The next morning Holgrave received a peremptory order to attend at the castle in the afternoon; and the henchman of the baron, who was the bearer of the message, refused to give any information why he had been so summoned. Edith, with her natural penetration, saw, by the hesitation of the servitor, and by the tone in which the mandate was conveyed, that something of more than ordinary moment was about to be transacted, and, with an undefined feeling of alarm, she resolved to accompany her son.Reuben was now alone at Odiam with his two small children and Harry. David and Bill, unlike their predecessors, did not start their career as farm-hands till well past babyhood. Reuben no longer economised in labourhe had nearly a dozen men in regular employ, to say nothing of casuals. Sometimes he thought regretfully of the stalwart sons who were to have worked for him, to have run the farm without any outside help ... but that dream belonged to bygone days, and he resolutely put it from him. After all, his posse of farm-hands was the envy of the neighbourhood; no one in Peasmarsh employed so many.
Meantime it was soothing to contemplate the result of his efforts. After all, his own striving had done more for him than any slackness or grass-fed contentment on the part of Grandturzel. His greatest achievement was the paying off of his mortgage, which he managed in the spring of '79. Now he could once more begin saving money to buy another piece of Boarzell. There was something both novel and exhilarating about this return to old ways. It was over ten years since he had bought any land, but now were renewed all the ticklish delights of calculation, all the plannings and layings-out, all the contrivances and scrapings and wrestlings."I beg your pardon!"Anne's chin came forward so like Richard's that one might gather he had borrowed the trick from her.Calverley was a good horseman, and it was but a short space ere he was within a few yards of the messenger, and shouting to him to halt. The man stopped, and, turning in his saddle, surveyed with some surprise (which could be seen even in the duskiness of twilight) the bright colours that distinguished the garb of a pursuivant.Shouts and gunshots brought those men who slept out in the cottages, and a half-dressed gang, old Reuben at the head, pounded through the misty hay-sweet night to where the flames were spreading in the sky. From the shoulder of Boarzell they could see what was burningRealf's new-made stacks, two already aflame, the others doomed by the sparks which scattered on the wind.
