But the majority was anti-Bardon. There were grumblings about allotments, especially from copyholders. The commissioners had been off-hand in their treatment of claims, ignoring everyone except freeholders, of whom there were only two.Chapter 11
ONE:"I don't think you understand.""I can't foller you," said Reuben gruffly.
ONE:His nostrils were always full of the smart of lime, and the stench of those horrible furnaces belching away on the slopes of the Moor. Would that burning never be done? For days the yellowy white pennons of destruction had flown on Boarzell, and that acrid reek polluted[Pg 299] the harvest wind. Boarzell was nothing but a huge funeral pyre, a smoking hell.... "And the smoke of her went up for ever and ever."
TWO:"May be you have; but that matters little; I know you are an honest man, and were I even your enemy, you would not betray me."
TWO:"Farewell, farewell, you jolly young girls!He went straight to find Rose, for that mood was upon him. The due of loneliness which his shame demanded had been paid during the drive home from Rye, and now he quite simply and childishly wanted his wife. She was in the kitchen, stooping over some child's garment, the little frills of which she was pleating in her fingers. She lifted her head with a start as he came in, and he saw that her face was patched with tearstains.
THREE:All the same he was lonely. Maude was a good woman, but she wasn't his equal. He wanted to speak to someone of his own class, who used to be his friend in days gone by. Then suddenly he thought of Alice Jury. He had promised to go and see her at Rye, but had never done so. He remembered how long ago she had used to comfort him when he felt low-spirited and neglected by his fellows. Perhaps she would do the same for him now. He did not know her address, but the new people at Cheat Land would doubtless be able to give it to him, and perhaps Alice would help him through these trying times as she had helped him through earlier ones.
THREE:CHAPTER VI."How have I desired to behold the prophetwho hath risen up to be the champion of the oppressed. My breast burned within me when I saw the poor man trampled on. I sheltered a bondmanI was vexed with the lawstripped of my allbeggared, and nothing left me but bondage or a jail!I am weary of the hard hand that presses down the poor! Holy father, let me join the good cause."
