Robert loved these choir practices and church singings. Though he never complained of his hard work, he was unconsciously glad of a change from the materialism of Odiam. The psalms with their outbreathings of a clearer life did much to purge even his uncultured soul of its muddlings, the hymns with their sentimental farawayness opened views into which he would gaze enchanted as into a promised land. He would come in tired and throbbing from the fields, scrape as much mud as possible off his boots, put on his Sunday coat, and tramp through the dusk to the clerk's house ... the little golden window gleaming to him across Peasmarsh street and pond was the foretaste of the evening's sweetness.
"Well, d?an't you fret, nohow," he murmured tenderly.She had slid back to his knee, and the weight and warmth of her comforted him a little. He lifted his head quickly at her words.
ONE:He also bought three Jersey cows; they would improve the small dairy business he had established, and their milk would be good for Naomi. His watchfulness of his wife had now almost become tyranny. He scolded her if she stooped to pick up her scissors, and would not let her walk even in the garden without him."Wot more have you got fur me?"
ONE:The yeoman re-entered, and Sir Robert began, in a voice so familiar, that Byles was thrown off his guard. "John Byles, how came you to be so foolish as to fall in the ravine the night you and Sam went to shoot the buck?"
TWO:"Yes," she replied, "I must go now, but I will see you again."
THREE:Naomi saw him sweep the axe above his shoulder, and the ease and strength of his swing gave her a strange tingling sensation in her breast. The axe crashed into the wood, then Reuben pulled it up, and the muscles of his back made two long, ovoid lumps under his blue shirt. Again the axe swung and fell, again[Pg 43] Naomi's body tingled as with a physical exhilaration."I hear you had some sleep this afternoon."
THREE:He was pleased to see their evident love of the farm. They begged him not to keep them too long at school, for they wanted to come home and work on Odiam. So he took David away when he was sixteen, and William when he was fifteen the next year.
