FORE:If Sir Peter had been alive he would probably have given the common back to the people, but Sir Miles was more far-sighted, also of prouder stuff. Such a policy would give the impression of weakness, and there was always a chance of selling the land piecemeal. Reuben's ambition was to buy a few acres at the end of that year, letting the Squire know of his plan to buy morethis would encourage him to keep Boarzell inclosed, and would act as a check on any weak generosity.
FORE:"Oh, you need not pause," interrupted Calverley, "I do not want you to do him any bodily harm.""Mary," said Byles, addressing his wife, "put something over the casement, lest if, by chance, any body should be abroad, they may see that we are up:and now, bring me the masks. Never fear, Mary, nobody is out such a night as this. Now Sam," he continued, "fetch the hand-barrow and let us away."
ONE:"Nature!" snorted Reuben"wot's Nature, I'd lik to know?"
TWO:"You wouldn't tell himyou wouldn't be such a sneak. After all, what's a man for, if it isn't to have a bit of fun with? I don't mean anything seriousit's just a joke."
THREE:He learned to love the moving shadows of clouds[Pg 414] travelling over a sunlit viewto love ridged distances fading from dark bice, through blue, to misty grey. He used to watch for the sparkle of light on far cottage windows, the white sheen of farmhouse walls and the capped turrets of oasts. But he loved best of all to feel the earth under his cheek when he cast himself down, the smell of her teeming sap, the sensation that he lay on a kind breast, generous and faithful. It was strange that the result of all his battles should be this sense of perfect union, this comfort in his loneliness. Reuben was not ashamed at eighty years old to lie full length in some sun-hazed field, and stretch his body over the grass, the better to feel that fertile quietness and moist freshness which is the comfort of those who make the ground their bed.
FORE:
The practices were held in the clerk's kitchen, into which the choristers would crush and huddle. On full attendance nights all elbows touched, and occasionally old Spodgram's bow would be jolted out of his hand, or someone would complain that Leacher was blowing his trumpet down his neck. Afterwards the choristers would wander home in clusters through the fields; the clusters generally split into small groups, and then the groups into couples. The couples would scatter widely, and vex their homes with late returnings.Simon Sudbury, the mitred abbot, was a man of a fair and florid complexion, with large, expressive eyes, that even at the age of fifty were of a deep and clear blue. He was tall, and just sufficiently corpulent to give an air of dignity to his figure; but even had his person been insignificant, there sat on his brow, and glanced in his eye, that pride and conscious superiority which, even from an equal, would have extorted respect."I met Mr. Hedges at the pub"She could not discipline her attitude towards himsometimes she was composed, distant even in her thoughts; at others a kind of delirious excitement possessed her, she flushed and held down her head in his presence, could not speak to him, and groped blindly for escape. She would, on these occasions, end by returning to Rye, but away from Reuben a restless misery tormented her, driving her back to Odiam.
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