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 limealong 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!"
ONE: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, toohe was so cool, possessed and assured, so utterly without anything in the way of embarrassment or self-consciousness.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 themhe 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.
"No, noI w?an't have you go wearing yourself out. D?an't let's hear no more about it."Calverley would have willingly risked every thing but his personal safety to be revenged of her who strove to attach to him the suspicion of crime; and even when mounted on his steed, with a large dark cloak thrown over him to conceal the material of his dress, lest its singularity should attract observation, he could not help feeling a slight inward trepidation.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.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.
