ONE:Reuben did not wait any longerhe dashed out of the room and upstairs to his wife's door.The rain did continue, and, after Byles had supped, he sat at the fire for two or three hours, and scarcely spoke. His countenance was troubled;the deed he had promised to dowhich he had contemplated with almost indifference, was now about to be accomplished; and he felt how different it is to dwell upon the commission of a thing, and actually to do it. Frequent draughts of ale, however, in some measure restored the tone of his nerves; and, as the evening wore away, he rose from the fire, and, opening the door, looked out at the weather. A thick drizzling rain still fell; the moon was at the full; and though the heavy clouds precluded the possibility of her gladdening the earth, yet even the heavy clouds could not entirely obscure her light;there was a radiance spread over the heavens which, though wanting the brightness of moonlight, was nevertheless equal and shadowless.
TWO:
ONE:The next were those who held lands by agricultural or rent service, and who performed fealty as a memorial of their attachment and dependence.At last the gods, who are more open-handed than ungrateful people suppose, took pity on the rivals, and gave them something to fight about. The pretext was in itself trivial, but when the gunpowder is laid nothing bigger than a match is needed. This particular pretext was a barrow of roots which had been ordered from Kitchenhour by Reuben and sent by mistake to Grandturzel. Realf's shepherd, not seeing any cause for doubt, gave the roots as winter fodder to his ewes, and said nothing about them. When Reuben tramped over to Kitchenhour and asked furiously why his roots had never been sent, the mistake was discovered. He came home by Grandturzel, and found his precious roots, all thrown out on the fields, being nibbled by Realf's ewes.
TWO:"May be so; but I can only tell you thisthat when the poor monk was turned out of the abbey, Calverley seized upon him like a dog, or a thief."
ONE:Not that Rye elections had ever been much concerned with national events. Borough had always been a bigger word than country on those occasions. It was the question of the Harbour rather than the Ballot which had sent up Captain Curteis in 1832, while later contests had centred round the navigation of the Brede River, the new Sluice at Scott's Float, or the Landgate clock. Reuben, however, cared little for these petty town affairs. His chief concern was the restoration of the tax on wheat, and he also favoured the taxing of imported malt and hops. He hated and dreaded Gladstone's "free breakfast table," which he felt would mean the ruin of agriculture in England. He would like to concentrate country Toryism into an organised opposition of Free Trade, and his wounded pride found balm in the thought of founding a local agricultural party of which he would be the inspirer and head.
TWO:Meantime affairs at Grandturzel were going from bad to worse. Reuben did not speak much about Grandturzel, but he watched it all the same, and as time wore on a look of quiet satisfaction would overspread his face when it was mentioned at the Cocks. He watched the tiles drip gradually off its barn roofs, he watched the thatch of its haggards peel and moult, he watched the oasts lose their black coats of tar, while the wind battered off their caps, and the skeleton poles stuck up forlornly from their turrets. Holes wore in the neat house-front, windows were broken and not mended, torn curtains waved signals of distress. It was only a question of waiting.
