ONE:"Rubbidge!" said Reuben.
TWO:What there was in either Reuben or Naomi to make a poet of their eldest son would be hard to say. Perhaps it was the glow of their young love, so golden and romantic during the first year of their marriage. If so, there was something of bitter irony in this survival and transmutation of it. Odiam was no place for poets, and Reuben tried by every means in his power to knock the poetry out of Albert. It was not the actual poetry he objected to so much as the vices which went with itforgetfulness, unpracticalness, negligence. Albert would sometimes lose quite half an hour's work by falling into a dream, he also played truant on occasions, and would disappear for hours, indeed now and then for a day or more, wandering in the fields and spinneys, tasting the sharp sweetness of the dawn and the earth-flavoured sleep of the night."Not ever?"
ONE:The daughter must be the girl who was talking to him now. She sat on a little stool by the fire, and had brought out some sewing."She's ayou know," he said.
TWO:The combatants were as yet little hurt, for each was well skilled in the use of his weapon; but the steward, in endeavouring to ward off a blow that might have cleft his head, only succeeded at the sacrifice of his right ear, which was severed by the descending blade; and, ere he could recover this shock, Holgrave sprang within his guard, and wrenched the sword from his hand. A brief but fierce struggle ensued, in which Holgrave, at length, prevailedthe steward was thrown backward to the ground, and the next moment his enemy's hand was on his throat.The positions of husband and wife were now reversed. It was Reuben who sulked and gloomed, looking at the baby askance, while Naomi moved in a daydream of peace and rapture and desire satisfied. She was too happy to care much about her husband's disappointment. She would never have believed it if anyone had told her in the first weeks of her marriage that she could have a joy and not mind if he did not share it, a child and not fret if he did not love it. But now her child sufficed her, or rather she had learned the lesson of wives, to suffice herself, and could love and rejoice without a comrade.
ONE:"That is well," returned De Boteler; and then, after a momentary but earnest gaze at Margaret, he turned away and left the cottage.
TWO:All was silence as the galleyman proceeded; labour had ceased, the evening repast was made, and many of the inhabitants of the village had already retired to rest. The evening was clear and cold, and the firmament was radiant with stars, the moon being only a few days old. By some strange impulse, the man who had so often gazed upon the far-spread beauty of an ocean sky, stood still for a moment here; and, by as strange a conceit, the silvery semicircle above, as it seemed, even in the crowd of lesser lights, brought to his mind the ever-smiling beauty of Lucy Hartwell. The wanderer lingered for a spacethen hesitatedthen turned suddenlyand, in less than five minutes, he had pushed open the hatch of old Hartwell's door and had entered boldly.
