It was a bold step, but he saw that none other would serve, and he realised that she was not the kind of woman to take advantage of him and make herself a permanent encumbrance.
Reuben sprang to his feet. "YesI do! You're justabout right there. I'm starved fur work. I've never really worked in my life, and now I want to work till I drop. Look at my arm"and he showed them his brown hairy arm, where the muscles swelled in lumps under the skin"that's a workman's arm, and it's never worked yetpr?aperly. You let me send off Blackman and Becky, and see how we manage wudout 'em. I'll do most of the work myself, I promise you. I couldn't have too much."Reuben had learnt his first lesson from experience. Quietly but decidedly he altered his conduct. He no longer made the slightest appeal to his family's enterprise or ambition, he no longer interrupted his chidings with those pathetic calls to their enthusiasm which had mystified or irritated them in times past. On the other hand he was twice as hard, twice as fierce, twice as ruthless and masterful as he had ever been.
ONE:"Yes, my lord," replied the yeoman, with a humble reverence.
TWO:"Oh, will you! Well, there'll be naun to prevent you when you're out of this houseand out you go to-night; I'll have no Radical hogs on my farm. I'm shut of you!"
TWO:"Stephen Holgrave," said he, "you remember, some seven years since, being accused of shooting a buck in my chase. It is not to repeat the charge that I sent for you, but, before this noble sir and these vassals, publicly to acquit you of the base deed. He who stole your arrows, and shot the animal, stands there!" and he pointed towards Byles."And he who bribed him to be a thief and a liar, aware of his guilt, has fled, and has for the present escaped my vengeance. And now, Holgrave, it repents me that I dealt so hardly by your mother, for, as I hope to die a Christian's death, I believe she died innocent."Indeed he was so na?ve that it was not till Reuben had once or twice sneered at him in public that he realised there was any friction between Grandturzel[Pg 197] and Odiam, and even then he scarcely grasped its importance, for one night at the Cocks, Coalbran said rather maliciously to Reuben:
His return had been complete. All that she had ever had and lost of empire had re-established itself during that hour at Cheat Land. He wanted her as he had wanted her before he met Rose, but with a renewed intensity, for he was no longer mystified by his desire. He no longer asked himself how he could possibly love "a liddle stick of a woman like her," for he saw how utterly love-worthy she was and had always been. For the first time he saw as his, if only he would take it, a great woman's faithful love. This love of Alice Jury's had nothing akin to Naomi's poor little fluttering passion, or to Rose's fascination, half appetite, half[Pg 327] game. Someone loved him truly, strongly, purely, deeply, with a fire that could be extinguished only by death orhe realised in a dim wayher own will. The question was, should he pay the price this love demanded, take it to himself at the cost of the ambitions that had fed his life for forty years?
荣誉榜
THREE:"Stolen from the castles and houses they have plundered," added Sudbury.
THREE:An elegy of oats.
