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 ambitionthat 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.
It struck him that his relations with women had been singularly unfortunate. Caro, Tilly, Rose, Alice, had all been failuresindeed 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."Let me give you a hand," said Harry that day at dinner.Here Calverley's quick ear caught the sound of the tramping of a horsehis heart beat quickit might be a traveller journeying to Gloucester, but it was more probable that it was the messenger. He threw the bridle of his horse over the branch of a tree, sprang to the end of the path, and, concealing himself behind the under-wood, discovered in a moment, by the dark medley hue of the rider's dress, that it was the man he expected. He hurried back, and, mounting his steed, waited till the echo of the horse's hoofs could no longer be distinguished; and then, giving the impulse to his own spirited animal, he was the next moment bounding at full speed after the messenger, followed at a distance by his accomplice.
FORE: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.
ONE:Then he stooped and kissed her quite roughly on the neck, close to the nape.
TWO:"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."
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[Pg 374] "wot a tedious hard m?aster Mus' Backfield wur, surelye!"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."And why shudn't there be fences? What good did this old rubbidge-pl?ace ever do anyone? Scarce a mouthful fur a goat. Now it'll be built on, and there'll be money fur everybody."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 girlhe prophesied that she would turn out a shrew.
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