accentuation of the legal profile, looked
+young for his age and rather buckish, and rumour credited him with an
+intrigue with a lady novelist.
+
+He received his father very kindly, giving him a seat close to the table
+so that he might have a refuge for his cup and saucer, and introducing
+him to a gentleman who, he said, was writing a book on Sussex commons
+and anxious for information about Boarzell.
+
+"But I owe you a grudge, Mr. Backfield, for you have entirely spoilt one
+of the finest commons in Sussex. The records of Boarzell go back to the
+twelfth century, and in the Visitations of Sussex it is referred to as a
+fine piece of moorland three hundred acres in extent and grown over with
+heather and gorse. I went to see it yesterday, and found only a tuft of
+gorse and firs at the top."
+
+"And they're coming out this week," said Reuben triumphantly.
+
+"Can't I induce you to spare them? There are only too few of those
+ancient landmarks left in Sussex."
+
+"And there'd be fewer still, if I had the settling of 'em. I'd lik to
+see the whole of England grown over wud wheat from one end to the
+other."
+
+"It would be a shame to spoil all the wild places, though," said a
+vague-looking girl in an embroidered frock, with her hair in a lump at
+her neck.
+
+"One wants a place where one can get back to Nature," said a young man
+with a pince-nez and open-work socks.
+
+"But my father's great idea," said Richard, "is that Nature is just a
+thing for man to tread down and subdue."
+
+"It can't be done," said the young man in the open-work socks--"it can't
+be done. And why should we want to do it?--is not Nature the Mother and
+Nurse of us all?--and is it not best for us simply to lie on her bosom
+and trust her for our welfare?"
+
+"If I'd a-done that," said Reuben, "I shouldn't have an acre to my näum,
+surelye."
+
+"And what do you want with an acre? What is an acre but a man's toy--a
+child's silly name for a picture it can't understand. Have you ever
+heard Pan's pipes?"
+
+"I have not, young man."
+
+"Then you know nothing of Nature--the real goddess, many-breasted Ceres.
+What can you know of the earth, who have never danced to the earth's
+music?"
+
+"I once stayed on the Downs," said the girl in the embroidered frock,
+speaking dreamily, "and one twilight I seemed to hear elfin music on the
+hill. I tore off my shoes and let down my hair and I danced--I
+danced...."
+
+"Ah," said the youth in the open-work socks approvingly. "That's very
+like an episode in 'Meryon's House,' you know--that glorious scene in
+which Jennifer the Prostitute goes down to the New Forest with Meryon
+and suddenly begins dancing in a glade."
+
+"Of course, being a prostitute, she'd be closer to Nature than a
+respectable person."
+
+"I thought 'Meryon's House' the worst bilge this year has given us,"
+said a man in a braided coat.
+
+"Or that Meryon has given us, which is saying more," put in someone
+else.
+
+"I hate these romantic realists--they're worse than the old-fashioned
+Zola sort."
+
+
+The conversation had quite deserted Reuben, who sat silent and forgotten
+in his corner, thinking what fools all these people were. After he had
+wondered what they were talking about for a quarter of an hour, he rose
+to go, and gave a sigh of relief when the fresh air of Iden Hill came
+rustling to him on the doorstep.
+
+"He's a fine old fellow, your father, Backfield," said the man who was
+writing a book on Sussex commons. "I can almost forgive him for spoiling
+one of the best pieces of wild land in the county."
+
+"A magnificent old face," said a middle-aged woman with red hair--"the
+lining of it reminds me of those interesting Italian peasants one
+meets--they wrinkle more beautifully than a young girl keeps her bloom.
+I should like to paint him."
+
+"So should I," said the girl in the embroidered frock--"and I've been
+taking note of his clothes for our Earlscourt Morris Dancers."
+
+Richard felt almost proud of his parent.
+
+"He's certainly picturesque--and really there's a good deal of truth in
+what he says about having got the better of Nature. Thirty years ago I'd
+have sworn he could never have done it. But it's my firm conviction that
+he has--and made a good job of it too. He's fought like the devil, he's
+been hard on every man and himself into the bargain, he's worked like a
+slave, and never given in. The result is that he's done what I'd have
+thought no man could possibly do. It's really rather splendid of him."
+
+"Ah--but he's never heard Pan's pipes," said the youth in the open-work
+socks.
+
+
+§ 9.
+
+Reuben drove slowly homewards through the brooding October dusk. The
+music of the Fair crept after him up the Foreign, and from the crest he
+could see the booths and stalls looking very small in the low fields by
+the Rother. "I wouldn't leave my little wooden hut for you," played the
+merry-go-round, and there was some mysterious quality in that distant
+tune which made Reuben whip the old horse over the hill, so as to be out
+of reach of it.
+
+So much of his life had been bound up with the Fair that somehow a part
+of him seemed to be jigging at it still, down in the Rother field. It
+was at the Fair that he had first resolved to conquer Boarzell, and he
+saw himself rushing with the crowd to Totease, scuffling round the barns
+while the big flames shot out ... and later he saw himself dancing with
+Naomi to Harry's fiddle. What had Harry played?--a strange tune, "The
+Song of Seth's Home"--one never heard it now, but he could remember
+fragments of it....
+
+These troubling thoughts were forgotten when he came to his own
+frontiers. He drove up to the farmhouse door, and handing over the trap
+to a boy, went out for his evening inspection of Boarzell.
+
+The sunset guttered like spent candles in the wind--the rest of the sky
+was grey, like the fields under it. The distant bleating of sheep came
+through the dropping swale, as Reuben climbed the Moor. His men were
+still at work on the new ground, and he made a solemn tour of
+inspection. They were cutting down the firs and had entirely cleared
+away the gorse, piling it into a huge bonfire. All that remained of
+Boarzell's golden crown was a pillar of smoke, punctured by spurts and
+sparks of flame, rising up against the clouds. The wind carried the
+smell away to Socknersh and Burntbarns, and the farm-men there looked up
+from their work to watch the glare of Boarzell's funeral pyre.
+
+Reuben moved away from the crest and stood looking round him at what had
+once been Boarzell Moor. A clear watery light had succeeded the sunset,
+and he was able to see the full extent of his possessions. From the
+utmost limits of Grandturzel in the south, to the Glotten brook in the
+north, from Socknersh in the east to Cheat Land in the west--all that he
+could see was his. Out of a small obscure farm of barely sixty acres he
+had raised up this splendid dominion, and he had tamed the roughest,
+toughest, fiercest, cruellest piece of ground in Sussex, the beast of
+Boarzell.
+
+His victory was complete. He had done all that he had set out to do. He
+had done what everyone had told him he could never do. He had made the
+wilderness to blossom as the rose, he had set his foot upon Leviathan's
+neck, and made him his servant for ever.
+
+He stood with his arms folded over his chest, and watched the first
+stars flicker above Castweasel. The scent of the ground steamed up to
+mingle with the mists, a soft rasp of frost was in the air and the earth
+which he had loved seemed to breathe out towards him, and tell him that
+by his faithful service he had won not only Boarzell but all gracious
+soil, all the secrets of seed-time and harvest, all the tender mysteries
+of sap, and growth.
+
+He knew that not only the land within these boundaries was his--his
+possessions stretched beyond it, and reached up to the stars. The wind,
+the rain, dawns, dusks, and darkness were all given him as the crown of
+his faithfulness. He had bruised Nature's head--and she had bruised his
+heel, and given him the earth as his reward.
+
+"I've won," he said softly to himself, while behind him the blazing
+gorse spat and crackled and sent flames up almost to the clouds with
+triumphant roars--"I've won--and it's bin worth while. I've wanted a
+thing, and I've got it, surelye--and I äun't too old to enjoy it,
+nuther. I may live to be a hunderd, a man of my might. But if I go next
+week, I shan't complain, fur I've lived to see my heart's desire. I've
+fought and I've suffered, and I've gone hard and gone rough and gone
+empty--but I haven't gone in vain. It's all bin worth it. Odiam's great
+and Boarzell's mine--and when I die ... well, I've lived so close to the
+earth all my days that I reckon I shan't be afraid to lie in it at
+last."
+
+
+PRINTED BY WILLIAM BRENDON AND SON, LTD., PLYMOUTH, ENGLAND
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Sussex Gorse, by Sheila Kaye-Smith
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 56984 ***