He would wait there till the dew hung in pearls on his clothes and hair, and the damp chills of the night were[Pg 268] in his bones. Then he would creep down from the Moor, and go back into the warmth and love of the houseyet with this difference now, that he never quite forgot.The two women had been bathing. It was one of Rose's complaints that Odiam did not make enough provision for personal cleanliness in the way of baths and tubs. Reuben objected if she made the servant run up and downstairs ten times or so with jugs of hot water to fill a wash-tub in her bedroomthey had once had a battle royal about it, during which Rose had said some humorous things about her man's washingso in summer she relieved the tension by bathing in the Glotten brook, where it ran temporarily limpid and reclused at the foot of the old hop-garden. She had persuaded Caro to join her in this adventureaccording to her ideas it was not becoming for a woman to bathe alone; so Caro had conquered her objections to undressing behind a bush, and tasted for the first time the luxury of a daily, or all but daily, bath.
FORE:He was right. Realf accepted his offer, partly persuaded by Tilly. His mortgage foreclosed in a couple of months, and he had no hopes of renewing it. If he rejected Reuben's terms, he would probably soon find himself worse off than everhis farm gone with nothing to show for it, and himself a penniless exile. On the other hand, his position as bailiff, though ignominious, would at least leave him Grandturzel as his home and a certain share in its management. He might be able to save some money, and perhaps at last buy a small place of his own, and start afresh.... He primed himself with such ideas to help drug his pride. After all, he could not sacrifice his wife and children to make a holiday for his self-respect. Tilly was past her prime, and not able for much hard work, and though his eldest boys had enlisted, like Reuben's, and were thus no longer on his mind, he had two marriageable girls at home besides his youngest boy of ten. One's wife and children were more to one than one's farm or one's position as a farmerand if they were not, they ought to be.
Calverley made no reply; but, without looking either at Holgrave, or the man who had so fiercely and tauntingly addressed him, took the advantage offeredpassed through the door of the foundry, and through the yielding ranks of sneerers and jibers outside; and mounting his horse, galloped rapidly away from the scene of his defeat, with the shout of a hue and cry following his track as far as the foresters considered their legitimate domain."From what?"