The girls cried a great deal at their grandmother's deathshe had never taken up enough room in the boys' lives for them to miss her much. As for Reuben,[Pg 203] though he had been fond of her, he could not sincerely regret her, since for the last few months she had, so to speak, been carried on entirely at a loss.Harry and his mother had not realised till then how hard Reuben could be. Hitherto they had never truly known him, for he had hidden in himself his dominant passion. But now it was nakedly displayed, and they began to glimpse his iron and steel through the elusive nebulousness that had veiled themas one might see the body of a steam-engine emerge through the clouds of draping smoke its activity has flung round it.He ground his heel into the soft harrowed earth, and it cast up its smell into his nostrils unheeded. But the day of Boarzell was comingits rival had been cleared out of the field, and the great hump with its knob of firs seemed to be lying in wait, till the man had pulled himself out of the pit of a false woman's love and given himself back to it, the strong, the faithful enemy.At one o'clock he was given some bread and cheese, which he devoured ravenously; then he spent an hour in thinking of the sausages they always had for supper at Odiam on Fridays. At two the constable fetched him to his doom; he was grumbling and muttering to himself, and on arriving at the execution chamber it turned out that he had had words with the Town Crier, because the latter thought he had only six boys to flog, so had put on his coat and was going off to the new sluice at Scott's Float, meaning to get back comfortably in time for an oyster and beer supper at the London Trader. Having seven boys to flog made all the differencehe would be late, both at the sluice and the supper.
路见不平Eason吼
