TWO: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 Boarzellthis 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.Sam obeyed; but whether owing to his trepidation or the slippery surface of the earth, he lost his footing and disappeared, uttering a cry of terror. Byles stood for an instant, irresolute whether to advance to the succour of his servitor, or leave him behind, for he apprehended that the cry would arouse the guardians of the Chase. Recollecting, however, that it would be as dangerous to abandon him as to attempt his extrication, he rushed forward to the spot where Sam had disappeared. The man had, in his fall, grasped the root of a tree from which the late heavy rains had washed the earth, and he lay suspended midway down. Byles hastily threw him a rope, with which he had intended to bind the animal on the barrow, and, with some difficulty, succeeded in dragging him up.
