The last piece of land had been exceptionally tough even for Boarzell. It was a high strip, running right across the Moor from the edge of the twenty-acre piece acquired in '67, over the high-road, to the borders of Doozes. The soil was amazingly variousit started in[Pg 267] the low grounds almost as clay, with runnels of red water in the irrigation ditches, then passing through a stratum of marl it became limish, grey and brittle, powdering under the spade. Reuben's ploughs tore over it, turning up earth of almost every consistency and colour, till the new ground looked like a smeared palette. Towards Doozes it became clay again, and here oats would grow, sedge-leaved and tulip-rooted, with puffy awns. On the crest was rubble, poor stuff where even the heather seemed to fight for existence.
ONE:Mrs. Backfield according to her custom watched the sun. It bathed the floor at first, but gradually she saw the square of the window paint itself on the wall, and then slide slowly up towards the ceiling. Her eyes mechanically followed it; then suddenly it blazed, filmed, flowed out into a wide spread of light, in the midst of which she saw the kitchen at Odiam as it used[Pg 202] to be, with painted fans on the chimney-piece and pots of flowers on the window-sill. Her husband sat by the fire, smoking his pipe, while Harry was helping her tidy her workbasket.
TWO:
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua.
ONE:Reuben stood motionless at the graveside, erect, like a soldier at attention. People in the crowd, who wearied of the dead man's virtues, whispered about the eldest son.
TWO:Chapter 12
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua.
ONE:Of course there was a reconciliation. Such things had begun to loom rather large in Reuben's married life. He had never had reconciliations with Naomithe storms had not been fierce enough to warrant a special celebration of the calms. But he and Rose were always being[Pg 277] reconciled. At first he had looked upon these episodes as sweets of matrimony, more blessed than any amount of honeymoon, but now he had gone a stage further and saw them merely as part of the domestic ritualthat very evening when he held Rose and the baby together in his big embrace he knew that in a day or two he would be staling the ceremony by another repetition.
TWO:Reuben's lip curled. He could not help despising his father for this ambitionless content.Albert had been known openly to scoff at hell, whereas Pete had never thought much about it. Now it confronted them both under a new aspectthe scoffer trembled and the thoughtless was preoccupied.
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua.
TWO:"I do not see my way to helping Flightshot while I have so many other calls upon me. Richard is still unsettled, and unable entirely to support himself. I should be a poor friend indeed if after having induced my protg to abandon his home and rely on me, I should forsake him before he was properly established. Be a man, Ralph, and refuse to sell any more land to that greedy, selfish, unscrupulous old Backfield.""Do you know him?" emphatically asked the galleyman.
FORE:"Ah! well," said Holgrave; "if she was fool enough to trust a dusty-foot, she must look to it. I care not what you did so long as you kept your hand from blood: so come up this way." He then took one of the branches that were still blazing on the hearth, and conducted the fugitive to the loft.
FORE:Then, when Fair-time came, people began to mutter "no more Fair." It was as hard to imagine Boarzell without the Fair as without its plume of firs. The Squire gave out his intention of tolerating the Fair, as long as it did not straggle from the crest. But this failed to soothe the indignant and sore, for it was humbling to have the Fair as a matter of toleration. Also at that time there was talk of fences. All the Moor had been mapped out, the claims considered, the road repaired, and now nothing more was to be done except to put up the fences which would definitely seal Boarzell as Flightshot's own.
FORE:At last they came to where the high land rose out of the levels like a shore out of the sea, with a lick of road on it, winding up to Peasmarsh. It was here that Rose's uncertain strength failed her, she lurched against Handshut, and still encircled by his arms slid to the grass.
FORE:The tones were not unkindly, and Reuben plucked up courage.
FORE:"Love Ino. I've loved but one woman."
FORE:
FORE:"Well, it would never have done if the old man had got to know of it. Good heavens, Tilly! How can you live on with that old brute?""Yesthere's nothing for it but that. We'll go[Pg 355] down and stay at the Camber. You'll be safe with me, and I've got a little money put by."
TWO:Speeches were made from time to time, but were lost in the general hubbub. One of the local butchers had delivered over his entire stock of entrails, skin and hoof cuttings, and old blood-puddings to the Radical cause, and Conservative Speakers were soon a sight to behold. When Reuben stood up his voice was drowned in shouts of "Ben the Gorilla! Stop the dirty animal!" while a bleeding sheep's head caught him full on the chest. Too proud to take his dismissal from the mob, he spoke unheard for five minutes, at the end of which he was silenced by half a brick, which hit his temple and stunned him sufficiently for Ditch and MacDonald to pull him away.
TWO:They then descended to the stabling, and, followed by many inquisitive eyes, went on to Holgrave's cottage.But though Reuben bore the brunt of the new enterprise, he had no intention of sparing others their part. All that he by any exertions could do himself he did, but the things which inevitably he could not compass, because he had only two hands, one back, one head, and seven days a week to work in, must be done by others. He showed himself unexpectedly stiff, and Mrs. Backfield and Harry found themselves obeying him as if he were not the son of the one and only a year older than the other. As a matter of fact, custom gave Reuben authority, in spite of his years. He was the master, the eldest son inheriting his father's lordship with his father's farm. Mrs. Backfield and Harry would have been censured by public opinion if they had set themselves against him.
$ 0$ 600
TWO:
TWO:Rose was definitely frightened, and broke free with some violence.
CHAPTER III."And him freehold!""You know. I asked you that question the first or second time I saw you. No one had ever asked it you before, and you would have liked to beat me.""How could I? I didn't know how uncle was going to leave his money."When she had concluded, Edith questioned her, if she had not, at the time of giving her the medicine, warned her of its dangerous strength, and strictly enjoined her not to administer more than ten drops; but Mary, prepared for such questions, positively denied the fact, alleging, that Edith had merely desired her, when she saw the child looking pale, to give it the contents of the phial.