After a night of cursings and trampings in his room, he took the fermenting dregs of his wrath to Cheat Land. It was queer that he should go for sympathy to Alice Jury, who was chief in the enemy's camp. But[Pg 231] though he knew she would not take his part, she would not be like the others, leering and cackling. She would give him something vital, even if it was only a vital opposition. That was all the difference between her and everyone elseshe opposed him not because she was flabby or uninterested or enterpriseless, but because she really hated what he strove for. She was his one strong candid enemy, so he went to her as his only friend.At the wedding Rose fairly dazed the onlookers. She wore a dress of heavy white satin, with a white lace veiland a bustle. It was the first bustle that had ever been seen in Peasmarsh, or even in Rye. In itself it was devastating enough, but it soon acquired a prophetic and metaphorical significance which made it even more impressive. Spectators saw in it the forecast of Odiam's downfall"He can't stand that," said Brazier, the new man at Totease, "she's a Jezebubble.""Only it ?un't her head as she's tired this time," said Ticehurst."She shud have worn it in front of her, and then we shud have bin interested," said Cooper of Kitchenhour.
ONE:"It's settled him anyhow," said the man in black.
ONE:"By saint Nicholas!" said he, pushing back the sleeves of his jerkin, and extending his long sinewy arms, "the first man of ye that lays a finger on Wat Turner, had better have shrieved himself; for there is that in this hand (clenching his fist in the face of the man who was nearest, and speaking through his set teeth)there is that in this hand will make ye remember!"
TWO:Realf opened his lips, but the words died on them. His eyes looked wild and haggard in the jigging light; he groaned and turned away. At the same moment a pillar of fire shot up from the roof of the Dutch barn.
TWO:He then turned to the small householders and shop-keepers, dazzling them with visions of Gladstone's free breakfast tablehe even invited the more prominent ones to an untaxed breakfast in the Town Hall; whereat the Colonel, at Reuben's instigation, retaliated with a sumptuous dinner, which he said would be within the reach of every farmer when a moderate wheat-tax no longer forced him to undersell his harvests.
TWO:"Yes," replied Holgrave; "and enough too, I think, for any reasonable man at one time.""Could you paint Boarzell?"
THREE:Reuben turned over these facts in his mind. He realised what a fine thing it would be for Odiam if he married Rose. Here was the very wife he wantedof good standing in the neighbourhood, and something of an heiress, young and healthy, and likely to give him stout boys, and also exceedingly attractive in herself.Margaret shuddered, as she looked in his eyes.
