"Oh, I have murdered the child!" exclaimed Mary, in the dreadful excitement of the moment. "What will become of me? what shall I do? I shall surely be hung. Oh! oh!" she continued, covering her face with her hands, to shut out the sight of the gasping infant. At this instant, the door opened; Mary looked up fearfullyit was her husband. "Oh, Byles! Byles! look at this child! What will become of me?"
She thought it over for two months, during which Reuben suffered all the torments of his lot. She soon came to realise and appreciate her powers; she dangled hopes and fears with equal zest before his eyes, she used his anxieties to stoke the furnaces of his passion, till she had betrayed him into blazes and explosions which he looked on afterwards with uneasy shame."I tell you, steward," said the smith who had before spoken, and stepping so near Calverley that he involuntarily drew back, "if you prize your life, you will call no man here a bondman. I am freethat man is free" pointing to Holgrave, "and we are all freeall sworn brothers; and no one shall dare," raising his voice, "to brand, with such a name, a mother's son among us! You have received fair warning, and leave to go: retire nowinstantly, if you are wise! Clear a passage there for my Lord de Boteler's steward! There is now room for you to passyour retainers are waiting withoutand now take the man you call a bondman, and away with you all. What! you will not lay hold of him? Take him, I say!" elevating his voice"seize the villein, and drag him back to his bondage! What! not a finger, after all the trouble you have taken?then, away with you alone!away!" And Calverley, from the mere instinct of obedience to a superior power, moved towards the door. "And if ever," continued the smith, "you are found hunting in this forest again for bondmen, as you call them, we may chance to give you a lodging where you will have little reason to complain that the sun shines too brightly!"
The dawn broke over Boarzell like a reconciliation. The clamouring voices of wind and trees were still, and only a low sobbing came now and then from the woods. In the sky pale streamers of rose barred and striped a spreading violet. One or two clouds flew low, and slowly pilled themselves, scattering into the fields. On every blade of grass and twig of thorn, on every leaf and spine, glimmered pearls of rain, washing the air with a faint scent of stagnant water, perfuming it with the steams of sodden grass.However, next Sunday he astonished his family by saying he would accompany them to church. Hitherto Reuben's churchmanship had been entirely political, he had hardly ever been inside Peasmarsh church since his marriage, except for the christenings of his childrenthough he considered himself one of the pillars of the Establishment. His family were exceedingly suspicious of this change of heart, and the girls whispered guiltily together. "He's found out," said Caro, and Tilly sighed.
