THREE:
FORE:The actual means by which he acquired the Fair-place never quite transpired, for the farm-men were paid for their silence by Sir Eustace, and also had a kindly feeling for young George which persisted after the money was spent. However, one or two of the prevalent rumours were worse for Reuben than the facts, and if anyone, in farmhouse or cottage, had ever had a grudging kindness for the man who had wrested a victory out of the tyrant earth, he forgot it now.He led her back into the crowd, and once more she felt his arms round her, so light, so strong, while her feet spun with his, tricked by magic. She became acutely conscious of his presencethe roughness of his coat-sleeve, the faint scent of the sprigged waistcoat, which had been folded away in lavender. And all the[Pg 64] while she had another picture of him in her heart, not in his Sunday best, but in corduroys and the blue shirt which had stood out of the January dusk, the last piece of colour in the day. She remembered the swing of his arm, the crash of the axe on the trunk, the bending of his back as he pulled it out, the muscles swelled under the skin ... and then the tingling creep in her own heart, that sudden suffocating thrill which had come to her there beside Harry in the gloam....
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TWO:"Mother?she's used to it, and she's tougher than you, liddle creature."
TWO:But the cottage was shut. With its red-rotting roof between two tall chimneys it looked exactly like a rabbit's head between its ears; the windows were blind, though it was past seven o'clock, and though Reuben knocked at the door loudly, there was no one to be seen. He prowled once or twice round the house, fumbling handles and window-latches, but there was no way of getting in. He listened, but he could not hear a sound. He pictured Rose and Handshut in each other's arms, laughing at him in his wretchedness and their blissand all the time he wanted the woman's blood more than the man's.
