Reuben still dreamed of that Fair-place, and occasionally schemed as well; but everything short of the death of the Squireand his sonseemed useless. However, he now had the rest of Boarzell in such a state of cultivation that he sometimes found it possible to forget the land that was still unconquered. That year he bought a hay-elevator and a steam-reaper. The latter was the first in the neighbourhoodnever very go-ahead in agricultural mattersand quite a crowd collected when it started work in the Glotten Hide, to watch it mow down the grain, gather it into bundles, and crown the miracle by tying these just as neatly as, and much more quickly than, a man."And thus they could serve the Lord's anointed!" said Turner, compassionately, as he looked on the livid and swollen face and trembling limbs of him, whom he had ever, till now, seen with the beauty of holiness giving dignity to his fine countenance, and with the vigour of manhood exhibited in every motion of his muscular form. "Hark!" added the smith, starting"there is a scuffle outside! Tom Merritt will have enough of them." For an instant he paused, and then, snatching up one of the cords that had tied the monk, he severed it with his axe from the ring in the wall, and passing one end round the monk's arm, fastened the other round his own waist. "Now you will have no trouble in holding by mekeep close. Here, father, could you not hold this? it might keep off some scurvy knave," drawing a sharp wood-knife from his belt, and placing it in the monk's tremulous hand. Turner then ordering the few who were with him to cover the retreat, to keep compact as they followed, and to strike at all within reach, with a keen-edged battle-axe in his right hand, and a formidable club, pointed with steel and firmly bound with iron, in his left, he hurried from the dungeon.
THREE:The tears began to roll down her cheeks, they shone on her face in the moonlightthey fell quite fast as she[Pg 313] walked on gripped against her lover's heart. She was leaning more and more heavily against him, for her strength was ebbing fastoh, if he would only speak!she could not walk much further, and yet she dared not rest beside him on that haunted ground.
"He's a fine old fellow, your father, Backfield," said the man who was writing a book on Sussex commons. "I can almost forgive him for spoiling one of the best pieces of wild land in the county."It was strange that during this gay meal the strongest link was forged between Rose and Caro. Two natures more utterly unlike it would be hard to findCaro's starved ignorance of love and aged familiarity with dustier matters made her the antithesis of Rose, a child in all things save those of the affections; but the two women's hearts met in their laughter. It was Rose who invited, Caro who responded, for Rose in spite of her years and inexperience had the one advantage which made her the older of the two. She was drawn to Caro partly from essential kindness, partly because she [Pg 260]appreciated the luxury of pitying herCaro responded with all the shy devotion of a warped nature going out towards one who enjoys that for which it unconsciously pines. Rose's beauty, jollity, and happiness made her a goddess to the less fortunate girl.At last the wedding-day camean afternoon in May, gloriously white and blue. Naomi stood before her mirror with delicious qualms, while one or two girl friends took the place of her mother and helped her to dress. She wore white silk, very full in the skirt, with a bunch of lilies of the valley in the folds of the bodice, which was cut low, showing the soft neck that in contrast to the dead white of the silk had taken a delicious creamy cowslip tint. Her lovable white hat was trimmed with artificial lilies of the valley, and she had white kid gloves and tiny white kid shoes."Yes, the youngest's sixteen.""This assize will be a hungry feast," he at length exclaimed; "we may bid adieu to the MitreI must refund the money I received on account of the witch, and the old Ferrett, too, must have his earnest moneywhat is to be done? Do ye know any one who could be trusted to stand in the shoes of Beauchamp?"Marriage was beginning to enter into his scheme. Some day he must marry and beget children. As the farm grew he would want more hands to work it, and[Pg 36] he would like to think of others carrying on its greatness after he was dead. He must marry a woman with money and with health, and he was not so dustily utilitarian as not also to demand something of youth and good looks.
