THREE: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.Yesthere 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[Pg 25] 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. "Odiamthe 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 lay on his armour-like back, and if he lifted his head a little he could see his brown belly, slightly domed and divided by arches into stiff sections
