He managed to slip over to Eggs Hole that evening. Albert, whom his father had not treated gently on the day of the choir practice, refused to be his accomplice a second time, but Reuben, thinking his rebellion crushed, kept a less strict watch over him, and took himself off after supper to the Cocks, where he had weighty matters of politics and agriculture to discuss. Robert seized his opportunity, and ran the whole way to Eggs Holelaid his plans before Bessieand ran the whole way back again."You knew where I wur?"
FORE:July passed. Odiam was no longer cut off from the rest of the world by lime. Reuben with the courage of despair began to organise his shattered strength. He discharged Pipernow that his cows were gone he could easily do with a hand less. He sometimes wondered why he had not discharged Handshut, but the answer was always readyHandshut was far the better workman, and Odiam now came easily before Rose. Not that Reuben's jealousies had left himthey still persisted, though in a different form. The difference lay in the fact that now he would not sacrifice to them the smallest scrap of Odiam's welfare.Robert and Peter also did their share, feeding fowls, weeding vegetables. Robert was a stolid, well-behaved child, a trifle uninteresting, but hard-working and obedient. Pete was Reuben's delighta wonderfully sturdy little fellow, who often amazed his father and Beatup by his precocious feats of strength. To amuse them he would sometimes shoulder Beatup's tools, or pick up a bag of chicken-meal with his teethhe could even put his back against a young calf and prevent it entering a gate or reaching its stall. Reuben was careful not to let him strain himself, but he loved to handle his son's arms and shoulders, feeling the swell of the muscles under the skin. He even taught him the rudiments of boxing; he had had some practice himself as a boy in the Fair sparring booth, and though of late years he had been too busy to keep it up, he was a good teacher for little Pete, who could soon lick all his brothers and even deliver respectable punishment on Beatup's[Pg 122] nether limbs. Richard at the age of six was not of any great agricultural value, but at the village school he outshone the elder boys. Sometimes he gave Reuben anxious moments, for the smell of the midden now and then made him sick, which was scarcely a hopeful sign.
FORE:"I wur going to say as how I've t?aken a liking to him. He looks a valiant liddle feller, and if you'll hand him over to me and have no more part nor lot in him, I'll see as he doesn't want."
FORE:Reuben faced his adversity with set teeth and a dogged countenance. He had not been farming thirty odd years to be beaten casually by the weather. Scorching heat and blighting cold, the still blanker doom of the trickling, pouring rainthe wind that seeded his corn, and beat down his hay, and flung his hop-bines together in muddled heapsthe pests that Nature breeds by the ten million out of her own putrefyings and misbegettingsall things in life from the lowest maggot to the fiercest stormhe was out to fight them. In challenging Boarzell he had challenged them all.
FORE:Reuben treated these irreverences with scorn. Nothing would make him abate a jot of his dignity. On the contrary, his manner and his presence became more and more commanding. He drove a splendid blood mare in his gig, smoked cigars instead of pipes, and wore stand-up collars about four inches highwhen he was not working, for it had not struck him that it was undignified to work, and he still worked harder on his farm than the worst-paid pig-boy.
One night early in October he was taking her home. They had crossed Boarzell, and were walking through the lanes that tangle the valley north of Udimore. She walked with her arm conventionally resting on his, her profile demure in the starlight. He felt tired, not in his body, but in his mindsomehow life seemed very aimless and gloomy; he despised himself because he craved for her arms, for her light thoughtless sympathy.A gleam came into the minister's eyes, very much the same as when he had knocked out the tramp."You have heard his confession," said the baron. "See, steward, that he is sent to Gloucester, to receive sentence from the King's Judge when he goes the next assize. Record the verdict, and let the record be transmitted to the superior court."