The next day they left Odiam for the recruiting station at Rye. Reuben and the farm-hands watched them as they marched off whistling "Good-bye, Dolly, I must leave you," shaking their shoulders in all the delight of their new freedom. They had goneas Albert had gone, as Robert, as Richard, as Tilly, as Benjamin, as Caro, as Pete had gone. Reuben stood erect and stiff, his eyes following them as they turned out of the drive and disappeared down the Peasmarsh road.
Meanwhile, the farm was doing well; indeed, it was almost back at its former glory. Having laid the foundations, Reuben could now think of expansion, and he engaged two more farm-hands."Then you must choose to submit voluntarily to my lady's wishes," he added.
ONE:Then in winter came the lambing, which is the shepherd's Lent. Richard and the old man from Doozes kept long vigils in the lambing hut, and those nights and days were to young Backfield dreams of red, fuggy solitude, the stillness broken only by the slip of coals in the brazier, or the faint bleating of the ewes outsidewhile sometimes mad Harry's fiddle wept down the silences of Boarzell.
TWO:"Noyou're justabout right there. I ought to be able to wed Naomi next April year, and then, motherthink of the dear liddle house we shall live in, you and she and I, all wud our own fields and garn, and no trouble, and Ben carrying through his own silly consarns here by himself."
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ONE:
TWO:Calverley entered the Mitre, and, after calling for some wine, was shown into a little private room by the host. A few minutes after, the door opened, and a man entered and took his seat at the end of the table at which Calverley was sitting. The individual who thus invaded the privacy of the steward was a man not much above the middle height. His face had once been comely, but a close intimacy with the bottle had given to his countenance a bloated and somewhat revolting expression. The latter peculiarity, however, was only to be detected by the few who read the heart in the "human face divine;" and even these might be deceived into a prepossession favourable to the man; for his large, full, blue eyes, beamed with much apparent benevolence, and his nose, though clothed in a fiery mantle and tipped with two large carbuncles, was not a nose that Lavater himself could with conscience have objected to. Large, black, whiskers, and thick, bushy, hair, with a beard of the same hue, had given him the characteristic soubriquet of Black Jack. On the whole his appearance and deportment were those of a respectable burgher of the period. This man was not a stranger to Calverley, and Black Jack was, by some chance, still better acquainted with the person and character of the steward. He had heard every particular relative to the child's death, and consequently divined the motive of the steward's visit to the Mitre, and, as he now and then cast a keen glance at Calverley, he might be likened to the author of evil contemplating a man about to engage in some heinous offence, the commission of which would connect them in still closer affinity.
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ONE:Reuben had bought thirty-five more acres of Boarzell in '81, and thirty in '84. The first piece was on the Flightshot side of the Moor, by Cheat Land, the second stretched from the new ground by Totease over to Burntbarns. Now only about fifty acres, including the Fair-place and the crest, remained to be won outside the Grandturzel inclosure. Bardon publicly announced his intention never to sell the Fair-place to Backfield. Flightshot and Odiam had not been drawn together by Richard's marriage. At first Reuben had feared that the Squire might take liberties on the strength of it, and had been stiffer than ever in his unavoidable intercourse with the Manor. But Bardon had been, if anything, stiffer still. He thoroughly disapproved of Backfield as an employer of laboursome of his men were housed, with their families, in two old barns converted into cottages at the cheapest rateand as he was too hard up to refuse to sell him Boarzell, he could express his disgust only by his attitude. Fine shades of manner were apt to be lost on Reuben, but about the refusal to sell the Fair-place there could be no mistake.
TWO:'Mid camp-fires gleaming, 'mid shot and shell,
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TWO:Black Jack seized the empty flaggon and was about to hurl it at the head of the facetious under-strapper, when his arm was arrested by the old man who had first spoken.
FORE:Father John's lips grew pale and quivered; and there was a slight tremor perceptible through his whole frame, as the monks reluctantly proceeded to obey the command of their superior. His eyes were fixed upon the ground; he dared not raise them, for the chequers of the pavement seemed indistinct and trembling; and yet for twelve days he had been preparing himself to meet this catastrophe with firmness. The outer garments were removed; their place was supplied by a coarse woollen jerkin and cloak, and then the monk, for a moment resuming the energy that was more natural to his character than the subdued spirit he had as yet evinced, stood forth from the brothers who had been the unwilling instruments in the act of degradation, and fixing his eyes upon the abbot, who stood upon the topmost step of the altar, with his face turned towards the brotherhood, said in a tone that filled the whole chapel"My lord abbot, I shall appeal against this severity. It is not because I administered a sacrament to a sinner that I am thus degradedit is because the Lord de Boteler desires to humble mebecause he foolishly imagines, that a spirit conscious of its own strength would bend beneath injustice and oppression, that I am thus dealt with. But remember, my lord, that 'with what measure you mete to others, the same shall be meted to you again.'" So saying, without waiting for the ceremony of being driven from the gates, he turned, and with a quick step left the abbey.Naomi had not acquired the art of flouting him openly. She tearfully put Fanny into her cradle, and lay and sulked on the sofa for the rest of the evening.
FORE:He then strode across the room, and, throwing open a door, ushered his colleagues into a place probably used by Bridget as a sort of store-room, of moderate size, with clay walls, and an earthen floor. A large iron lamp was burning on an oblong table of considerable dimensions that stood in the centre. At the upper end of the table was a chair and stools, and benches were arranged round in proper order.He formed a plan of campaign. The large unreclaimed tracts of Boarzell must be left for a time, while he devoted his attention to the land already cultivated. He must economise in labour, so he hired no one in Handshut's place, but divided his work among the other men. His rekindled zeal was hot enough to ignite even the dry sticks of their enterprise, and Odiam toiled as it had never toiled before. Even Harry was pressed for service, and helped feed the pigs and calves, besides proving himself a most efficient scarecrow.
FORE:"And your mother, and Harry?""Now, steward," resumed the constable, "Mark Neville has performed the king's commands as a loyal subject, and it remains with you to do the rest."
FORE:
FORE:"But won't it be too hard for mother?" Naomi had objected.
FORE:Reuben flushed.
FORE:"Never mind that," replied the galleyman; "but as for your mother, she was a good, and a holy woman; but I say she was proud! You are proud, or you would not think so much of being a villein. And is it not likely that your boy will be as proud as either?"
FORE:Luckily his body was so tired that even his kicking mind could not keep it awake. Suddenly, in the midst of all his remorse and terror, he fell asleep, and did not wake till sunshine two hours old was on his pillow.
TWO:"What! the audacious monk who intruded upon us at Kennington?"Reuben's domestic catastrophes might be summed up in the statement that he had lost two farm hands. It is true that Albert had never been much goodif he had his father would probably not have turned him awaybut he had been better than nothing, and now Reuben would have to hire a substitute. One would be enough, for Jemmy and George were now able to do a man's full work each. So another hand was engaged for OdiamPiper, a melancholy, lean-jowled cowman from Moor's Cottage.
TWO:The thresher purred and panted under the window"Urrr-umUrrr-um." Now and then Reuben would call out sharply, "Now then! mind them genuinesthey're mixing wud the seconds!" or "Kip them sacks closed, Beatup." But for most of the afternoon the stillness was broken only by the hum of the machine which sometimes almost seemed a part of it.
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TWO:"No," replied Holgrave, "I cannot call your face to mind; but surely I must have heard your voice before."
TWO:Their feet splashed on the soaking grass, and suddenly Bessie stopped and lifted her shoe:"Send forth the hue and cry," said De Boteler. "Scour the country till the knave be found, and promise a noble to him who discovers the runaway."
TWO:About ten, a small boat was observed to approach the southern walls of the fortress. A man stepped from it and was permitted to ascend the terrace, and Calverley, who was standing there, challenged the stranger.
"I have a great-coat here."Lucy was little used to the figurative language of a sailor, yet she easily interpreted his meaning; and, after much hesitation, a little blushing, many promises of amendmentand many more protestations of unchanging love, she plighted her troth, and the galleyman departed on his journey."That you should be able to comfort yourself with the thought that they weren't worth much to you as a farmer. What were they worth to you as a father?"Joseph Backfield was buried four days later. His body was carried to the church in a hay-waggon, drawn by the meek horses which had drawn his plough. Beside it walked Blackman, the only farm-hand at Odiam, in a clean smock, with a black ribbon tied to his hat. Five men from other farms acted with him as bearersthey were volunteers, for old Joseph had been popular in the neighbourhood, dealing sharply with no man."Albert's bin in the orchard scaring sparrers, and Robert and Pete wur helping wud the chickens. My family's gitting quite valiant now, Mrs. Backfield."
TWO:Their feet splashed on the soaking grass, and suddenly Bessie stopped and lifted her shoe:"Send forth the hue and cry," said De Boteler. "Scour the country till the knave be found, and promise a noble to him who discovers the runaway."
