That year Reuben bought ten more acres of Boarzell, and limed them for oats. He felt that now he had strength to return to his first battle, and wring a grain crop out of that grudging soil. The new piece of ground abutted the Odiam lands on the Flightshot side, and he could see it from his window. Before going to bed at night, he would lean out and feast his eyes on it as it lay there softly covered in the dark, or glimmering in the faint star-dazzle of spring. Sometimes it seemed almost as if a breath came from it, a fragrance of sleep, and he would sit there inhaling it till Naomi peevishly begged him to shut the window and come to bed. Then in the mornings, when he woke according to healthy habit at five, he would sit up, and even from the bed he could see his land, waiting for him in the cold whiteness of dawn, silently calling him out to the freshness of its many dews.
ONE:"You thought you could not do better than wed her son through gratitude. That was welland so this good squire of ours could not expect to find much favour in your eyes. But, do you not know, you should not have wedded without my consent?""And so are you."
"Oh, will you! Well, there'll be naun to prevent you when you're out of this houseand out you go to-night; I'll have no Radical hogs on my farm. I'm shut of you!"Chapter 15He looked forward to William coming back and settling down at Odiam. It would be good to have companionship again. The end of the war was in sightonly a guerilla campaign was being waged among[Pg 426] the kopjes, Kruger had fled from Pretoria, and everyone talked of Peace.Holgrave, struck with awe, relinquished his hold, and Black Jack and his jurors instantly fled.