FORE:Reuben often spoke to her severely, but with no result. There was a time when he could never chide her without her crying, but now she hardly seemed to care.
FORE:"How many trees are there?"Reuben was strangely silent on the walk home. His mother made one or two small remarks which passed unheeded. She noticed that his arm, on which her hand lay, was very tense.
FORE:"Oh, he said mine was the best gift that had been brought yet. But come, mother, it is time we were at home."
THREE:He gave up going to the Cocks. It had fallen off terribly those last five years, he told Maude the dairy-woman, his only confidant nowadays. The beer had deteriorated, and there was a girl behind the counter all painted and curled like a Jezebubble, and rolling her eyes at you like this.... If any woman thought a man of his experience was to be caught, she was unaccountable mistaken (this doubtless for Maude's benefit, that she might build no false hopes on the invitation to bring her sewing into the kitchen of an evening). Then the fellows in the bar never talked about stocks and crops and such like, but about race-horses and football and tomfooleries of that sort, wot had all come in through the poor being educated and put above themselves. Moreover, there was a gramophone playing trash like "I wouldn't leave my little wooden hut for you"and the tale of Reuben's grievances ended in expectoration.
THREE:"Avast there! Master Tyler," said Wells, shaking off the grip of the smith; "I know no more of Lancaster than yourself: I told you this morning he was on the bordersand so, how, in the name of all the saints, could he be here?but I tell ye, there are some here who would rather lay hand upon John of Gaunt's gold than upon John of Gaunt's body!"
