Then came a day early in December, when they were walking home together through the mud of Totease Lane, their faces whipped into redness by the south-west wind. Naomi wore a russet cloak and hood, and her hair, on which a few rain-drops glistened, was teasing her eyes. She held Reuben's arm, for the ruts were treacherous, and he noticed the spring and freedom of her walk. A sudden turn of the lane brought them round due west, and between them and the sunset stood Boarzell, its club of firs knobbily outlined against the grape-red sky. It smote itself upon Reuben's eyes almost as a thing forgottenthere, half blotting out the sunset with its blackness. Unconsciously his arm with Naomi's hand on it contracted against his side, while the colour deepened on his cheek-bones.
TWO:Besides, she was lost in the crowd which jigged and clumped around her, not even daunted by the unfamiliar waltz that the hurdy-gurdy struck up next. Nobody, except fanatics, bothered about steps, so one could dance to any tune."And is this the way, misguided zealot?" cried Sudbury"is this the way that you preach peace? What hast thou done with the royal Richard?"
TWO:Boarzell Fair was in many ways a mark of the passage of the years and a commentary on history. Not only did the atmosphere and persons of it change very much[Pg 351] as the nineteenth century changed, but the side-shows were so many lights cast on popular opinion, politics, and progress.
TWO:It was a minute or two before Realf opened his swollen, watering eyes, and gazed up bewildered into the face of the woman he had said his prayers to for a dozen Sundays. She held his head in the crook of her arm, and wiped the froth and blood from his lips.
He sat down at the table which the children had left, and mechanically began to eat. His healthy young body claimed its dues, and almost without knowing it he cleared the plate before him. Harry sat in the chimney corner, murmuring, "Why d?an't you kip bees, Reuben? Why d?an't you kip bees?"showing that he had uttered his thoughts aloud, just as the[Pg 117] empty platters showed him he had made a very good dinner.The steward, after thus relieving his mind from all anxiety respecting the dress, proceeded to the sign of the Mitre in Silver Girdle-street, a well known resort for certain useful adjuncts to the courts of law.Odiam had triumphed at last. Just when Reuben's unsettled allegiance should have been given entirely to the wife who had borne him a son, his farm had suddenly snatched from him all his thought, all his care, his love, and his anxiety, all that should have been hers. It seemed almost as if some malignant spirit had controlled events, and for Rose's stroke prepared a counter-stroke that should effectually drive her off the field. The same evening that Rose had gone weeping and shuddering upstairs, Reuben had interviewed the vet. from Rye and heard him say "excema epizootica." This had not conveyed much, so the vet. had translated brutally:Further on, in the secrecy of the tents and caravans, the dusk became full of cowering shapes, sometimes slipping and sliding about apart, sometimes blotted together ... there were whispers, rustlings, strugglings, low cries of "d?an't" and "adone do!"the sound of kisses ... kisses ... they followed Robert all the way to Meridiana's tent, where, standing in the brazier glow, and flushed besides with crimson of her own, stood Bessie.One evening at the beginning of August she wandered out of the kitchen for a breath of fresh air in the garden before going up to bed. Her head ached, and her cheeks burned from the fire. She did not know it, but the flush and fever made her nearly beautiful. She was[Pg 339] not a bad-looking woman, though a trifle too dark and heavy-featured, and now the glow on her cheeks and the restless brilliancy of her eyes had kindled her almost into loveliness.
荣誉榜
THREE:"Do not be alarmed, Margaret. I must go with the man who spoke to me, but I shall not be long."
THREE:"Had what!" interrupted the galleyman, impatiently. "I wish I had never done worse than I have done this day, Holgrave; I have neither hurt nor harmed; I only gave a pretty little fair-going dame a Genoese piece instead of an English one."Perhaps your cold heart will remember Seth's Manor,
