THREE: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.
THREE:"But, take care," said Margaret, "that you say not whom it is for."
THREE: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 oncein time, like Richard, or go in a few yearstoo late, like Caro. Besides, the war called to their young blood; they[Pg 412] 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.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.
THREE: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."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 youwe could manage the pl?ace, I reckon, till the lad's old enough, and then there'll be others...."
THREE:"That's all very well; but, Tom, as I just said, never boast. I used to brag that there never was a woman dishonest, nor a man a rogue, in my family; and that none of the name of Turner ever had a key turned upon them. And you see what it's come to."
THREE:Nature had given the galleyman a good and a kind heart, but evil associates had done much, and dissipation still more, to demoralize his soul; yet his natural good qualities were not entirely uprooted: the good fruit would sometimes spring up, but it sprung up only to shew what the soil might have producedit bloomed for an hour in beauty, and then was trodden underfoot, and defiled in the dust.
THREE:"Hehe wouldn't like it," she stammered after a pause."Who fill their pockets at Scott's Float,
THREE:The yeoman re-entered, and Sir Robert began, in a voice so familiar, that Byles was thrown off his guard. "John Byles, how came you to be so foolish as to fall in the ravine the night you and Sam went to shoot the buck?""Well, I want something better than that."